Pro-government demonstrators march in support of the regime after the weekly Friday Prayers, Jan. 5, 2018, in Tehran. / thomas koch / Shutterstock
Denver Newsroom, Feb 22, 2022 / 11:16 am (CNA).
A researcher with the Philos Project told journalists Tuesday that Iran is using incremental strategies to squeeze non-Muslims out of the country and in nearby states such as Iraq and Syria, and that the plight of Christians in the Middle East is “truly misunderstood” by most in the West.
Senior Research Fellow Dr. Farhad Rezaei, an Iranian Kurd, is a Christian convert who fled Iran and now teaches at York University in Canada. The Philos Project is a nonprofit group that educates about and advocates for Christians in the Near East.
Rezaei said during a Feb. 22 briefing that the narrative that only jihadists have contributed to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East is “too simplistic,” and ignores the influence of Iran-backed militias in countries like Iraq.
A native Iranian, Rezaei noted that since the country’s 1979 revolution, Islamic leaders in Iran have described adherents to minority religions such as Christianity and Judaism as “pollution,” and have taken steps to shrink the size of the Christian and Jewish communities by pushing them out of the country.
In Iraq, Rezaei noted, Iran-backed Shiite militias have carried out numerous abductions, killings, and sexual assaults in recent years. They have also seized large areas of land belonging to Christians, especially in the Nineveh Plain. In total, at least 20,000 acres of farmland have been burned, and the militias have carried out at least 75 attacks on places of worship, with at least nine instances of using a church as a military base.
However, many of these crimes have been attributed to Sunni jihadist groups such as the Islamic State, rather than to Iran, Rezaei asserted. In Northern Iraq, it’s not widely known that Iranian forces are occupying large areas, he said, with Shiite forces squeezing the native Christians out by seizing property.
A recently declassified report from the U.S. Department of Defense highlighted the continued threat of Iran-aligned militias in Iraq, and noted that officers sympathetic to Iranian or militia interests are scattered throughout the country’s security services.
When asked what the global Christian community can do in the face of this persecution, Rezaei said resources have to be poured in to rebuild Christian communities in areas where Shiite militias have tried to drive them out. In addition, he asserted, the Iranian regime has to be condemned for their actions, and leaders must be sanctioned.
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Four men carry a statue of St. Bonaventure during a candlelight procession on July 14, 2023, in Bagnoregio, Italy, his birthplace, on the vigil of the saint’s feast day. / Patrick Leonard/CNA
Bagnoregio, Italy, Jul 15, 2023 / 12:15 pm (CNA).
The birthplace of St. Bonaventure, a 13th-century intellectual giant now revered as a doctor of the Church and the “second founder” of the Franciscans, paid homage to its patron Friday night on the vigil of his feast day with music, prayers, and a candlelight procession.
For the citizens of Bagnoregio, an idyllic town nestled in Italy’s Lazio region about a 1½ drive north of Rome, the July 15 feast is both a solemn holy day and a wellspring of civic pride. Bonaventure’s “braccio santo,” or holy arm — the only surviving relic of the saint — is kept in a silver, arm-shaped reliquary housed in a side chapel of Bagnoregio’s Cathedral of San Nicola and San Donato.
Religious sisters participating in a candlelight procession on July 14, 2023, in Bagnoregio, Italy, in honor of the town’s patron saint and native son, St. Bonaventure. Patrick Leonard/CNA
Friday’s procession, which commenced at the cathedral, was led by the town’s confraternities of the Most Blessed Sacrament, St. Francis, and St. Peter. Following them were a brass band, a statue of the saint adorned with flowers and carried by four men, and a priest carrying the holy arm. Then came Cardinal Fortunato Frezza, numerous priests, and this year’s first communicants, followed by other religious and residents.
As the participants made their way down the candlelit Via Roma, onlookers watched from windows, balconies, and restaurants bustling with patrons on a warm summer evening.
A resident of Bagnoregio, Italy, watches a candlelight procession through the streets of the town in honor of its patron saint, St. Bonaventure, on July 14, 2023. Patrick Leonard/CNA
Arriving at the piazza Sant’Agostino, Cardinal Frezza, standing beneath a monument of Bonaventure, offered a brief reflection on the importance of the saint and of procession as a form of popular devotion.
The relic “gives us strength to sustain our weakness … It is a relic that is alive and active,” observed the cardinal, a noted biblical scholar. It is “an arm that teaches,” he said, the very right arm that “wrote his works of great intellect and wisdom.”
The cardinal closed his brief catechesis by saying “our life is a holy procession, an itinerary of the mind towards God.” Here he was playing on the title of one of Bonaventure’s most important theological works, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, “The Journey of the Mind to God.” Following a benediction with the relic, the procession continued down Via Fidanza, looping around the main gate and then back up Via Roma to the cathedral. The faithful entered and Cardinal Frezza imparted the final blessing, again with the relic.
Cardinal Fortunato Frezza leads a prayer service on July 14, 2023, in Bagnoregio, Italy, in honor of the town’s patron saint and native son, St. Bonaventure. Patrick Leonard/CNA
The Franciscans’ ‘second founder’
Born in 1217 (or 1221, according to some accounts) as Giovanni Fidanza in Civita di Bagnoregio (then in the territory of the Papal States), he displayed great acumen and intellectual curiosity. He was, however, plagued by ill health in his youth. His mother called upon the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, and he was, according to the legend, miraculously cured.
The young Bonaventure studied at the nearby Franciscan convent. Given his great talent, at 18 he left Bagnoregio to study in Paris, then the intellectual capital of Europe.
He joined the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor in 1243. At the University of Paris, he studied under the renowned Franciscan theologian Alexander de Hales; in 1257 he earned his teaching license (magister cathedratus) in theology there. Bonaventure was a contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas, whom he met as they were both teaching at the university. The two future doctors of the Church were united in defending the then-nascent Franciscan and Dominican orders, whose orthodoxy was called into question by the secular clergy.
A statue of St. Bonaventure is shown during a candlelight procession on July 14, 2023, in Bagnoregio, Italy, his birthplace, on the vigil of the saint’s feast day. Patrick Leonard/CNA
Bonaventure’s teaching career was cut short; in 1257 when he was appointed minister general of the Franciscan order, which was then plagued by internal factionalism due to divergent understandings of Francis’ spirituality following his death.
To rectify this, Bonaventure spent much time traveling around Europe to help maintain the unity of the order. In 1260 went to Narbonne, France, to solidify the rule of the order and that same year he started writing (which was completed three years later in 1263) the Legenda Maior, “The Major Legend,” considered the definitive biography of St. Francis. For Bonaventure, the key to righting the order lie in Francis’ ideals of obedience, chastity, and poverty, which he re-established as the Franciscans’ guiding principles.
A woman venerates the “braccio santo,” or holy arm, of St. Bonaventure on July 14, 2023, the vigil of the saint’s feast day, at the Cathedral of San Nicola and San Donato in his hometown, Bagnoregio, Italy. Patrick Leonard/CNA
Enduring influence
In addition to his contributions as the “second founder” of the Franciscans, Bonaventure had a profound impact on the papacy. Following the chaos of the three-year conclave in Viterbo that elected Gregory X in 1271 (the longest papal election in the history of the Church), the new pontiff, also a Franciscan, entrusted Bonaventure with preparing many of the key documents for the Second Council of Lyon (1272-1274) which sought to unify the Latin and Greek Churches.
He was made a cardinal in the consistory of May 28, 1273. He did not, however, see the end of the council, as he died on July 15, 1274. He was canonized in 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pope Sixtus V in 1588.
A candlelight procession through the streets of Bagnoregio, Italy, on July 14, 2023, honors the town’s native son and patron saint, St. Bonaventure. Patrick Leonard/CNA
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI, who was a great admirer of Bonaventure, visited the saint’s birthplace to venerate the relic and address the faithful. In 2010 he dedicated three consecutive Wednesday audiences on the saint, outlining the importance of his governance of the Franciscans and his theological, philosophical, and mystical works. Bonaventure’s writings, Benedict observed, demonstrate that “Christ’s works do not go backwards, they do not fail but progress.”
“For St. Bonaventure, Christ was no longer the end of history, as he was for the Fathers of the Church, but rather its center; history does not end with Christ but begins a new period,” Benedict said.
“The following is another consequence: Until that moment the idea that the Fathers of the Church were the absolute summit of theology predominated, all successive generations could only be their disciples,” Pope Benedict explained.
“St. Bonaventure also recognized the Fathers as teachers forever, but the phenomenon of St. Francis assured him that the riches of Christ’s word are inexhaustible and that new light could also appear to the new generations,” he said. “The oneness of Christ also guarantees newness and renewal in all the periods of history.”
Pope Francis visits the elderly priest-residents of Casa San Gaetano in Rome, June 17, 2016. / L’Osservatore Romano.
Vatican City, Sep 17, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis told elderly priests from northern Italy that aging is a privilege because they have the chance to suffer like Jesus Christ.
“You are experiencing a season, old age, which is not a disease but a privilege,” he said in a Sept. 16 letter to priests from the Lombardy region.
“And even those of you who are sick live, we can say, a privilege: that of resembling Jesus who suffers, carrying the cross just like Him,” he added.
Pope Francis sent the letter as elderly priests and the bishops of the Lombardy region met for a day of prayer and community at the shrine of Santa Maria del Fonte in Caravaggio, 25 miles east of Milan.
The day began with Mass offered for the repose of the souls of the 92 Lombardy priests who died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The Mass was followed by a shared lunch.
“Think of Simeon and Anna: just when they are elderly, the Gospel enters fully into their lives and, taking Jesus in their arms, they announce to everyone the revolution of tenderness,” the pope wrote in his letter.
Francis said that the sick and elderly priests were not merely an object of assistance, but also active protagonists in their communities.
“You are the bearers of dreams, dreams full of memory and therefore very important for the younger generations precisely because your dreams are the root,” he wrote.
“From you comes the sap to flourish in the Christian life and in ministry,” he commented.
The 84-year-old pope, who underwent colon surgery in July, also said that communities caring for sick and elderly priests are “well rooted in Jesus,” and closed his letter by asking for prayers.
“Please, pray for me who is a little old and a little, but not too much, sick!” he said. “May the Lord bless you and Our Lady keep you.”
The Sept. 16 gathering of priests and bishops took place at the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fonte, a shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Caravaggio in the province of Bergamo, one of the areas in Italy worst affected by the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Caravaggio was built on the site of a 15th-century Marian apparition.
The Blessed Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to a young peasant girl, Giannetta Varoli, in a hay field outside the town of Caravaggio on May 26, 1432.
In her message, the Virgin urged penance for sin, including fasting on Fridays. The apparition is also called Our Lady of the Fountain because a spring of water appeared under the stone where the Virgin stood, and on which she left an imprint of her feet.
That same year, the first small shrine was built at the site. More than 100 years later, in 1575, St. Charles Borromeo, then the archbishop of Milan, hired an architect to begin the long process of expanding the shrine into what it looks like today.
Compared to what Israel has done to non-evangelical/pentecostal Christians this article is propaganda. Is is not correct that Christian Lebanese and Shia Lebanese in fact coexist fairly well? Sad when “news” organizations print this type of hype to benefit the agenda of certain Middle Eastern Countries. I believe ISIS was 100% Sunni and it is ISIS which is responsible for the massacre of Christians in Syria and Iraq not Iranians. Just who funds the Philos Project? Doesn’t in fact the funding for Philos come from Israel? Why aren’t Syrian Christians blaming Iran, why do Christians in Syria and Lebanon consider Shia militias their protectors? Did World Catholic Reoprt accept money to print this?
Compared to what Israel has done to non-evangelical/pentecostal Christians this article is propaganda. Is is not correct that Christian Lebanese and Shia Lebanese in fact coexist fairly well? Sad when “news” organizations print this type of hype to benefit the agenda of certain Middle Eastern Countries. I believe ISIS was 100% Sunni and it is ISIS which is responsible for the massacre of Christians in Syria and Iraq not Iranians. Just who funds the Philos Project? Doesn’t in fact the funding for Philos come from Israel? Why aren’t Syrian Christians blaming Iran, why do Christians in Syria and Lebanon consider Shia militias their protectors? Did World Catholic Reoprt accept money to print this?
“Did World Catholic Reoprt accept money to print this?”
No.