Refugees, displaced take center stage at Middle East consistory

Vatican City, Oct 22, 2014 / 11:04 am

At Monday's consistory on the Middle East, patriarchs gathered to discuss the threats facing local Christians, and focused on the key task of returning displaced families to their homes.

"We are suffering … we feel that we are isolated and that we are forgotten," Louis Raphael I Sako, Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, told CNA after the Oct. 20 consistory.

"I asked the Pope to send a message to Christians, to encourage them to stay home, to keep their hope, and maybe also to visit displaced families to encourage them to stay and not to leave their homes, and to have patience to persevere."

The Syrian civil war has forced 3 million Syrians, of all religions, to become refugees, with an additional 6.5 million internally displaced. And in Iraq, since the rise of the Islamic State, there are more than 1.8 million internally displaced persons.

Cardinals and patriarchs from the Middle East, together with top officials of the Secretariat of State and interested dicasteries attended the consistory with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Initially set in order to advance the causes of canonization for two blesseds, the consistory's schedule was expanded by Pope Francis who wanted to dedicate it to discussion surrounding the plight of Christians in the Middle East, taking advantage of the presence of Middle Eastern patriarchs in Rome on the heels of the synod.

Patriarch Sako said that what representatives from the Middle East most want from the international community is further aid in gaining back the Christian towns in Iraq's Nineveh province from the Islamic State so that displaced families can go home and "continue their life as it was before."

Although multiple countries have launched airstrikes against the Islamic State, Patriarch Sako explained that it is not enough, and would like to see "something on the ground" that will help regain the fallen cities.

"We know that just bombing and killing people is not a solution," he said. "But also, when they are killing innocent people and destroying houses" there needs to be a military action.

In the long run, Patriarch Sako said, it is necessary "to destroy this kind of ideology with a new culture, new programs of religious instruction; and also, religious leaders should refuse this fundamentalism."

He also extended a personal invitation to the Pope to visit Iraq in order to "encourage Christians and Muslims to live together, and also to push forward the culture of dialogue and peace, and to resolve problems with negotiations."

Another participant in the consistory, Ignatius Joseph III Younan, Syriac Patriarch of Antioch, told CNA Oct. 20 that at this moment, Christian in the Middle East "are facing a very, very critical phase in their history."

One of their great concerns, he said, is that Christians and other persecuted minorities have no means of defending themselves against Islamist militants, and so they are completely dependent upon military force exercised by their countries' governments and by the international community.

Patriarch Younan said, "We are calling again on the powers of this world, international societies, to be faithful to the principles of the Charter of Human Rights from 1948: that we have the right to live as true citizens in dignity and freedom."

Many families are scattered or lost, he said, and are living under "precarious conditions" in tents at makeshift camps, facing terrorism and the loss of their homes.

"These are our challenges," Patriarch Younan explained, saying that in the consistory he and the other patriarchs made sure Pope Francis "understood the sum of all our drama," particularly the fact that at this moment "we don't know what to do to respond to (our people's) questions – if they can return to their homes or not."

Yostinos Boulos Safar, who is the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Zahle and Bekaa, in Lebanon, attended both the Synod on the Family and the following consistory as an ecumenical observer.

Speaking to CNA Oct. 17, he expressed his hope that the consistory would result in concrete solutions for the challenges present in the Middle East.

His own nation -- whose population in 2011 was slightly more than 4 million -- has since then become home to well over 1 million Syrian refugees.

Although it's not possible to expect anything immediate, he said, "just to meet is something important. Just to talk is starting to resolve the problems."