Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako presides over the dedication ceremony of the altar of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Mosul, Iraq. April 5, 2024. / Credit: Fadi Dinkha/ACI Mena
CNA Newsroom, Apr 18, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
When the altar of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chaldean Catholic Church was consecrated earlier this month in Mosul, Iraq, a former parishioner now living in the United States said she was moved to tears.
“My eyes were filled with tears as I watched my church and my school return to the beautiful picture engraved in my memory,” said Georgena Habbaba, who used to attend the parish and study at the parish school with her brothers. Her own children studied there, too, before the family had to flee Mosul amid worsening violence in 2007. (Note: Habbaba also writes for ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner.)
“I remembered the wonderful days I spent studying at this school and praying in this church. Very close to my family’s house,” she told CNA.
Georgena Habbaba pictured circa 1985 in the front kneeling, third from the left, with her school scout team at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chaldean Catholic School in Mosul, Iraq. Habbaba, who now lives in the United States, said her memories of her childhood days at the school and parish are “wonderful.” Credit: Photo courtesy of Georgena Habbaba
Habbaba remembers how all the statues, as well as the altar and everything in the church, were destroyed by ISIS. “I especially missed the statue of Our Lady of Perpetual Help above the altar,” she said.
On April 5, Chaldean patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako presided at a Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and consecrated the altar, expressing his happiness at its reconstruction. He said it “gives hope for a safe and better future for the people of this city.”
“It is a distinguished achievement that may encourage Christians to return to their dear city and contribute to building confidence, promoting harmonious coexistence, and preserving the fabric of Mosul,” he added.
In his comments, Sako also recalled when the foundation stone for the church was laid in 1944 and the construction of the school was finished in 1946.
“It is a great spiritual and cultural joy that we celebrate today the restoration of the opening of this great religious and educational edifice,” he told ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner. The school has also been completely reconstructed.
Habbaba recalled that when the school first opened, it was directed by Chaldean nuns. “The school and the church owe a lot to the nuns,” she said.
A photo of a Chaldean Catholic nun with school children circa 1985. Credit: Photo courtesy of Georgena Habbaba
Habbaba also recalled that the school was a mixture of Christians and Muslims without discrimination, ”although the numbers of Christians decreased beginning in 2003 until the school in its last days before the occupation of ISIS in 2014 was almost free of Christian students.”
Before 2003, Christians in Iraq numbered nearly 2 million. Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, had nearly half a million Christians. Today, Iraqi Christians number fewer than 200,000, though a lack of official statistics makes it difficult to know for sure. Christians are returning to Mosul but so far in small numbers.
Georgena Habbaba on her wedding day in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, Iraq, on Oct. 14, 1998. Habbaba, who now lives in the United States, said her eyes filled with tears when she recently saw photos of her home parish and school rebuilt and consecrated. Credit: Photo courtesy of Georgena Habbaba
The most prominent pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was Father Faraj Rahho, who became the archbishop of Mosul and was kidnapped and martyred by terrorists in 2008. Sako, the current patriarch, also spent 15 years as pastor of the parish.
Also present at the special Mass on April 5 was Bishop Najib Mikhail, the pastor of the Chaldean Diocese of Mosul, who thanked the French donors, the SOS organization, and all those responsible for accomplishing the restoration work. The church was rebuilt according to its original architecture and building materials, despite difficult circumstances.
Earlier this year, ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language partner, reported on another Catholic church in Mosul that was recently restored. The Dominican Church of Our Lady of the Hour was completely restored after destruction by Islamic State terrorists 10 years ago.
ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, contributed to this story.
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A young woman holds a pro-life sign during a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. / Joseph Portolano/CNA
Washington D.C., Jun 25, 2023 / 06:40 am (CNA).
Marking the first anniversary of Roe being overturned, a group of pro-life leaders rallied hundreds to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Saturday with the message that they were united around the fight for full, legal protection for the unborn from the moment of conception in all 50 states.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told those gathered on a sunny, hot summer day that while she celebrated the 25 states that have passed strong pro-life laws, “we are in fact living in a divided states of America” where “a person’s location determines if they will survive the abortion gauntlet as we did.”
Hawkins said the country must become “an America where every human being is recognized as the unrepeatable person as they are with equal rights and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed, not because of what state their mother resides in or if they are perceived to be convenient or the circumstances of their conception.”
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, addresses the crowd at a pro-life rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Hawkins told CNA that pro-life leaders are uniting around the belief “that every human being is a human person at conception” and that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal justice clauses should be equally applied to persons in the womb.
“At a very minimum if you’re running for federal office, you should be able to acknowledge that abortion is a federal issue,” she said. “We want to see every presidential contender join with us to acknowledge what is so clearly written in the Fourteenth Amendment: that all human beings are human persons and deserve equal protection of our laws.”
Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, called the Fourteenth Amendment “one of the most beautiful notes in our national song” and lamented that “when it comes to preborn children we have failed to extend these protections.”
Speaking at a rally in front of of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, called it a “tragic contradiction” that “while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny personhood and rights, the personhood and rights of these very same children.”. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Rose called it a “tragic contradiction” that “while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny personhood and rights, the personhood and rights of these very same children. It is inconceivable that we would selectively deny these rights to one group of human beings solely based on their location: the womb.”
Republican presidential candidate and former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently called on his fellow GOP presidential candidates to join him in backing a “minimum” nationwide 15-week abortion limit, made an appearance at the rally.
“As we celebrate this anniversary, let us here resolve that we will work and we will pray as never before to advance the cause of life in the laws of the land in every state in America. That we will support women in crisis pregnancies with resources and support for their care, for the unborn, and for the newborn as never before,” Pence said.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, addresses the crowd at a pro-life rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joseph Portolano/CNA
“We stand for the babies and their unalienable right to life,” he said, pledging that he and his family “will never rest and never relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the land.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-life America, shared words of advice for the growing list of 2024 presidential candidates: “Get your act together. Figure out what you’re for and advance it. Don’t wait,” she urged.
“We have consensus in this country,” she added. “Start with that and be the president you’re called to be in justice and love for moms and justice and love for their babies.” Consistent Gallup polling shows that the majority of Americans would prefer to limit abortion to the first three months of pregnancy.
There were many young people in the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, including Katriel Nyman, a 17-year-old from Washington state who is with Students for Life Tri-Cities. She told CNA that it was “really encouraging to see a bunch of people who believe in rights from conception.”
She said she’d “like to see more pro-lifers continue to persevere through this” post-Dobbs fight because “even if abortion isn’t legal in your state, you should be fighting for the rights of infants that are soon to be born in other states.”
Sameerah Munshi, a recent graduate of Brown University who is interning with the Religious Freedom Institute, holds a sign with a verse from the Quran about the sanctity of life that reads “We have dignified the children of Adam,” at a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023. Lauretta Brown/CNA
Sameerah Munshi, a recent graduate of Brown University who is interning with the Religious Freedom Institute, held a sign with a verse from the Quran about the sanctity of life that read “We have dignified the children of Adam.”
She told CNA that she wanted to make her voice heard as a Muslim who believes, based on her faith, that abortion is wrong in most cases. She said many Muslims followers feel, as she does, that life begins “in the first couple weeks after conception.”
Munshi said that in the year since the Dobbs decision, “a lot of people that I know who don’t have strong opinions on abortion have been coming out either in favor or against” abortion. She sees it as valuable that there’s more discourse about the abortion issue and people are “coming to more conclusions for themselves as opposed to maybe rhetoric that they’ve seen in the news or rhetoric that they feel has been a part of their political platform.”
Jessica Newell, a Catholic student who is interning with Live Action and entering her third year at Coastal Carolina University, told CNA that “it’s so important for people who are indoctrinated by this culture to learn the truth about biology and the truth about God and that they’re made in the image of God.”
She emphasized that the pro-life movement still has so much to do and part of that work is “letting people know that they’re loved, that is a big step in changing the culture to a culture of life.”
Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion at 31 weeks gestation, stands alongside her oldest daughter Olivia, 15, at a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion at 31 weeks gestation, stood at the rally alongside her oldest daughter Olivia, 15, and a sign which read “Babies survive abortions. I am one of them.”
“This was a very personal thing for Roe to be overturned,” she told CNA, “It is a day that we can celebrate, but it has not been a chance to pause, take our breath, it has been a time of continuing to hit the ground running.”
In her work heading the Abortion Survivors Network, Ohden said that since the Dobbs decision she’s heard from “more women than ever reaching out to us after their chemical abortions have failed.” She said it’s important to reach moms who are vulnerable to chemical abortions which make up the majority of abortions in the country.
Ohden said that since Dobbs the pro-life movement “has continued to be the side that is providing resources and support whether it’s in communities, at the state level, pushing for federal policy that supports mothers and children and families in a greater way.”
Her daughter Olivia said it was “amazing” to be at the rally with her mom and called the issue an emotional one because “people like my mom should be protected no matter who they are, where they are.”
USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio speaks at the bishops’ spring meeting, Thursday, June 13, 2024. / Credit: USCCB
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 26, 2024 / 17:00 pm (CNA).
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has laid off staff members from a department specializing in social justice initiatives that has been at the center of controversy over the years.
Chieko Noguchi, a spokesperson for the USCCB, said that “several” staff members serving in the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development were let go on Monday.
She noted that among those laid off were staff members at the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the national anti-poverty program of the U.S. Catholic bishops.
The CCHD was the topic of a behind-closed-doors discussion at the bishops’ June plenary assembly in Louisville, Kentucky. The program had experienced a financial shortfall amid a decline in donations following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over the years the program has generated controversy and criticism. Beginning in 2008, the CCHD was faulted by activists — and some Catholic bishops — for funding organizations that have taken positions contrary to Church teaching, such as on abortion and same-sex marriage.
In 2010, the USCCB instituted new controls to help ensure that grantees conform with Catholic teaching.
The layoffs were part of a “reorganization” that will “allow the conference to align resources more closely with recent funding trends,” Noguchi said.
The bishops’ spokesperson noted that “as this is a personnel matter, further detail will not be discussed at this time.”
It is not clear whether any other committees within the department were affected by the staff cuts.
The Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development is dedicated to advancing Catholic social teaching regarding peace, poverty, racism, and the environment through educational initiatives, fundraising, and the promotion of policies benefiting the marginalized.
The department oversees the Committee on International Justice and Peace, the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and the Subcommittee on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
The office also includes an Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, which is led by Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry.
Noguchi noted that though the staff of the CCHD were affected by the layoffs, its national collection and awarding of grants will continue.
“The CCHD subcommittee will continue its work,” she said, noting that “in the interest of good stewardship, the administration of the collection is being reorganized to allow for more efficient management.”
Noguchi quoted USCCB president Archbishop Timothy Broglio’s words at the assembly when he said that “in all these discussions, the bishops’ ongoing commitment to the vital work of fighting poverty was clear.”
Johnny Zokovitch, executive director of a lay-led Catholic social justice group called Pax Christi, told CNA that he is concerned about the layoffs.
“The thing that I’m most afraid of is that it says that the Church is retreating from some of those places in our society where the Church is most needed,” he explained. “Whether it’s support for immigrants, whether it’s solidarity with marginalized communities, especially communities that are steeped in poverty, that by cutting these offices, the Church is saying that we’re retreating from that work.”
Zokovitch said the USCCB department and his organization share overlapping missions and often interact and collaborate. This shared work, he said, continues what he called a long history of the Church “standing on the side of people who are poor and marginalized, people who are victims in society, whether it’s because of conflicts and war, or whether it’s because of policies that somehow jeopardize their human dignity.”
“Jesus said he would be present where the least of our brothers and sisters are present,” he went on. “For the Church to cut these offices that were doing that work with the least of these says that we’re abandoning Jesus.”
Washington D.C., Jul 14, 2021 / 11:00 am (CNA).
The Archdiocese of St. Louis announced Monday that face masks will be optional at its Catholic schools this fall. The announcement comes after the U.S. Centers for D… […]
14 Comments
Christianity thrived in Iraq prior to the two US led wars against Saddam Hussein the first, the 1990 Gulf War, the 2nd the Invasion of Iraq under order of G W Bush, a war waged on allegation of Iraq’s possession of nuclear weapons, weapons that UN inspector general International Atomic Energy Agency Hans Blix Sweden insisted were not present, and were never found.
Iraq Deputy PM Tariq Aziz, a Catholic, had appealed to Pope John Paul II to exert his influence to prevent an invasion by the US against a weakened virtually helpless Iraq. John Paul was against both Iraq wars, particularly the 2nd. Destruction of Iraq and Hussein’s secular Bath Party opened the door for the creation of ISIS, initially former radicalized Iraq military. The war also ended the balance of power that kept Iran contained, and opened the way for Iran to assume nuclear capability, finances to promote Islamic terrorism.
War is not a Christ inspired policy. Nor is the war in Ukraine, a war that has had instigation and preparation for war with Russia by outside interests seeking to permanently weaken Russia. Pope Francis may not be right on many issues, however on the war in Ukraine, he had sense enough to see that Russia was provoked. Now, in a reverse scenario, the Catholic Church in Ukraine, and in Russia are under greater threat from the Russian Orthodox, which under Patriarch Kirill is a Putin ally. At this stage a negotiated compromise is the real solution, not the irrational proposal by some US military leadership and Europeans for a total defeat of the world’s greatest nuclear and delivery system power Russia.
“…a war that has had instigation and preparation for war with Russia by outside interests seeking to permanently weaken Russia”. This conclusion is doubtful in several respects. It is rather Putin’s own unique policies that have consistently manifested intentions to undermine sovereignty in Russia’s neighboring states of the Baltics, Georgia, etc. Out of the same policies and intentions emerged the ultimate Ukrainian invasion. In addition, it goes without saying, that anyone who understands the nature of Western political institutions, governmental systems and societal dynamics cannot fail to envisage the unlikelihood (sic. nonsensical idea) of say NATO seeking preemptively to “provoke” a war with Russia. It is of course, far more convenient for Putin and his Western supporters to disbelieve or belittle the significance of the fact that NATO is, and has always been, primarily a defensive rather than an offensive organization. This aspect alone betrays Putin’s exaggerated concerns about NATO (“outside interests”) as nothing more than pure fantasies empowering him to cement his own authoritarian inclinations.
NATO sought and continues to seek military alliance encirclement of Russia from Georgia to Ukraine, former Soviets that border Russia. It’s similar to the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba. The Soviet’s removal of those missiles was due to a behind the scenes agreement for removal of previously placed US nuclear missiles in Turkey, which borders Russia.
Fr Morello, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis the Us had no hardened ICBM silos and the few systems available required lengthy setup and fueling times. Bombers were not armed and on continuous strip alert as was later the case. IRBM’s fired from Cuba would explode on target long before any counter action could even began. The Soviet situation was not comparable in any way. The vast expanse of the communist block ,which included China then, allowed their strategic forces to be stationed far beyond the range of what we had in Western Europe. The secret deployment to Cuba made their plans and intentions all too obvious. In any case how does one manage to encircle such a behemoth? Cuba was the start of an encirclement of the US which continues to this day.
[…It’s similar to the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba]
I think it’s time for someone to tell Putin the following: that we are in the 2000s, and not in the 1960s; that he is by no means faced with the role Nikita Khrushchev of the Cuban Missile Crisis needed to play; that the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Empire both ended with the onset of the 1990s; that – among other things, instead of acting paranoid and constantly dispatching killers at home and abroad to liquidate his perceived enemies and actively waging aggression in Russia’s backyard and elsewhere, he should rather be investing his country’s vast resources in investigating into, and addressing the rampant issues of unhappiness and extremely low life expectancy among his citizens.
“Russia was provoked”?? Really, thanks for my laugh of the day.
In recent years Putin suspended the adoption of Russian orphans by citizens of others countries. EVERY major Russia city has an orphanage. Literally tens of thousands of children grow up in an institution, and then are thrown on their own at age 16 with no support. The predictable result: The girls turn to prostitution and the boys to theft, just to survive. Predictably, many end up jailed. Once, the daughter of a Russian military person living here in the US, told me that the Russian orphan boys often ended up in the military. They were considered especially desirable for that work since , as she told me, there would be no family to make a fuss about them if they were killed. I wonder of those orphans who could have used a good home provoked Putin too? Or did he just need more bodies for cannon fodder?
This is personal for me because the son my husband and I adopted more than 20 years ago was one such Russian orphan. My heart breaks for the orphans who never had the same chance at a normal family thanks to Putin.
Its hard for me to imagine that so many Americans still have blinders on about Russia. No one wants war. Sometimes it is forced upon you. Peace at any price is not really peace. Its just capitulation.
Russian orphan management policy aside, Russia was indeed provoked to attack Ukraine. Putin has been very clear that he did not want to be surrounded by NATO countries. Ukraine even agreed to never join NATO. The West consistently ignored that concern and unabashedly NATO-ized Ukraine. It is correct that NATO is an organization for defense purposes. I know that fact firsthand as I served in Bosnia as a NATO peacekeeper. But was Putin provoked? Absolutely. Ask the question what would the US do if Russia and China massed on our southern border? Would the US perceive a threat? Of course it would. So too with Putin and Ukraine. With the exception of the Donbas region, Putin does not want Ukraine. He wants to neutralize a threat on his border.
The Germans wanted “lebensraum”( living space), and they had no problem killing the Poles to get it. Likewise the Russians always wanted an outlet to the sea. Hence the Russian theft of Crimea. That theft of territory was NOT provoked, and pretending many of the people living there were of Russian extraction does not provide grounds to seize territory belonging to another nation. As a sovereign nation, Ukraine is entitled to join NATO if it wants to. Otherwise it simply becomes a client state of Russia, jumping when Russia says so. The CURRENT war is simply step 2 in the Russian attempt to regain all its old territories. Its entirely possible you may not want to live next door to another nation. But as Jagger said ” You can’t always get what you want”. Taking what you want, or trying to push the natives of that area out of your way, often results in war.NATO is a defensive organization. That is bogus to suggest that the Russians were provoked.
OK, what about threats to our southern border ? Encirclement? Marxist governments now control Venezuela, Nicaragua(Rabibly anticatholic), and of course Cuba. Drug lords run Columbia, Much of Mexico, and now Haiti. All these countries contribute heavily (or beginning to ) to our so called “migration”. Oh yes, there are Chinese which travel in groups consisting entirely of military age males who wear the same clothes and carry the same backpacks. Last year the feds found that China had set up branches of its secret police in American cities to keep an eye on our ethnic Chinese. To complete the encirclement, back before the war on Ukraine Russia declared that it claimed the entire Arctic Ocean as its exclusive territory. Far more than enough Russian military bases are now concentrated near Alaska for us to hope to defend it during a larger war. Their bombers probe Alaskan airspace frequently.
LJ, so you made a East European adoption also! Our son is from Bulgaria; he turns 31 in July. His orphanage was in Varna which has the remarkable distinction of being the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth. There were older settlements but they no longer exist. Bulgarians don’t hate Russians but they don’t want to be ruled by Russians, least of all retread Stalinists. When Putin wanted to fly in troops to the Balkans during the troubles with Serbia Bulgaria and Romania made their position clear by denying him use of their airspace. Anyway LJ, it is good to encounter folks who have similar experiences. The principal of the elementary school my son attended had adopted two little Russian boys in better times. We Loved to go to the annual adoption agency picnic to meet and share experiences with other families. God bless you LJ.
Hello JJR. Bravo to you for your adoption as well! Traveling to Russia was one of the big and scary adventures of our lives. My husband and I grew up at the height of the cold war, doing “shelter under you desk drills” in grammar school. My operative feeling about Russians is that they cannot be trusted.Prior to our adoption, Chernoble had happened, and the American embassy in Moscow, through which we would have to process out, had been rocket mortar attacked a few weeks before we left the US to get our son. It was an unnerving process and we went not knowing how many weeks we would be stuck there to get all the papers and approvals signed.Aeroflot had been crashing on a regular basis at that time too. Barely 30, we made certain our wills were written before we left, so in the event of our deaths, our eldest son at home would be properly cared for. Upon meeting our Russian son for the first time,at 6 months old, a Russian doctor told us he would experience developmental delays and would likely have significant trouble learning to walk. It was, they said, our decision now to proceed with the adoption or refuse him. We said yes. He came home with us malnourished and with no vaccinations.
Over time we too went to the adoption agency gatherings and an adoptive parent support group. We still maintain touch with the two couples who traveled with us to the same orphanage to adopt.
Our son is 28 now. Has hit a few bumps in the road while growing up, but no more than any American child. He is musically gifted, graduated a competitive high school with honors and won several college scholarships. He is employed as a paramedic for a major hospital system, and has saved several lives. What a terrible waste if he had languished in an orphanage. Further, he would be of prime military age right now. I have few doubts that had he remained in Russia, he would have been conscripted into the Russian army, where doubtless his life would be at grave risk even as I write this, fighting a war in Ukraine.
My husband and I always consider our sons to be a great gift.We feel lucky they came into our lives.
Sorry, typo. We were almost 40 when adopting our second son. 30 when we did the first. I wish this site had a function which would allow the writer a chance to self correct.
Christianity thrived in Iraq prior to the two US led wars against Saddam Hussein the first, the 1990 Gulf War, the 2nd the Invasion of Iraq under order of G W Bush, a war waged on allegation of Iraq’s possession of nuclear weapons, weapons that UN inspector general International Atomic Energy Agency Hans Blix Sweden insisted were not present, and were never found.
Iraq Deputy PM Tariq Aziz, a Catholic, had appealed to Pope John Paul II to exert his influence to prevent an invasion by the US against a weakened virtually helpless Iraq. John Paul was against both Iraq wars, particularly the 2nd. Destruction of Iraq and Hussein’s secular Bath Party opened the door for the creation of ISIS, initially former radicalized Iraq military. The war also ended the balance of power that kept Iran contained, and opened the way for Iran to assume nuclear capability, finances to promote Islamic terrorism.
War is not a Christ inspired policy. Nor is the war in Ukraine, a war that has had instigation and preparation for war with Russia by outside interests seeking to permanently weaken Russia. Pope Francis may not be right on many issues, however on the war in Ukraine, he had sense enough to see that Russia was provoked. Now, in a reverse scenario, the Catholic Church in Ukraine, and in Russia are under greater threat from the Russian Orthodox, which under Patriarch Kirill is a Putin ally. At this stage a negotiated compromise is the real solution, not the irrational proposal by some US military leadership and Europeans for a total defeat of the world’s greatest nuclear and delivery system power Russia.
“…a war that has had instigation and preparation for war with Russia by outside interests seeking to permanently weaken Russia”. This conclusion is doubtful in several respects. It is rather Putin’s own unique policies that have consistently manifested intentions to undermine sovereignty in Russia’s neighboring states of the Baltics, Georgia, etc. Out of the same policies and intentions emerged the ultimate Ukrainian invasion. In addition, it goes without saying, that anyone who understands the nature of Western political institutions, governmental systems and societal dynamics cannot fail to envisage the unlikelihood (sic. nonsensical idea) of say NATO seeking preemptively to “provoke” a war with Russia. It is of course, far more convenient for Putin and his Western supporters to disbelieve or belittle the significance of the fact that NATO is, and has always been, primarily a defensive rather than an offensive organization. This aspect alone betrays Putin’s exaggerated concerns about NATO (“outside interests”) as nothing more than pure fantasies empowering him to cement his own authoritarian inclinations.
NATO sought and continues to seek military alliance encirclement of Russia from Georgia to Ukraine, former Soviets that border Russia. It’s similar to the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba. The Soviet’s removal of those missiles was due to a behind the scenes agreement for removal of previously placed US nuclear missiles in Turkey, which borders Russia.
Fr Morello, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis the Us had no hardened ICBM silos and the few systems available required lengthy setup and fueling times. Bombers were not armed and on continuous strip alert as was later the case. IRBM’s fired from Cuba would explode on target long before any counter action could even began. The Soviet situation was not comparable in any way. The vast expanse of the communist block ,which included China then, allowed their strategic forces to be stationed far beyond the range of what we had in Western Europe. The secret deployment to Cuba made their plans and intentions all too obvious. In any case how does one manage to encircle such a behemoth? Cuba was the start of an encirclement of the US which continues to this day.
[…It’s similar to the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba]
I think it’s time for someone to tell Putin the following: that we are in the 2000s, and not in the 1960s; that he is by no means faced with the role Nikita Khrushchev of the Cuban Missile Crisis needed to play; that the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Empire both ended with the onset of the 1990s; that – among other things, instead of acting paranoid and constantly dispatching killers at home and abroad to liquidate his perceived enemies and actively waging aggression in Russia’s backyard and elsewhere, he should rather be investing his country’s vast resources in investigating into, and addressing the rampant issues of unhappiness and extremely low life expectancy among his citizens.
Fr. Morello, if you remember who Tariq Aziz was, you should be ashamed that he was a Catholic.
Father, you made an excellent observation. Thank you!
“Russia was provoked”?? Really, thanks for my laugh of the day.
In recent years Putin suspended the adoption of Russian orphans by citizens of others countries. EVERY major Russia city has an orphanage. Literally tens of thousands of children grow up in an institution, and then are thrown on their own at age 16 with no support. The predictable result: The girls turn to prostitution and the boys to theft, just to survive. Predictably, many end up jailed. Once, the daughter of a Russian military person living here in the US, told me that the Russian orphan boys often ended up in the military. They were considered especially desirable for that work since , as she told me, there would be no family to make a fuss about them if they were killed. I wonder of those orphans who could have used a good home provoked Putin too? Or did he just need more bodies for cannon fodder?
This is personal for me because the son my husband and I adopted more than 20 years ago was one such Russian orphan. My heart breaks for the orphans who never had the same chance at a normal family thanks to Putin.
Its hard for me to imagine that so many Americans still have blinders on about Russia. No one wants war. Sometimes it is forced upon you. Peace at any price is not really peace. Its just capitulation.
Russian orphan management policy aside, Russia was indeed provoked to attack Ukraine. Putin has been very clear that he did not want to be surrounded by NATO countries. Ukraine even agreed to never join NATO. The West consistently ignored that concern and unabashedly NATO-ized Ukraine. It is correct that NATO is an organization for defense purposes. I know that fact firsthand as I served in Bosnia as a NATO peacekeeper. But was Putin provoked? Absolutely. Ask the question what would the US do if Russia and China massed on our southern border? Would the US perceive a threat? Of course it would. So too with Putin and Ukraine. With the exception of the Donbas region, Putin does not want Ukraine. He wants to neutralize a threat on his border.
The Germans wanted “lebensraum”( living space), and they had no problem killing the Poles to get it. Likewise the Russians always wanted an outlet to the sea. Hence the Russian theft of Crimea. That theft of territory was NOT provoked, and pretending many of the people living there were of Russian extraction does not provide grounds to seize territory belonging to another nation. As a sovereign nation, Ukraine is entitled to join NATO if it wants to. Otherwise it simply becomes a client state of Russia, jumping when Russia says so. The CURRENT war is simply step 2 in the Russian attempt to regain all its old territories. Its entirely possible you may not want to live next door to another nation. But as Jagger said ” You can’t always get what you want”. Taking what you want, or trying to push the natives of that area out of your way, often results in war.NATO is a defensive organization. That is bogus to suggest that the Russians were provoked.
OK, what about threats to our southern border ? Encirclement? Marxist governments now control Venezuela, Nicaragua(Rabibly anticatholic), and of course Cuba. Drug lords run Columbia, Much of Mexico, and now Haiti. All these countries contribute heavily (or beginning to ) to our so called “migration”. Oh yes, there are Chinese which travel in groups consisting entirely of military age males who wear the same clothes and carry the same backpacks. Last year the feds found that China had set up branches of its secret police in American cities to keep an eye on our ethnic Chinese. To complete the encirclement, back before the war on Ukraine Russia declared that it claimed the entire Arctic Ocean as its exclusive territory. Far more than enough Russian military bases are now concentrated near Alaska for us to hope to defend it during a larger war. Their bombers probe Alaskan airspace frequently.
LJ, so you made a East European adoption also! Our son is from Bulgaria; he turns 31 in July. His orphanage was in Varna which has the remarkable distinction of being the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth. There were older settlements but they no longer exist. Bulgarians don’t hate Russians but they don’t want to be ruled by Russians, least of all retread Stalinists. When Putin wanted to fly in troops to the Balkans during the troubles with Serbia Bulgaria and Romania made their position clear by denying him use of their airspace. Anyway LJ, it is good to encounter folks who have similar experiences. The principal of the elementary school my son attended had adopted two little Russian boys in better times. We Loved to go to the annual adoption agency picnic to meet and share experiences with other families. God bless you LJ.
Hello JJR. Bravo to you for your adoption as well! Traveling to Russia was one of the big and scary adventures of our lives. My husband and I grew up at the height of the cold war, doing “shelter under you desk drills” in grammar school. My operative feeling about Russians is that they cannot be trusted.Prior to our adoption, Chernoble had happened, and the American embassy in Moscow, through which we would have to process out, had been rocket mortar attacked a few weeks before we left the US to get our son. It was an unnerving process and we went not knowing how many weeks we would be stuck there to get all the papers and approvals signed.Aeroflot had been crashing on a regular basis at that time too. Barely 30, we made certain our wills were written before we left, so in the event of our deaths, our eldest son at home would be properly cared for. Upon meeting our Russian son for the first time,at 6 months old, a Russian doctor told us he would experience developmental delays and would likely have significant trouble learning to walk. It was, they said, our decision now to proceed with the adoption or refuse him. We said yes. He came home with us malnourished and with no vaccinations.
Over time we too went to the adoption agency gatherings and an adoptive parent support group. We still maintain touch with the two couples who traveled with us to the same orphanage to adopt.
Our son is 28 now. Has hit a few bumps in the road while growing up, but no more than any American child. He is musically gifted, graduated a competitive high school with honors and won several college scholarships. He is employed as a paramedic for a major hospital system, and has saved several lives. What a terrible waste if he had languished in an orphanage. Further, he would be of prime military age right now. I have few doubts that had he remained in Russia, he would have been conscripted into the Russian army, where doubtless his life would be at grave risk even as I write this, fighting a war in Ukraine.
My husband and I always consider our sons to be a great gift.We feel lucky they came into our lives.
Sorry, typo. We were almost 40 when adopting our second son. 30 when we did the first. I wish this site had a function which would allow the writer a chance to self correct.