Middle East – Africa

Washington D.C., Apr 12, 2018 / 12:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As President Trump considers airstrikes in Syria in response to a chemical attack that killed dozens of people, including women and children, Pope Francis has called for peace in the region.

President Trump has said that he will consider initiating military action against Syria within days. The president has sent several tweets hinting at iminent military action, but on Thursday he walked these back with a tweet saying he “never said” when the United States would be attacking.

“Could be very soon or not so soon at all,” said Trump, noting that the United States has done a “great job” at removing Islamic State militants from the country.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our “Thank you America?”</p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=”https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/984374422587965440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>April 12, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

On Tuesday, Russia vetoed a US-sponsored proposal in the United Nations, which would have launched an independent investigation into the April 7 chemical attack. The veto garnered broad condemnation from US allies.

Russia has also said that its military will retaliate for any airstrikes against Syria, meaning that US-military action could prompt a large global conflict.

Since March of 2011, Syria has been engaged in a bloody civil war, with rebel groups engaged in conflict against the Syrian army. Syria, led by President Bashar al-Assad, is allied with Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia.

The situation on the ground in Syria has been disastrous for the country’s tiny Christian population. Prior to the start of the war, Christians made up about 11 percent of the population. Since then, many have been forced from their homes, particularly when the Islamic State was active in the region, and many of the country’s churches have been destroyed in the war. An estimated one-third of the country’s Christian population has fled.

However, many Christians in the country find themselves supporting Assad’s regime. In a March 2016 interview, Aleppo’s Catholic Bishop Antoine Audo said that he believed a full “80 percent” of the country’s Christians would support Assad in an election. Furthermore, the bishop said that the Syrian government was not actively persecuting Christians, and that Christians and Muslims had for years lived together peacefully prior to the start of the war.

The rebel groups fighting Assad are mostly Islamic-based and have attacked Christian villages.

There have been at least 200 reported chemical attacks in Syria, the medical care group UOSSM has reported. In April 2017, at least 70 people, including children, were reportedly killed in Syria by a deadly gas attack, reportedly perpetrated by Assad’s forces.

“The chemical attack in Syria on April 4, [2017], shocks the soul. The many innocent lives targeted by these terrible tools of war cry out for humanity’s protection,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said last year in response to that attack.
 
During his April 1 Urbi et Orbi message, Pope Francis prayed for peace in Syria.

“We implore fruits of peace upon the entire world, beginning with the beloved and long-suffering land of Syria, whose people are worn down by an apparently endless war. This Easter, may the light of the risen Christ illumine the consciences of all political and military leaders, so that a swift end may be brought to the carnage in course,” the pontiff said.

The pope condemned the recent chemical attack during Mass April 8 in St. Peter’s Square, saying that “nothing can justify” the use of chemical weapons on “defenseless people and populations.”

“There is no such thing as a good war and a bad war,” he said.

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Orange, Calif., Apr 11, 2018 / 03:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Algerian government has approved the holding of a beatification Mass in Oran for seven French Trappist monks who were martyred in the country in 1996, AFP reports.

“The beatification will take place in a few months, in the coming weeks, in Oran,” Algeria’s Foreign Minister, Abdelkader Messahel, told France 24 television April 10.

In January Pope Francis had authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to recognize the martyrdom of Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, men and women religious, who were killed in hatred of the faith in Algeria between 1994 and 1996.

Claverie was a French Algerian and the Bishop of Oran from 1981 until his Aug. 1, 1996 martyrdom. He and his companions were killed during the Algerian Civil War by Islamists.

The best known of Claverie’s companions are the seven monks of Tibhirine, who were kidnapped from their Trappist priory in March 1996. They were kept as a bartering chip to procure the release of several imprisoned members of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, and were killed in May. Their story was dramatized in the 2010 French film Of Gods and Men, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

The prior, Christian de Chergé, sought peaceful dialogue with the Muslim population of the area and provided employment, medical attention, and education to the locals.

Dom Christian accepted that the current political tensions and violent militias were a threat to his life. According to the Trappist order, he wrote a letter to his community and family, citing the peace felt giving his life to God.  

“If it should happen one day – and it could be today – that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church and my family to remember that my life was given to God and to this country,” he said.

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Gaza City, Apr 10, 2018 / 12:02 am (ACI Prensa).- In the past six years the number of Christians in the Gaza Strip has plummeted from 4,500 to just 1,000, due to the harsh conditions under which they are living, according to the pastor of the territory’s sole Catholic church.

Gazans “live like it’s an open air prison since we can’t leave. We can’t visit relatives, look for work, medicine or good hospitals on the outside,” Fr. Mario da Silva told ACI Prensa.

The Gaza Strip is a 141 square mile area, part of Palestine, located to the west of Israel and home to 1.8 million persons. Since 2007, it has been ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas.

Since Hamas came to power there, Israel and Egypt have conducted an economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, restricting the flow of persons and goods in an effort to limit rocket attacks on Israel launched from the territory.

Fr. da Silva, a priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, recalled that when he arrived in Gaza in 2012 “the situation was already very difficult. Over time, you would hope the situation would get better, but it’s only gotten worse.”

He related that inhabitants have only three hours of electricity a day, and there is a shortage of drinking water.

Most Gazans are unemployed, he said, and those who do work live on “about $150-200 a month.”

“It’s really a prison. People don’t have any money and the situation is terrible. There is widespread poverty.”

The harsh conditions imposed on Gaza has led to the exodus of Palestinian Christians.

“Every year Christians have one permit to leave and visit the holy places on Easter and Christmas,” and a many of them never return, explained Fr. da Silva.

In order to stem the tide, the priest’s Holy Family parish is working with 12 religious sisters, of the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará, the Missionaries of Charity, and the Sisters of the Rosary congregations.

“We’re doing two things: first, preaching Christ and the importance of Christians in the Holy Land; preaching the importance of forgiveness and of carrying the cross is what we most try to do.”

The second form of aid is material assistance projects, he said: “For example, with the help of institutions such as the Pontifical Mission or the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Church tries to give work to more that 30 young people so they won’t leave, because they are mainly the ones who leave.”

He noted that the parish also cares for adherents of other religions: “The Christian community is very small and there are 2 million Muslims. They are also in great need. We have always opened the doors of our schools or our church during times of war to take in those seeking refuge.”
 

“There is not a very great persecution of Christians,” the priest said. “Though there is now a lot of fear with the news that the Islamic State has arrived, coming from the Sinai Peninsula, in Egypt … There have already been threats. There is also fear of the Salafist groups who are coming in from the south,” he said.

“In fact, when we have problems with Muslims who want to do something against the church, we’ve asked the government to protect us and they have done so,” he added.

The joy of Easter was tinged this year by a decrease in the permits given by Israel for Palestinian Christians to visit holy places in its territory, Fr. da Silva said.

“It was also very sad because Israel always gives permission for Christians so they can visit the holy places for Christmas and Easter,” but this year they only gave 300 permits instead of the 700 they usually grant. These permits were “for children and the elderly, who are really the people who can’t go out by themselves. Very few people actually went,” he lamented.

Nevertheless, “there was joy because Christ has risen and because our salvation comes from that, which is much more important than our material life; but on the human level it was a very sad Easter,” he said.

“Pray much for this, which is what we mainly ask for, because only God can change the situation we’re going through in these countries here in the Middle East,” he concluded.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Apr 9, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Armed men burst into a church meeting room in the North Kivu region April 8 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and killed 38-year-old Fr. Étienne Sengiyumva, the parish pastor.

Bishop Théophile Kaboy Ruboneka of Goma, in North Kivu Province announced the news to the Vatican’s Fides News Agency

“After celebrating the Mass at Kyahemba, a district in his parish, around 3pm, Fr. Étienne was meeting with his parish staff, when an armed man, accompanied by others, entered the meeting room and shot the priest point blank in the head, killing him instantly, ” the bishop recounted.

“The murder happened so quickly that those present couldn’t take note of how many people had entered the room to kill Fr. Étienne,” he lamented.

The bishop also told Fides that ”it’s hard to know who is responsible. Our region is infested with armed groups, at least 15, that fail to be dismantled despite the constant presence of the army and the blue-helmeted UN soldiers.”

Bishop Ruboneka explained that “Fr. Étienne  is the third priest killed in the region” and that “the investigations to find those responsible for these deaths go nowhere. On our part, we are doing everything we can to identify Fr.  Étienne’s killers, even though we have no illusions.”

“In these cases the witnesses fear for their own lives and the lives of their loved ones and it would be hard for them to offer any information useful for the investigation,” he pointed out.

The bishop also stated that Fr. Célestin Ngango was kidnapped from the diocese after celebrating Easter Mass. He was later released, blindfolded, at around 3 am following heavy pressure from the local inhabitants. The Congolese bishops’ conference told Fides “the freed priest was not mistreated and he appears to be in good health. However, he will undergo a medical examination.”

Bishop Ruboneka does not think there is any connection between the two incidents.

“I repeat, in our region there are so many armed groups that it is hard to know who committed this act or another. Here in North Kivu we are living in total chaos,” Bishop Ruboneka said.

In conclusion the prelate stressed that “the situation of the Diocese of Goma, as well as Butembo-Beni, is unbelievable. We are completely abandoned by everyone and we live thanks to the grace of Providence. I ask the faithful of the Universal Church to pray for our region so we can again find peace.”

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Washington D.C., Apr 9, 2018 / 04:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- African Catholics remained concerned about a push from Western leaders to promote abortion and contraception in Africa in the name of economic development, especially as the United Nations Commission on Population and Development began its annual meeting Monday.

Pope Francis has repeatedly warned against Western “ideological colonization” of developing countries in which aid money comes tied to contraceptives, abortion, sterilization, and gender ideologies.

“‘Reproductive health’ is the phrase that is the battleground of every UN Commission meeting we attend,” said law professor Teresa Collett, who will be attending the 51st session of the UN Commission on Population and Development, from April 9 to 13.

“Now ‘reproductive health’ as a phrase doesn’t sound that bad,” continued Collett, “The problem is that is diplomat speak for abortion on demand. It’s diplomat speak for contraception” Collett explained last week at a conference at the Catholic University of America marking the 50th anniversary of Humanae vitae.

At last year’s UN population and development meeting in New York,  the debate over reproductive health was “so heated that we had no outcome document,” Collett explained. She partly accredits this to the fact that “African nations stood strong.”

The UN preparatory document implicitly recommends policies to reduce the birth rates in Africa:

“In much of Africa and parts of Asia, numbers of children and youth are rising rapidly. Policies … to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services are critical to achieve further reductions in maternal and child mortality. Typically, such policies lead also to a reduction in the birth rate.”

The document continued: “In countries where growth in the number of children and youth has slowed recently, there is an historic opportunity for more rapid economic growth. With a sustained reduction in the birth rate, the working-age population (ages 25-64) may continue to grow for a few more decades, temporarily raising the ratio of workers to dependents.”

Underlying  these UN debates are ‘neocolonialist’ Western assumptions about what African women want, according to Nigerian Catholic Obianuju Ekeocha, the author of a new book, “Target Africa.”

“For world leaders, the plan of action is very clear — a dedicated effort in population control in developing countries. But in their single-minded obsession to reduce the fertility rate of women in sub-Saharan Africa, the one important consideration the experts have omitted is the desired fertility rate of the women in question,” Ekeocha wrote.

Ekeocha cites a 2010 USAID report on the number of children desired by people in various parts of the world, which showed that “the desired number of children is highest among people in western and middle Africa, ranging from 4.8 in Ghana to 9.1 in Niger and 9.2 in Chad, with an average of 6.1 children for the region.”

“Unlike what we see in the developed Western world, there is actually very high compliance with Pope Paul VI’s Humanae vitae. For these African women, in all humility have heard, understood, and accepted the precious words of the prophetic pope,” Ekeocha wrote in a 2012 open letter to Melinda Gates.

Despite widespread moral opposition to birth control in many African countries, 77,225,741 units of unspecified birth control pills were donated to African countries in 2014 by Western governments and organizations, according to Ekeocha’s research.

“Populations-program donations to Africa used to be the lowest portion of social-sector foreign aid, much lower than aid for education, health, water, sanitation, and so on. But since 2009, population control funding has surged ahead of funding for everything else. In 2014, the United States and the United Kingdom targeted 31 percent and 43 percent respectively of their African aid to population control,” Ekeocha wrote.

Mary Eberstadt, senior research fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute, affirmed those findings at last week’s Humanae vitae conference.  

“In Africa, both Protestants and Catholics lean toward traditionalism in moral teaching … .It is in tradition-minded Africa that Christianity has grown explosively in the years since Humanae vitae,” Eberstadt said.

“As the Pew Research Center put it a few years ago, Africans are among the most morally opposed to contraception. Substantial numbers of people in Kenya, Uganda, and other Sub-Saharan countries, Catholic and otherwise agree with the proposition that contraception is unacceptable. In Ghana and Nigeria, it is more than half of the population,” continued Eberstadt.

In a paper presented at the same conference, Collet wrote that “during much of the past sixty years, Western intellectuals and philanthropists have aggressively promoted birth control as a moral response to a variety of real or perceived global problems. The West, and more particularly the United States, United Kingdom, and Scandinavian countries, have actively engaged in what might fairly be called “ideological colonization” through their worldwide promotion of a contraceptive mentality.”

In 1968, the same year that Humanae vitae was promulugated, “USAID began purchasing contraceptives to distribute in developing countries” and “Robert McNamara, as president of World Bank, announces that population control will be an element of review of loans,” Collett reported.

In the years that followed, governments began implementing mandatory population control policies, just as Pope Paul VI had predicted in his encyclical.

In India, 10 million sterilizations were performed within 20 months of a National Population Policy that went into effect in 1976. “All public employees were told that there jobs would be cut or their salaries eliminated if they would not be sterilized,” said Collett.

Two years later, China implemented its “Family Planning Policy,” better known as the “One Child Policy.”  

“This policy allowed (and incentivized) local government officials to monitor women’s menstrual periods and forcibly abort and sterilize women who were not compliant.  In 1983 the Chinese Ministry of Health reported 21 million births, 14.4 million abortions, 20.7 million (predominantly female) sterilizations, and 17.8 million IUD insertions were performed,” Collett explained.

“Not withstanding these horrific practices permitted under the Indian and Chinese Policies, in 1984 the first UN Population Award was given to Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, and Qian Xinzhong, Minister-in-Charge of the State Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China.”

At the next Population World Conference, President Ronald Reagan announced the Mexico City Policy, which states that the U.S. would not fund any international program involving coerced abortion, or abortion in general.

“Under every Republican President we have made the determination, consistent with federal law that the United Nations FPA is involved in programs that involve coercive abortion and therefore we will not fund UNFPA. Every Democrat president has restored that funding. This is the topic in part of the UN Population Commission annual meeting …next week,” Collett said at CUA on April 5.

In 2017, President Donald Trump expanded the Mexico City Policy and directed money that would go to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to the Department of State Global Health Initiative to “assist in helping African nations … training helping birth attendants … to ensure healthy pregnancy deliveries, to ensure the availability of clean blood supplies and clean water supplies are available to women in labor,” she added.

In “Target Africa,” Ekeocha wrote that “when President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy in 2017, a number of Western leaders scrambled to make up for the $600 million that America was going to withhold from pro-abortion organizations. They raised about $190 million through the She Decides campaign launched in Brussels, where Sweden, Finland, and Canada each pledged $20 million for abortion provider.”

“An anonymous donor in the United States committed $50 million, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation promised $20 million, and hedge-fund manager and philanthropist Chris Hohn promised $10 million. On top of Canada’s commitment to She Decides, a few days after the Brussels fundraiser Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged $650 million toward worldwide women’s reproductive health programs, including abortion services,” Ekeocha continued.

Ekeocha’s research indicates that the countries most aggressively promoting worldwide abortion are the same countries facing low fertility rates. Canada, Finland, and Belgium all have fertility rates below the replacement rate.

“Without exceptions, these nations are facing the real and imminent threat of a demographic winter, yet they join forces to ensure that the unborn babies of Africa can be aborted without any impediments,” she wrote.

“In their attempts to legalize abortion across Africa, abortion advocates say that legalized abortion is a way to reduce high maternal mortality rates.”

“There is no telling how many lives could be saved if even a fraction of the billions of dollars being spent by Western donors on contraception and abortion in Africa were directed toward improving the quality of obstetric care.”

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Jerusalem, Apr 9, 2018 / 02:55 pm (CNA).- At least eight Palestinians were killed and hundreds more injured by Israeli military forces last week, during the second week of protests on the Gaza-Israel border.

“The loss of Palestinian lives here i… […]

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Apr 5, 2018 / 12:44 pm (CNA).- The bishop of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is urging the faithful to pray for a priest who was kidnapped on Easter Sunday and is being held for ransom.  

“We’re doing everything in our power to obtain the release of Fr. Célestin,” said Bishop Théophile Kaboy Ruboneka.

He appealed “to all the faithful throughout the world to pray for us. The kidnapping of Fr.  Père Célestin Ngango is just one of many incidents that take place here. Kidnappings happen daily. This is an ongoing tragedy caused by an inhuman business.”

Fr. Célestin was kidnapped by a group of unidentified men April 1 after celebrating Easter Sunday Mass, according to authorities.

The Center for the Study of the Promotion of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights reported that Fr. Célestin was abducted near the village of Nyarukwangara in North Kivu Province.

The organization stated that “when he was returning to Karambi his vehicle was intercepted by criminals who forced him to get out and follow them into the bush.”

The kidnapping is not an isolated incident. Agence France Presse news stated that in January this year, another priest was kidnapped in North Kivu and freed 48 hours later.

Speaking to the Vatican news agency Fides, Bishop Ruboneka said that “The kidnappers immediately contacted Fr. Célestin Ngango’s parish asking for the absurd sum of $500,000. Now they are asking for $50,000, but where can we find such a sum? It’s impossible.”

“We are currently trying to negotiate with the kidnappers but it is not easy. In the last phone call to the parish they reiterated their demand for $50,000, saying they had no intention of discussing [the amount] and immediately put an end to the conversation. We have no other way of contacting them,” the bishop said.

“Our area is plagued by kidnappings, practically every day, but in general the ransoms demanded are a lot less that the one required for the release of Fr. Célestin Ngango. They range from $500 to $2,000. This is the first time that such a large sum is being asked,” he added.

The bishop said that both local and state authorities are working for the release of the priest, as well as UN forces and local search parties.

“We have contacted the Congolese national bishops’ conference, the governor and have asked the faithful to pray during Mass for Fr. Célestin Ngango.”

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Damascus, Syria, Apr 3, 2018 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- When Pope Saint John Paul II visited Syria in 2001, he called on Christians to remember Syria’s “magnificent contribution” to the history of Christianity. As the country reels from seven years of civil war, Christian communities in Damascus continue to struggle to protect that heritage.

“We remember that it was in fact in Syria that the Church of Christ discovered her truly catholic character and took on her universal mission. The Apostles Peter and Paul, each according to the grace received, worked here to gather together the one family of Christ, welcoming believers coming from different cultures and nations,” said Pope John Paul II in Damascus on May 6, 2001.

Within the walls of the Damascus’ Old City is the tomb of St. John the Baptist, the house where St. Ananias took in a blinded Saul, and the Gate of St. Thomas, known as Bab Touma, through which the apostle traveled on his way to evangelize India.

For John Paul II, it was primarily a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Paul that brought him to Damascus. The pontiff spent three days in Syria in 2001 as a part of a six-day journey following Saint Paul’s evangelizing missions in the Mediterranean, including stops in Greece and Malta.

“At the gates of Damascus, when he met the Risen Christ, Saint Paul learned this truth and made it the content of his preaching. The wonderful reality of the Cross of Christ, upon which the work of the world’s Redemption was wrought, became present before him … Brothers and sisters, let us lift our eyes to the Cross of Christ to find the source of our hope!” proclaimed the pope during his trip.

The Holy Father also praised the great contributions of Syria’s saints throughout history.
“From the very beginning of Christianity, flourishing communities were to be found here. In the Syrian desert Christian monasticism flourished; and the names of Syrians such as Saint Ephraem and Saint John Damascene are etched for ever in Christian memory. Some of my predecessors were born in this area.”

One of the historic monasteries built in the fifth-century has been destroyed. St. Elias Monastery was bulldozed by the Islamic State in April 2016, during the jihadist group’s genocide of Christians in Syria and Iraq.

Today, the reality of the cross is vivid for the remaining Christians in Syria, who have seen their communities drop by 75 percent in cities like Aleppo, once home to the country’s largest Christian population.

On Easter, Pope Francis prayed for an end to the “carnage” in “the beloved and long-suffering land of Syria, whose people are worn down by an apparently endless war.”

Catholics who remain in Damascus walked through the Old City’s narrow streets on Holy Thursday to pray at seven historic churches, some of which had been damaged by mortar coming from the Eastern Ghouta suburb, only 12 kilometers away.

One of the churches visited during the Holy Week procession is the Syrian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George, the same church in which St. John Paul II reflected ten years before the start of the Syrian civil war, “these will be the marks of our fidelity to God: to pray, to carry the Cross, to obey God’s will and to honour everyone as a brother or sister.”

John Paul II made history during his short visit in May 2001 by being the first pope to enter a mosque. The Umayyad Mosque was decorated with Vatican and Syrian flags for the occasion. In 715 AD, the mosque was built on top of a fourth-century Christian cathedral containing the head of John the Baptist, according to tradition.

The pope lamented that his short trip to Syria did not allow him to visit “all the Churches dedicated to the Mother of God in this great and noble city of Damascus.”

“I would also have liked my pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Paul to have included a visit to some of the venerable Shrines of the Virgin Mother of God, such as those at nearby Seidnaya, or in Homs, Aleppo, Tartus and elsewhere. I have not forgotten that according to a pious tradition it was near Tartus that the Apostle Peter, on a journey from Jerusalem to Antioch along the Mediterranean coast, dedicated a chapel to the Virgin Mary, the first Marian shrine in Syria,” continued the pontiff.

Homs and Aleppo, mentioned by the late pope, are among the cities most devastated by the Syrian conflict.

Between 5,000 to 13,000 people have been executed in the city of Seidnaya by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government during the conflict, according to Amnesty International. The 6th-century Seidnaya Monastery, containing a miraculous icon of the Theotokos, has also been damaged in the conflict.

The Syria encountered by Saint John Paul II in 2001, before the September 11th terrorist attacks, was vastly different from the war-torn Syria today, but Christians there still cling to words he spoke during his visit to the country:

“The joy of Easter flowered on the wood of the Cross … When God acts, the impossible becomes possible. It is our task to say ‘yes’ to God’s saving will and to accept his mysterious plan with our whole being.”

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Pretoria, South Africa, Apr 3, 2018 / 09:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of South Africa offered their sympathy Tuesday for the death of the controversial anti-apartheid activist and politician Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who was the former wife of … […]

Homs, Syria, Mar 30, 2018 / 12:11 pm (ACI Prensa).- Christians in Syria have suffered greatly in recent years. Between the Syrian civil war and ISIS occupation, many have lost their homes, their jobs, and many of their material possessions.

“But they have not lost their faith, despite everything,” said Josué Villalón, a journalist working for Aid to the Church in Need in Spain, who recently visited some of the projects supported by pontifical foundation in Syria.

“Each person and each family with whom we spoke expressed to us that right now what gives them hope and sustains them is to be able to celebrate the Eucharist – because even though they have lost everything material, they still have Jesus Christ,” he told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency.

Aid to the Church in Need is working to help thousands of those displaced by the war and persecution to return to their homes. The agency’s Spanish branch contributes more than 600,000 euros annually to help in reconstruction efforts and continuing education for young people.

One of the moments that most impressed Villalón was his visit to the Syrian Catholic cathedral in the city of Homs, where hundreds of Christians were praying the Way of the Cross.

“Praying the Way of the Cross is a very strong tradition in Syria and the Middle East. It’s always been a focal point for Christians for their Lenten and Holy Week [devotions], ” he said.

On Good Friday, a procession is planned through the streets of the old city of Homs with a cross and various icons of the Virgin Mary.

“Now more than ever, the Way of the Cross is a very important prayer,” said Villalón, because the Christian population of Syria, “with everything they have suffered during these years of war, and everything they are still suffering, embodies a way of the cross. And so this prayer has even more meaning for them.”

Many of those living in the country today have beautiful testimonies, he continued.

“What is so powerful is that Christians in Syria today are embodying in their own lives the Gospel and the mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus,” he said, adding that he saw in them reflections of Christ carrying his cross, and of Veronica and Simon of Cyrene offering help.

Villalón pointed out some the first Christians were from Syria.

“Centuries before Islam came, there were Christians there, and it was in Antioch that the followers of Christ were first called Christians,” he said. “The amount of historical and documentary sources is enormous there. For example, it was in Damascus that Saint Paul received Jesus’ call to conversion.”

In addition to their 2,000-year presence in the region, Christians in Syria and the Middle East continue to “contribute a number of irreplaceable values” such as “charity, freedom, forgiveness, and hope,” said Villalón.

“Christians are the only ones that speak about all these things, and so their presence is very important here.”

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