Vancouver, Canada, Nov 20, 2017 / 04:20 pm (CNA).- “We’re still grieving” – these are the words of Tima Kurdi, the aunt of the young refugee boy who captured the world’s attention when he drowned trying to cross the Aegean Sea two years ago.
On Sept. 2, 2015, the haunting image of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s tiny body laying face down on a Turkish beach made headlines, drawing attention to the stark reality of forced migration, and becoming a global symbol of the ongoing crisis.
A year on from Alan Kurdi, we continue to ignore future refugee crises https://t.co/Jegv1nPoKX pic.twitter.com/Ln1UXg5Tyz
— Brigitte Colman (@lakolman) September 1, 2016
In many ways, a global conscience seemed to be awoken as people learned of the tragic fate of Alan, his brother Ghalib and their mother, Rehanna, who decided to make the perilous, 30-minute boat ride from Bodrum, Turkey to the Greek island of Kos, along with their husband and father, Abdullah.
The dinghy, designed for eight passengers but packed with 16, capsized just a few minutes after setting sail. Abdullah lost track of his family in the confusion, and while he was able to reach safety, his wife and sons met a different fate. Only four people survived the voyage.
“After that image, the world woke up,” Tima said. “That’s when people started talking about it, and that’s when I went crying to world leaders: open your heart, open your border, my people are being forced to flee their home, not by choice.”
In wake of the event, global leaders promised the family “that our tragedy would be the last,” she said. “But of course, a few months later, everyone went back to sleep, went back to business.”
And while many countries offered to give Abdullah asylum, he refused. “To him it was, ‘Where were you when my family needed it?’” she said.
Speaking to CNA over Skype from her home in Vancouver, Canada, where she has lived with her husband and son for the past 23 years, Tima shared the story of what led her five siblings to pack up their families and seek refuge elsewhere, and how her life has changed after the death of her nephews.
Ever since the occurrence of what she calls “the tragedy,” Tima has become the public face of her family’s suffering and the plight of thousands of others like them, quitting her job in mid-2016 to advocate on behalf of refugees, raising awareness at conferences and universities.
War breaks out
When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, “it was very shocking to the whole country,” Tima said, including to her family, who is from Damascus.
Life before the war was peaceful, and people of different religions lived side-by-side without problems, she said. But once the conflict erupted, things became dangerous very quickly, and many of her siblings lived in areas that were being bombed.
“What would you do as a family if you have children and they are in danger?” she said, explaining that she encouraged her family to flee as the situation worsened. Eventually, the home of one of her sisters was bombed, further cementing the decision to leave.
Tima’s siblings and their families – each with small children – made their way to Turkey, where they hoped to stay temporarily until things in Syria calmed down. But when they got there, they found that the refugee camps were already at maximum capacity, and the family was not able to enter.
Facing the risk of homelessness, Tima’s siblings struggled to find work. Tima helped them find housing and began paying their rent. After hearing about their ongoing struggles, she decided to go in person and see if she could help.
But when she arrived in 2014, she was shocked at what she found. “What we see in the news was not what I experienced,” she said. “It was worse than I could ever have imagined. I saw my people in the streets, families, they have no home, they were in the park. I talked to them personally, I heard heartbreaking stories.”
The experience “changed me a lot,” she said, adding that watching children begging for bread shows the inhumane reality of their plight. “It broke my heart to witness it myself.”
After returning to Canada, Tima began researching how to sponsor her family to come as refugees, but was unable to do so at that time. So when Germany offered to take in some 1 million migrants in 2015, her brother Abdullah, who was struggling to afford even diapers, decided the best option for his family was to leave, and asked Tima for help.
“Of course you discuss it. It’s risky, it’s not good, but they have no choice,” Tima said. “And that’s when they were forced to take that journey.”
“I paid for it. I paid for it,” she said, wiping tears from her face. “The guilt…that’s why I want to keep my voice alive, because that guilt, I will take it to my grave, but I did it with a good intention, because I saw the desperation, I saw my family only eating rice, I saw those children being abused at work rather than being in school, and the world was silent.”
‘I want the world to wake up’
Even two years later, Tima said it pains her to talk about the experience, “and that’s why I want the world to wake up. There is no one who will leave their home and leave everything behind just because they want to take advantage of Europe or the Western world.”
She said she rarely watches the news, because she’s tired of feeling “hopeless” when she sees the reports and the lack of action.
Tima said she doesn’t like to get into politics, and her family doesn’t support either side of the war in Syria, but she does condemn the use and sale of weapons, because ultimately, weapons “are what caused those people to flee their homes, weapons killed their loved one.”
Rather than pointing fingers, she wants the world to look at the root cause, because “nobody is talking about it.”
She voiced her admiration for Pope Francis, who often speaks out on the same issues, saying “his message and my message are exactly the same thing, from day one. He is my inspiration.”
A goal of hers, she said, is to one day visit the Vatican and meet the Pope, to discuss how to promote peace.
In her time as a public speaker and advocate, Tima has been asked to speak at various conferences and universities throughout Canada, the U.S., and Europe. She has also given a TED Talk on her story.
However, her preferred venue is the university, because she wants to educate young people to think about the importance of promoting peace.
In addition to her speaking engagements, Tima and her brother Abdullah have launched the Alan and Ghalib Kurdi Foundation to raise money in support of refugee children. Each year on the anniversary of the boys’ death, she visits her brother, who is now living in Iraq, to distribute clothes and supplies to the children living in refugee camps.
Abdullah, who was offered a house with free rent in Kurdistan after losing his family, now lives in Erbil, and is still coping with the death of his wife and sons.
“The emotional (stress) really paralyzed him and he’s not doing well,” Tima said, explaining that the first year was especially difficult. When she came to visit her brother on the first anniversary of the tragedy, he didn’t want to leave the house.
She offered him $500 to buy “whatever the children wanted” in the camps. Abdullah chose to buy diapers, since he couldn’t afford them as a refugee, and often used a cloth or a plastic bag for Alan, who as a result frequently had a rash.
This year, Tima had raised $1,000 for her small foundation at a speaking event held at a Canadian university. She again contributed $500 of her own money as well, helping to buy and distribute 500 pieces of clothing to the refugee children, which she described as “the most beautiful thing we ever did.”
Since the fatal boat ride in 2015, the rest of her family has dispersed. While her father continues to live in Damascus, two of her three sisters are refugees in Turkey, one has moved to Germany, and she was able to sponsor her other brother and his family to come to Canada as refugees.
Of the two sisters in Turkey, one – who has three children – is hoping to either join her 18-year-old son in Germany, or else come to Canada.
The other sister, whose house was bombed, is struggling to move forward. Her family has no home to return to, and her husband recently suffered a stroke, leaving him half paralyzed. Good medical treatment is hard to obtain in the area.
Tima said she has been offering her sister encouragement, and sending her information about local medical centers that may be able to help her cope with the trauma that she has experienced.
Tima herself often grows discouraged at the lack of international action to help refugees. Her advocacy work takes a tough mental and emotional toll. But it’s worth it, she said, if she is able to help people who are suffering.
“When I go to sleep at night and put my head on the pillow, I always say, ‘Thank God my voice is being heard, you give me power to help others.’ And (I) thank God every moment.”
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“ The archbishop said that “there is a philosophy of the simple daily life of the people that we have to take up again.””
This, like everything else the archbishop said on the subject, is utter and unmitigated drivel.
If he has such a poor view of the priesthood, he must be a lousy priest himself and is judging based on himself. Perhaps he should have the decency to resign and go run a parish.
Excellent comment, Lesie. I enjoy reading all your comments in the CWR. May God bless you and keep you and grant you his peace.
A man with no religious faith believes he can recreate the innate faculties of creation. When I argue with numbskull pro-aborts who call themselves “pro-choice,” I point out that they can not be “for” that which is already an innate quality of human existence. One can not be pro-choice anymore than they can be pro-eyeball or pro-earlobe. Similarly, this numbskull of a bishop can not figure out that he can not make people “more egalitarian.” We already are all equal before God, despite having different responsibilities and obligations in life. Only a non-believer can not figure out something so self-evident.
Another Commie Rat Hippie Bishop trying to “update” his flock to the seventies, whether they want to or not.
This so-called bishop is a servant of the spirit of anti-Christ, who falsely pursued ordination as priest and bishop, and lives now only to destroy the Holy Eucharist.
Men like this Bishop are counterfeit men, living double lives as parasites eating the Church alive from the inside. This Bishop and others like him should be stripped of office and laicized, opposed with fasting and prayer, and confronted as commanded by Jesus in Matthew 18, and if he refuses to admit his apostasy, he should be publicly excommunicated.
A Church that believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus would never allow such a man to speak like this from a Bishop’s chair.
He might just be a lunatic! What credibility would these “LayPastors” have and what would happen to the credibility of our Church?
The Church in Lima would be Protestant if that ever happened.
If you keep changing your country’s constitution, you’re going to run into problems.
I agree that priests have a tremendous amount of responsibility and need more priests in the parishes. But aren’t parishes shrinking? And isn’t the reason for celibacy so that bishops/priests can focus on feeding the sheep? Maybe if there were more bishops/priests being true pastors representing Christ instead of being focused on personal, political, or far left “equality” agendas, the parishes would flourish again – the Church would flourish again.
We saw what has happened to mainline Protestant churches when laity take over…they’re the churches with gay pride flags hanging next to their Christian flags…they’re the churches that support abortion and question the fundamental dogmas of the historic Church…they’re the churches that push far left ideologies. Of course I’m not sure our current bishops/priests (in general) are doing a better job at leading.
Should this man be an archbishop? I sounds like to me he wants layman to act in the person of priests which are “in persona Christi”. Am I readying this correctly.
His whole article is ridiculous and should NOT be said, especially by an archbishop!
Let us remember, Christ did NOT give the keys of heaven and the power to loose and bind on earth which will be loosed and bound in heaven, to a ““synodality”. He gave it to Peter and only Peter!
Next thing you know he will be having lay persons hearing confessions and saying Mass.
The word for this protestantism. The «poor» must be getting quite sick of being invoked for every initiative proposed by ageing prelates who remember Che Guevara.
That those who offer the Holy Sacrifice, indeed the Holy Sacrifice itself are secondary to this Great Religious Reset is evident.
Leslie I think you miss the broader issue here. The question is what is a priest and what is his main duties. A priest for sure is ordained for the Sacramental life of the Church. Many a spiritual Godly priest has been destroyed because they had no administrative skills. There are plenty of people in a parish who have expertise to worry about leaking roofs , heating and cooling problems etc. The bills that need to be paid and plenty of good capable people who can run the secretarial issues of a parish. Many parishes already have Business Managers to run the business side of a parish.
To me this upgrading the priesthood not lowering it.Just my two cents.
But…who’s gonna control the money? That seems to be paramount in the Church these days.
Or maybe “the broader point” is that a fill-in groundskeeper should not be called a “pastor.”
I agree with you, but many of us can already see where this will be heading. We are already at the mercy of our “pastoral assistant administrators” who just don’t have the parish’s best interests at heart. They wind up controlling everything to their own advantage and then we can never appeal to the “real” pastor, because he abdicates most of his decision-making powers to some ignorant wannabe priest.
Slight correction: “Wannabe priestess”
Haha! Yes, Dave, I stand corrected!
Great idea! NOT. Soon you’ll be able to name your diocesan church Congregationalist. Why stop at lay pastors on the parish level? Why not do away with bishops altogether and have laymen and women running the diocesan church? In fact, why not have a layman or woman be Pope since Francis has dispensed with his title as Vicar of Christ. I think it’s time to rename the Catholic Church and call it the Church of LCD…the Church of the Least Common Denominator.
Unfortunately. The Peruvian bishop has socialist ideas and is supportive of the new “president” (a communist linked to shinning path a el know terrorist group) whose election was questionable and surrounded by fraud.
Disconcerting is a woman presenting herself at the podium prior to Mass who announces that she’s the Leader, then after lengthy quoting of what’s already in the bulletin announces the Gospel passage, paraphrases it, then gives a brief but detailed homily. Asks for silence. Then begins reading the entrance psalm. Finally the priest enters as if a mere matter of consequence. Now it gets worse. At least in Lima. Either a priest is by ordination a pastor of the faithful or he’s not. By Christ’s transference of authority to the Apostles he alone has the authority to shepherd. Archbishop Castillo suffers the false magnanimity that priestly authority is pompous. That the Church instead of reaching toward the starry heavens should be flat and obsequious. Canon law allows bishops to entrust the pastoral care of a parish to a deacon, a person, or community of persons”. Added however is the admonition that the bishop “is to appoint some priest provided with the powers and faculties of a pastor to direct pastoral care.” This latter is too often ignored by bishops. Bishops seem more concerned with financial management and meeting more basic pastoral needs like manpower, rather than the canonical attachments that provide for better pastoral management. It downgrades the office of presbyter disheartening to many and likewise reduces laity appreciation of his role.
Fr. Peter Morello, I, for a time, was attending Mass at a parish where a nun read the Gospel at Mass and gave lengthy sermons. The parish priest was very Traditional. That really confused me. Later I learned this nun was known to be feisty and demanding. On a different but similar note, I attended a Tridentine Mass at San Juan Capistrano. I was upset that a Tridentine Mass would have female lectors. Standing for Communion only. The Old Mass and the New Mass were intermingled. I have experienced these incidents at just about every Novus Ordo Mass. These are the ones Francis should write a Motu Proprio similar to the one for the TLM. These cases cause confusion and division and are very anti-Vatican ll. The crux of the problem is that Bishops give blanket permission for such things to take place. Perhaps better, a Motu Proprio on the illicit activities of Bishops.
Much of this comes down to the same old problem. Church hierarchy and local priests afraid to assert their authority for fear of creating conflict. The church is NOT a secular institution and libbers and others of a socialist bent need to be told that loud and clear. It has never pretended to be secular, nor formally backing secular values.Recent pronouncements by the hierarchy on secular matters like immigration law add to this confusion, and has been a huge mistake.. That is not the job entrusted to them. Render to Caesar, remember? If the priest at the parish you reference was really traditional, he should NEVER have allowed a nun, no matter how feisty, to preach and read the gospel.Too bad if she didnt like it. It isnt true that having pews filled with people who are dismantling the church are better than fewer people in the pews. The hierarchy needs to grasp that and remain true to the mission, not true to secularism.
He may be an archbishop and a theology professor, but this guy knows nothing. He ought to be busted back down to a priest and be hidden away in a monastery where he can’t do any more damage with his ludicrous and anti-Catholic ideas. As Bugs Bunny used to say: “What a maroon!”
Our priests have been demoralized since Vatican ll. They no longer seem to have a ministry. It all has to be handed to the laity (woman only of course). Why would a young man who has a calling to the priesthood enter a Seminary for a lifetime of the laity being over them. I’ve seen this since the ’70s. It was done in the name of Vatican ll, yet Vatican ll never called for this demoralization of priests.
What in the world’s been going on in Latin America? It seems like things never moved past the 1970’s there. I remember getting frustrated with my Maryknoll Missionary magazine decades ago & cancelling because of the same sort of nonsense. There must be a special time warp for the Church down there. Goodness.
How come this man has not been made yet a cardinal by the Pope?
I know dozens of priests who would happily give up all their finance meetings, deferred maintenance walkthroughs, and administrative phonecalls.
I know at least one that said “if I ever lose my vocation it will be because of the endless meetings.”
I know most old folk here are fuming and blaming everything unhappy in their lives with socialism like usual, but it’s worth thinking about what exactly we ask priests to do as they manage these old, falling-apart buildings when there aren’t many of them to begin with.
Thank you for a little more perspective. While in Los Angeles I was preparing to be a Parish Life Leader, but I am now in Lima, Peru. There are communities in the Lima area, and more in the mountain regions, and “selva,” that do not have priests. I read the statement of the archbishop and I infer that he is referring to the programs similar to what Los Angeles has. I am not Liberal, progressive and much less leftist. I recommend that people making harsh statements about the archbishop read what he has stated or preached in Spanish. I do not listen to Spanish commentators interpret what is happening in the United States. I am trying to be open and forgiving of most the “news” networks in the U.S., while devouring everything stated by Dennis Prager, Mark Levin and Larry Elder.
I read the heading and went straight to the comments. Good decision.
This man was made archbishop in order to humiliate his predecessor, Cardinal Ciprani whom Francis pretended to befriend for years. ASAP Francis accepted Ciprani’s retirement letter at 75 and nominated Castillo immediately. Cardinal Ciprani had many run-ins with Castillo’s university. Hagan lo!
“Then there’s a priest who celebrates Mass for them once a week or twice on Sunday, whatever it may be; but we have to think of more egalitarian ways, closer to the people,” he said.
Please don’t resurrect this kind of thinking again. I lived this terrible scene in my parish. It’s a horrible experience and destructive. When this first started the newly ordained pastor suggested (1980) that the laity should do everything and the priest should only come and celebrate Mass. Now, forty year hence, we have three priests and they all take the same day off, while women do the Communion service and give a so called homily. Let me tell you—–this is certainly not what I would call being closer to the people—it’s just the opposite. I’m going back to my rocking chair and pray. I know God is still in the Blessed Sacrament behind locked church doors, however, my mind cannot be locked out.
Caritas in veritate when we comment. Otherwise, our Christian witness is destroyed. In Acts 6:1-15, we read that the apostles themselves chose and appointed helpers. They delegated the logistics of the charitable work of the Church to others so that they could continue to devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. As an exercise of and in affirmation of their leadership, our pastors and parish priests should be able to do the same, whether their helpers be deacons or laity.