By Theodore Shoebat

Very powerful people within the Church hierarchy are restricting their own flock, trying hard to keep them within Iraq, expressing their disapproval of arming the Christians and sending them to other countries where they would be safe from ISIS and other terrorists. One of the best examples of this is Bishop Louis Raphael I Sako of the Chaldean Catholic Church. This man presents himself to big media outlets as a man protecting his people, when in reality he is doing nothing for his people — nothing but using them for publicity.

He always cries to the “international community”, saying that they need to help the Christians in Iraq. Recently Sako called for the international community to support “the Central Government and the Regional Government of Kurdistan towards the liberation of all Iraqi cities”.

Sako

Using my mental function of practicality I have no idea how supporting the Iraqi government or the Kurds helps any of the Christians in any significant or long term way. The Iraqi government does not want to allow the Christians to leave to other countries, since it knows that an Iraq that is absent of Christians is an Iraq completely plunged into the deepest of destitution; and the Kurds (while many do help Christians) hate Christians and have been preventing them from entering Kurdistan and drive them back to ISIS dominated territories where they are slaughtered.

While favoring the idea of nations supporting the Islamic government of Iraq and the Kurds, Sako rejects the Christian militias and disapproves of arming Christians to defend themselves, saying that “the forces of the state should take charge of this defense” and that such a diversity of militias “can destroy Iraq”. I wish Sako would say such destructive words to Dwekh Nawsha, the Christian militia in Iraq defending various Christian villages from ISIS. The Iraqi government is not defending these villages, and neither are the Kurds. The Christian inhabitants are left as open game to the Muslim killers. We interviewed the one who trained Dwekh Nawsha, a Catholic warrior named Brett Felton, and its quite clear from hearing his heart wrenching words that no one cares for the Iraqi Christians:

These Christians have no choice but to form militias and defend themselves. Unlike Sako they don’t have the luxury and liberty to make trips to Rome. What Sako said is utterly unbiblical, and not only that, but it is heretical and contrary to orthodoxy and Church teaching. St. Robert says that “self-defense is lawful for anybody, not only for a prince, but also for a private citizen”. (Bellarmine, On Laymen or Secular People, ch. 15, ed. Tutino, pp. 68-69) And St. Thomas says:

Tyrannical rule is not just, because it is not directed to the common good but to the private good of the ruler … Disruption of such a government therefore does not have the character of sedition, unless perhaps the tyrant’s rule is disrupted so inordinately that the community subject to it suffers greater detriment from the ensuing disorder than it did from the tyrannical government itself. Indeed it is the tyrant who is guilty of sedition, since he nourishes discord and sedition among his subjects in order to be able to dominate them more securely. (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae 64, article 2)

But even after all of this modern superficial theological bile, one of Sako’s most evil statements are his most recent: that the European nations, when accepting refugees, should not choose asylum seekers based on religion and prioritize Christians. According to a Catholic report:

The leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church has advised European countries against letting sentiment guide their reactions to the crisis in the Middle East, and asked them not to prioritise Christians when accepting refugees.

Sako condemned organizations that work “to facilitate the exodus of Christians”, saying that “they work to push Christians to leave their countries and they openly admit to this, presenting it as something that benefits the persecuted”. Sako is most definitely referring to our organization, amongst the other organizations, for we are working to help the exodus of Christians leaving Iraq and bring them to other lands where they would be safe. It is bishops like Sako who are the biggest obstacles and hinderances to our aspiration of bringing Christians out of the danger zone and into safe nations. Sako hasn’t seen a woman being raped; a Christian being beheaded and crucified; a Christian being chopped to pieces, and if he has, apparently it hasn’t stirred his soul to sympathy.

Sako wants to hinder the Christian exodus out of Iraq. If Sako were living amongst the Hebrew slaves he would have told Moses, ‘Do not tell the Pharaoh to free God’s people. Keep them in Egypt!’ Sako goes against God Himself Who said, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.” (Exodus 9:1) Christians in Europe or America are more helpful to the world as opposed to being stuck in a refugee center where they are prey to thugs, rapists and pimps. A Christian who escaped persecution and is living in Europe has a voice to tell Westerners of the reality of living under Islam; but the Christian stuck in some despotic refugee camp, what good is he? Why do these bishops prefer to keep their flock as victims? Because they are of the synagogue of Satan.

These bishops of the devil insist that the Christians shouldn’t leave. If the bishops truly wanted to follow orthodoxy and the Church Fathers, it would do them well to read St. Athanasius’ Defense of fleeing. The Arians — who were heretics that rejected the divinity of Christ and the precursors of Islam — wanted to murder St. Athanasius. In multiple instances Athanasius fled from their murderous hands, at one point making an exodus to Rome where he remained under the protection of Pope Julius. St. Athanasius defended his flight in this treatise in which he provided a theological apologetic for fleeing from persecution. In it he wrote:

But Scripture itself directs us to flee: and those who persecute unto death, in attempting to violate the law, constrain us to have recourse to flight. (In Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 3.8)

Let the bishop read of how “David arose and fled that day from before Saul” (1 Samuel 21:10); let the bishop read of how Elijah “arose and ran for his life” (1 Kings 19:3) when Jezebel wanted him dead; let the bishop read of how St. Joseph “took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt” (Matthew 2:14) when Herod wanted Christ dead; let the bishop read of how when the Jews wanted to kill Jesus “he escaped out of their hand” (John 10:39). Let the bishop read all of these stories and then say that it is wrong for the Christians to leave Iraq!

Truly these bishops are going to have to pay in the end under eternal law, for allowing their sheep to remain surrounded by wolves.

Now, while bishops say that Christians shouldn’t leave persecution, we ask you to please help us bring Christians out of persecution. Click here to make a donation that will save christian lives.