Baghdad, Iraq, Dec 12, 2019 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- Christmas celebrations among Iraqi Christians will be subdued this year in a show of solidarity with anti-government protesters.
“Morally and spiritually we cannot celebrate in such an atmosph… […]
Mosul, Iraq, Dec 9, 2019 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako has appealed for financial and spiritual aid for Christians in the Middle East, especially in Iraq. The Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans and head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, made the plea in a letter on Friday, December 6.
“Today, after two years of its liberation from ISIS, the Nineveh Plain area still needs the help of our brothers and sisters who can pray and give us a hand,” said Cardinal Sako.
In the letter, addressed to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social institutions, churches, and governments, Sako said that the Christians in the region “need your help so that all the people of the Nineveh Plain (can) remain in their homes, and those who have been displaced outside the region can return to it.”
The Nineveh Plain is region in northern Iraq.
Although ISIS was defeated, the need for assistance of all forms is still great, wrote Sako. Particularly, there is a “vital need” for healthcare services of all kind, he said.
“I strongly urge all actors to work specifically to restore life to the Nineveh Plain, for instance. By encouraging projects in agriculture, livestock, trade, etc.,” he said, suggesting that some more cooperation among bishops in the area could help achieve these goals.
The cardinal also asked Christians to “pray for Iraq, and in particular for the people of the Nineveh Plain,” as a special Advent devotion.
Edward Clancy, director of outreach for Aid to the Church in Need, said that the biggest problem facing people living in the Nineveh Plains is a lack of infrastructure.
“They don’t have have regular resources, as they should, because of the many years of war and now, sporadic help from the government as far as roads, security, things like that,” Clancy told CNA in a phone interview.
Clancy added that Americans should work to become aware of the problems facing Christians in the Middle East. Without awareness, the entire Christian community there is facing extinction.
“Awareness is a very big portion of it,” said Clancy. “Another thing is that people in the Christian world, the Christian community, tend not to self-promote. You don’t hear a lot of, you know, ‘this is happening to Christians.’ There seems to be a lot more interest in helping others, which is a great thing, but at the same time we have to understand that there’s Christians in great need in the Middle East.”
On the local level, Clancy said that parishes should work to provide “some sort of aid” to their brethren in the Middle East, either financial or spiritual. Without this aid, Christians will continue to flee their homelands or be at risk of terrorism.
“We have to, as a Church, get the message out better, understand better that there are Christians there and then do something about it,” he said.
“We should be shocked by the fact that over 90% of the Christians of Iraq have left, perhaps for good,” said Clancy. “And that means that it’s going to take a concerted effort of the global Church to help Christianity remain in places like Iraq and the Middle East.”
Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso, Dec 5, 2019 / 12:09 am (CNA).- Following the death of more than a dozen Christians in a church shooting over the weekend, a Burkina Faso bishop said Western governments have a responsibility to stop the flow of weapons to militants in the region.
“The Western powers should stop those who are committing these crimes, instead of selling them the weapons that they are using to kill the Christians,” Bishop Justin Kientega of Ouahigouya told Aid to the Church in Need.
On Sunday, gunmen in the eastern Burkina Faso town of Hantoukoura attacked a protestant church service, killing 14 people, including several children.
“I condemn the barbaric attack against the Protestant Church of Hantoukoura in the department of Foutouri, which left 14 dead and several wounded. I offer my deepest condolences to the bereaved families and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded,” President Roch Marc Kaboré tweeted late Sunday.
Bishop Kientega said the attack is part of an attempt by radical Islamists to “provoke a conflict between the religions in a country where Christians and Muslims have always lived peaceably side by side.”
According to the Washington Post, militants with connections to al-Qaeda and ISIS regularly attack soldiers and civilians in the region.
“No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, just as no-one claimed responsibility for the previous ones. So we don’t know whether it is one group or several groups that are involved,” Kientega said.
Escalating violence among armed militant groups in Burkina Faso has drawn international concern, with the United Nations warning earlier this year of an “unprecedented humanitarian emergency” in the country. Nearly half a million people have been forced to flee their homes in the last five years. More than 60 Christians have been murdered in the country this year, Aid to the Church in Need reports.
Last month, Pope Francis called for prayers and urged interreligous dialogue amid ongoing violence by jihadist groups.
Kientega argued that the Western world has been ignoring the plight of Christians in West Africa. He suggested some Western powers “have an interest in seeing the violence continue” in the region.
“There is an ongoing persecution of Christians. For months, we bishops have been denouncing what is happening in Burkina Faso, but nobody is listening to us,” he told Aid to the Church in Need. “Evidently, the West are more concerned with protecting their own interests.”
Cairo, Egypt, Nov 27, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- Human rights groups have voiced concern over the arrest of a Coptic Christian activist in Egypt, on terrorism-related charges. Critics argue the arrest is an attempt to silence those who disagree with the g… […]
Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2019 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- A new report claims that the Syrian refugee crisis is severely burdening Lebanon’s limited resources and threatens its pluralism, requiring immediate international assistance.
“Lebanon … […]
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Nov 20, 2019 / 12:16 am (CNA).- Bishops and Catholic leaders from West Africa concluded a two-day meeting last week by reaffirming their commitment to work for an end to the violence plaguing the region.
“[T]he Church … […]
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Nov 18, 2019 / 01:57 pm (CNA).- In a joint statement signed Monday, Pope Francis and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, committed to helping improve the health of those who live in impoverished communities.
The statement was signed in Abu Dhabi on their behalf Nov. 18 by Archbishop Francisco Padilla, apostolic nuncio to the United Arab Emirates, and Mohamed Mubarak Al Mazrouei, the crown prince’s undersecretary.
“We reaffirm our mutual cooperation towards the improvement of the health and wellbeing of communities in need,” they said. “This cooperation stems from a belief that every person, no matter their background, has the right to live a dignified and healthy life.”
The statement was made on the occasion of the Reaching the Last Mile forum held in Abu Dhabi, an initiative of Al Nahyan’s that works to eradicate preventable diseases like polio, malaria, and guinea worm disease from poor communities.
Such preventable diseases often spread as a result of “the poverty and social vulnerability of the most marginalized members of society,” the statement noted.
The pope and the crown prince called for renewed efforts on the parts of states to improve the health and medical resources available to all of their citizens, including the most marginalized. They also called on the international community to commit to improving the health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations throughout the world.
“One such area of focus is the fight to end Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), which affect more than 1.5 billion of the world’s population,” they said.
According to the World Health Organization, NTDs are “a diverse group of communicable diseases that prevail in tropical and subtropical conditions in 149 countries.”
“Faced with diseases that today can be monitored, prevented and eliminated, there is a need for greater efforts on the parts of all to coordinate available resources in order to achieve adequate solutions,” Pope Francis and Al Nahyan said.
“This will also demand an interdisciplinary, socio-medical and environmental approach. Guaranteeing the right to treatment for all people is paramount. We therefore fully support the Reaching the Last Mile Fund and its work in treating and monitoring of NTDs, and in the future will continue to collaborate on other global health initiatives,” they said.
“Finally, we trust in the solidarity of all people who understand the sufferings of those in situations of great need in neglected and disadvantaged parts of the world, so that this needless scourge afflicting humanity may be eradicated once and for all.”
Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Pope Francis visited the city in February, to promote interreligious dialogue and give support to the UAE’s Christian minority. He was invited by Al Nahyan, and while there he signed a peace declaration on human fraternity with Ahmed el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar, which stated that “the pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.”
Nairobi, Kenya, Nov 14, 2019 / 05:35 pm (CNA).- On the sidelines of the Nairobi Summit, the US and 10 other nations delivered a joint statement Thursday indicating their commitment to women’s health, and their concern over the summit’s process and content.
The statement echoes concerns that the international gathering is too focused on “reproductive rights”.
“We are … concerned about the content of some of the key priorities of this Summit,” read the Nov. 14 joint statement from the US, Brazil, Belarus, Egypt, Haiti, Hungary, Libya, Poland, Senegal, St. Lucia, and Uganda.
“We do not support references in international documents to ambiguous terms and expressions, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), which do not enjoy international consensus … In addition, the use of the term SRHR may be used to actively promote practices like abortion.”
The Nov. 12-14 Nairobi Summit is sponsored by the UN Population Fund and the governments of Kenya and Denmark, and it marks the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development, which was held in Cairo.
Its program includes five themes, among which are “Universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights as a part of universal health coverage” and “Upholding the right to sexual and reproductive health care even in humanitarian and fragile contexts.”
The 11 nations opposed to the summit’s abortion focus recalled that the 1994 Cairo Conference “had as its stated objectives and actions to collectively address the critical challenges and interrelationships between population and sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development.”
In the past 25 years “many countries have made substantial progress in reducing death rates and increasing education and income levels, including by improving the educational and economic status of women. It is noteworthy that, as opposed to the population growth predictions included in the ICPD Program of Action, these predictions have not come to pass,” the joint statement noted.
“Indeed, in most regions of the world today, fertility is below population replacement rates. As a result, family planning should focus both on the voluntary achievement of pregnancy as well as the prevention of unwanted pregnancy.”
The 11 countries affirmed the “key foundational principles” of the Cairo Conference, saying, “We strongly support the holistic pursuit of the highest attainable outcomes of health, life, dignity, and well-being … this includes but is not limited to: reproductive concerns; maternal health; primary health care; voluntary and informed family planning; family strengthening; equal educational and economic opportunities for women and men.”
“We wish to emphasize that the agreement reached at Cairo remains a solid foundation for addressing new challenges within a consensus-driven process that gives each government equal opportunity to negotiate a broadly accepted document within the UN, reaffirming that health is a precondition for and an outcome and indicator of the realization of ICPD,” read the joint statement.
The nations said the Cairo Conference’s action program was “approved by consensus” because, in part, it “made clear that the conference did not create any new international human rights.”
The joint statement noted, “There is no international right to abortion; in fact, international law clearly states that ‘[e]veryone has the right to life’” and that the Cairo Conference said “that countries should ‘take appropriate steps to help women avoid abortion, which in no case should be promoted as a method of family planning’ (ICPD 7.24) and to ‘reduce the recourse to abortion’.”
The 11 countries added that they “cannot support a sex education that fails to adequately engage parents and which promotes abortion as a method of family planning.”
They indicated that “we would have appreciated more transparency and inclusiveness in the preparation of the Conference, including regarding criteria for civil society participation. While the Cairo ICPD Program of Action was negotiated and implemented with and by the entire UN General Assembly membership, only a small handful of governments were consulted on the planning and modalities of the 2019 Nairobi Summit. Therefore, outcomes from this summit are not intergovernmentally negotiated, nor are they the result of a consensus process. As a result, they should not be considered normative.”
The countries said the Nairobi Summit “is centered on only certain aspects of the ICPD Program of Action and does not fully reflect all views and positions of the Member States … unless negotiated and adopted by consensus of all Member States, within the process and structure of an international body such as the UN General Assembly, no ICPD follow-on document has consensual weight or standing amongst governments.”
“We call upon Member States to maintain the original and legitimate 1994 ICPD principles … that explicitly retain important government statements and reservations that permitted consensus, to reiterate their reservations to the ICPD Program of Action as reflected in the conference’s report, and to focus our efforts, resources, and determination to fulfill the unfinished work of attaining sustainable development for every nation so as to promote the dignity of the human person and human flourishing.”
The objections of the 11 countries represented by the joint statement echoed concerns from the Holy See and from bishops in Kenya.
The Holy See is not partipating in the summit, saying that the organizers chose “to focus the conference on a few controversial and divisive issues that do not enjoy international consensus and that do not reflect accurately the broader population and development agenda outlined by the ICPD.”
“The ICPD and its encompassing Programme of Action within the international community’s broad development agenda should not be reduced to so-called ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights’ and ‘comprehensive sexuality education,’”, the Holy See stated.
Bishop Alfred Rotich, Bishop Emeritus of the Military Ordinariate of Kenya and chair of the Kenyan bishops’ family life office, told ACI Africa: “We find such a conference not good for us, (and) destroying the agenda for life.”
Archbishop Martin Kivuva of Mombasa described the summit’s agenda as “unacceptable according to our teaching of the Catholic Church.”
The US delivered a commitment statement at the summit Nov. 13, saying it is committed “to empowering women and girls to thrive, but this statement is only intended for the purposes of this reading and is not to be used as an endorsement of the commitments of this summit.”
The commitment statement added that the US “has been, and will be a prime advocate and will continue to invest in programs which empower women and girls to realize their full potential, reinforce their inherent dignity, promote and advance their equality, protect their inalienable rights, and support optimal health outcomes across their lifespans. Families, positive male figures, (including caring fathers), communities, and civil society, (including faith based organizations), play an important role in supporting women and girls to thrive.”
Dr. Frederick Wamalma, regional president of Pax Romana International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, told ACI Africa that the desire of many participants in the Nairobi Summit to have a decreasing rate of population growth in Africa is a fallacy.
“Africa needs to focus on population growth because we need to grow the population of working people, which is very important for us,” he said.
“If you go to some of the European countries, they don’t have the working age population. So, they have this larger population of old people who are no longer working. We don’t want to be caught up with what we’re seeing there,” Wamalma stated.
He added: “From a developing country point of view, population shouldn’t be a problem. What we need to be stressed with is being able to give these young people who are coming, joining the labour market the right skills to be able to be productive in the labour market.”
Wamalma stressed that African countries need clear “policies around education, policies around health, policies around labour market, policies around social protection.”
Rep. Chris Smith, a congressman from New Jersey, wrote in a Nov. 11 opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal that through the Nairobi Summit, “the governments of Kenya and Denmark and the United Nations Population Fund are attempting to hijack the U.N.’s global population and development work to support an extreme pro-abortion agenda.”
Smith, who attended the Cairo Conference, said the “conveners of the Nairobi Summit have blocked attendance by conservative organizations and excluded countries and stakeholders that disagree with their agenda from offering input on the substance and planning of the conference,” including the US.
He lamented that “key elements of the Cairo program are missing from the Nairobi Summit agenda,” noting that the ICPD recognized sex-selective abortion as a harmful practice.
“The Nairobi Summit isn’t a true reflection of ICPD but a gathering of like-minded individuals and organizations departing from the Cairo consensus as they promote a pro-abortion agenda while attempting to exploit Cairo’s name and reputation,” the congressman concluded.
To counter the agenda of the Nairobi Summit, the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum, with the backing of Kenya’s bishops, has organized a parallel convention to be held Nov. 11-14.
Magdalene Kahiu contributed to this report.
Qamishli, Syria, Nov 12, 2019 / 12:59 pm (CNA).- The Islamic State (ISIS) militant group on Monday claimed responsibility for the shooting of an Armenian Catholic priest and his father in northeastern Syria.
Father Hovsep Bedoyan was the head of the A… […]
Baghdad, Iraq, Nov 12, 2019 / 10:50 am (CNA).- The Chaldean patriarch has called for three days of fasting and prayer “for an end to the chaos and violence that are bloodying” Iraq.
For more than six weeks, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis … […]
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