Vatican City, Jun 25, 2018 / 01:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With religious persecution on the rise in many parts of the world, Church leaders and diplomats called for legal and cultural solutions to protect religious minorities.
Msgr. Khaled Akaseh, an official of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, said at a June 25 conference in Rome that religious freedom is the “cornerstone of human rights.” Defending this freedom, he said, will require a change in mentality from oppressive groups and governments who deny the inherent dignity of those who practice different religions.
At the conference, a representative from the Lebanese embassy to the Holy See stressed the need to protect minorities in their home countries rather than allowing a diaspora of religious minorities who flee persecution in the Middle East to start new lives abroad.
“The West doesn’t need our minorities, we need them,” he said, adding that the focus “should be keeping minorities where they are” while also trying to make the life of refugees better. The solution, he said, “is not in the West, it’s in the East.”
In comments to journalists, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Oriental Churches, sympathized with the need for greater protections for religious minorities at home.
In some cases, “you can’t get certain positions at work, you can’t have certain positions because you are not from the majority,” he said. To counter this, “minorities should be recognized and respected” through equal citizenship before the law, not treated as second-class citizens.
Sandri spoke at a half-day symposium titled “Defending International Religious Freedom: Partnership and Action,” which was organized by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See in collaboration with papal charity organization Aid to the Church in Need and the community of Sant’Egidio, an ecclesial movement known for its work with migrants and refugees.
In remarks during the event, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Callista Gingrich pointed to instances of religious persecution happening around the world, saying “it’s a dangerous time to be a person of faith.”
“We are at a critical moment. We can and must do more,” she said, and voiced the need for greater cooperation on the part of international leaders, saying “governments, civil society, faith groups, and individuals must work together to advance religious freedom and to strengthen peace, stability, and security throughout the world.”
“Global crises require global solutions. We must come together to confront and counter those who practice, enable, or export religious persecution or violent extremism,” she said, adding that only through cooperation and understanding will it be possible to “safeguard the human right of religious freedom for all those seeking to live their lives freely and in accordance with their faith.”
Cardinal-elect Joseph Coutts of Karachi, Pakistan, warned that although religious freedom was enshrined in his country’s 1947 founding documents, it has slowly been eroded and replaced with strict restrictions on religion.
He pointed to the nation’s harsh anti-blasphemy law, which imposes strict punishment – typically the death penalty – on those who desecrate the Quran or who defame or insult Muhammad.
The law is misused, he said, in cases such as that of Asia Bibi, a mother of five who was accused by a neighbor of insulting the prophet Mohammed in 2009, and is currently on death row.
Most people know “this is a cooked-up case,” Coutts said, but they are afraid to take action because religious emotion runs so high, and many people who have defended Christians have ended up dead.
He also cautioned that a new form of Islam has crept into Pakistan, justifying practices forbidden by traditional Islam, such as suicide bombings.
“Our government is not strong enough to control the kind of extremism that has developed in our country,” he said, noting that both Christians and Muslims who do not share the extremist interpretation of Islam are suffering.
Salwa Kahalaf Rasho, a Yazidi woman from Iraq, shared her story of capture and abuse during the 2014 ISIS attacks against the Yazidi people in the country – the latest of more than 70 “genocidal campaigns” her people have suffered throughout their history.
“They [ISIS fighters] killed thousands of Yazidi men in the most horrific ways. As a result, about 60 mass graves of has been found in my hometown Sinjar. More than 6000 women and girls were kidnapped, including me and many of my relatives,” Rasho said.
“We have been subjected to all types of sexual and physical abuse and violence. We were sold in slave markets. We were objects to be bought and purchased, alongside enduring continuous beatings and torture.”
After eight months of captivity, Rasho escaped and was able to move to Germany. But there are still some 3,000 Yazidi women missing, she said, stressing the need for international efforts to rescue these women.
She also called for the protection of Yazidi refugees and of minority areas in Iraq and Syria, the preservation of mass graves in Sinjar as evidence of genocide, cooperation with the U.N. team investigating Islamic State crimes in Iraq, and reconstruction efforts aimed at helping people return to their homes.
“These steps are the only way of preserving the existence of minorities in the region, especially Yazidi and Christians,” she said. “If this action is not taken, our existence, identity and culture will be wiped out- fulfilling the aim of the Islamic State.”
Support should also be given to the displaced, she said, noting that refugees often face both physical and mental health risks, and “suicide rates are on the rise.”
Also offering a testimony was aid worker Ziear Khan, who has worked with Rohingya Muslims in Burma since 2008 through the British development and relief charity Human Appeal.
The Rohingya, an ethnic minority in Burma, are not recognized by the state and have faced increased persecution in their homeland since 2012. They have been described “as the most persecuted group in the world right now,” Khan said.
He recounted the stories of women and children whose family members were brutally killed before their eyes, leaving them abandoned and traumatized.
Khan also called for action, specifically sanctions on trade with Burma until the crisis is addressed.
“I think about the lessons we need to learn. I think about Rwanda, I think of Bosnia and the Holocaust,” he said, adding that “I would hate to be silent on the day I’m questioned by my Lord when these atrocities were taking place, when all these people were being killed.”
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When will Cardinal Fernandez be investigated for his published account of an erotic conversation he claimed to have had with a sixteen year old girl? That is hardly appropriate pastoral behavior.
Exactly, Lucy.
I’m pretty sure he’s not the one to be in charge of issuing pronouncements on any kinds of moral issues, contemporary or ancient.
The epically failed Bergoglio imbroglio grinds on.
And on.
And on…
Around the same time Francis will be called to account for his frivolous disregard for safeguarding the Deposit of Faith.
We must differentiate between the man and his work to some extent. Michelangelo, who created the famous fresco “The Creation “ in The sistine chapel , was far from being a saint. We must also allow for repentance and change. We never know what is in the heart of a man.Ones past doesn’t necessarily determine his future. We must also remember that sometimes bad men do good things and good men do bad things. Life is very messy and multi dimensional and we must be careful in passing judgment. In this case let’s see what he says and take him at his word, not reading his motives into it.
“The Argentine cardinal in his interview with EFE argued that “people who are concerned” about his work will “be put at ease” by the new document.”
To me it sounds like a habitual (sadly) Vatican’s line: “I say something that violates the Church’s teaching and all are shocked and demand explanations; I will explain nothing but to pacify them and to regain credibility I then say something in a line with the Church’s teaching on another topic so all would sigh in relief.”
This works only for those with a fragmented memory i.e. who are unable to remember bashing when they are given flowers after it, even if it is a years long cycle (bashing – flowers, bashing – flowers etc.).
The words of Fernandez and those who cover him mean nothing to me until he repents and removes his ‘FS’ and pseudo-mystical staff. Noteworthy, being on alert and discerning possible deception is not only exhausting but also damaging for a spiritual life. It is an abnormal situation when a believer should be on guard against deceptions and heresies… in his own Church.
It is detrimental for a soul not to be able to trust those who in a normal situation are supposed to be trusted. It is like not trusting your own father.
I’m with you on this, Anna.
We read: “The Argentine cardinal in his interview with EFE argued that ‘people who are concerned’ about his work will ‘be put at ease’ by the new document.”
Four easing questions about the new document:
1. Does it replace the Natural Law in its entirety with only a shortlist of prohibitions?
2. Does it explicitly support the “Catechism,” or does it confuse? Is “Veritatis Splendor” still ignored, of possibly now dismissed as a “special case”–like all of continental Africa, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Peru, and parts of Argentina, France, Spain, etc. (re Fiducia Supplicans)?
3. Is the document consistent with “Il dono della vita” (“Respect for Human Life in Origin and the Dignity of Procreation,” John Paul II/Ratzinger, February 22, 1987), or not?
The standing document offers direct and succinct answers to direct and numbered questions submitted by “episcopal conferences or individual bishops, by theologians, doctors and scientists, concerning biomedical techniques [….and in] conformity with the principles of Catholic morality.”
4. Does the document really put the disrupted Church “at ease”–by rescinding the verbose novelty in Fiducia Supplicans? Or, are the lips of Cardinal Fernandez silent? Rescind or re-sinned?
Good points. I fear that even if it seems to support orthodoxy, it will not be on the basis of innate natural law, but it will undermine moral truth by making it seem like Catholic idiosyncrasies.
I read the opening title to this piece that reads: “Vatican to publish document on ‘moral questions’ regarding human dignity, gender, surrogacy” and immediately thought it was intended as satirical.
Having tragically abused so many physically, the plan is to selectively abuse all of us theologically. This is at the hardened heart of clericalism, the very antithesis of service.
The next pontificate has its work cut out for it in clarification.
Praying for clarification though “morals” are often the umbrella under which non-religious or broadly religious societies categorize and classify what they hold to be truisms about healthy attitudes and behaviors.
The Catholic Church teaches Truth “authored” by God the Father, embodied in the Person of Jesus Christ, and moved in the currents of consciences by the Holy Spirit.
The former–morals–may bend, be distorted, or even introduced or eliminated depending on the egoism of humans; the Church teachings are immutable with respect to the fundamental knowledge and understanding of the person and personhood.
Moreover, since the origin of the Church, incredibly wise and able theologians have developed and shared Truth, emulated by great saints. Always present in authentic doctrine has been the dignity of all persons, as they are created in the image and likeness of God. (It has been individuals who for whatever reason have disrespected their own or others’ being.) Later generations have express fundamental and foundational truths in novel or timely ways to best evangelize the populace of any give time period, but the essence remains constant.
We shall see about this document…yes?
I will not read the document. Possible Heresy is not my cup of tea. Anything coming from Jorge Bergoglio or his Vatican henchmen are not to be trusted. Period.