By Theodore Shoebat
Catholic priests who fled Iraq from persecution are now being forced to return back to Iraq. Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, has suspended these priests, and said:
The priests who escaped without any canonical documents encourage others to leave, including their own families. They have asked for exile in Western countries, while others have remained in fidelity to their people. There is no justice in this. If we do not put a limit on this, others will also leave and the Church and the country will be without Christians.
We have a vocation. A priest has given himself to the Lord and to service: he shouldn’t seek his freedom, his security. His future is found in fidelity to Christ and his people, not in America or Australia. One might say that he has citizenship in these countries, but what does that have to do with the priesthood?
There are also six monks: a monk has chosen community life. How can he leave and go establish a parish in the United States without the permission of his Superior?
There is a horrific reality that compels priests to fell Iraq: it is the bloodthirsty desire of ISIS and other jihadist groups to kill priests, and there are several other examples of violence against clerics, such as the murder of a priest and three deacons in Mosul, and the recent kidnapping of Catholic priest Hanna Jallouf by al-Nusra.
Mark Arabo, a National Spokesperson for the Chaldean Church in the United States, objected to the measure done by Louis Raphael Sako, saying
What the Patriarch is doing is inhumane, it is not even Christian… We are going to do everything in our power to make sure these ten priests do not return like cattle to the slaughter in Iraq.
The Catholic Church needs to start working to getting their people OUT of the danger zone as oppose to pushing for Christians to stay.
We at Rescue Christians have been working ever day to get Christians out of the danger zone in Iraq.
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