Jerusalem, Jan 29, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- The proposed Israeli-Palestinian peace plan announced this week is “no solution,” Catholic bishops of the Holy Land said on Wednesday.
“This plan will bring no solution but rather will creat… […]
Baghdad, Iraq, Jan 29, 2020 / 10:11 am (CNA).- Four men working in Iraq for the French humanitarian organization SOS Chrétiens d’Orient went missing last week in Baghdad.
The organization works to support Eastern Christians with humanitarian material aid; it has permanent missions in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt.
SOS Chrétiens d’Orient has said four of its employees disappeared Jan. 20 after they made a trip to an appointment by car. The group tried to contact them the following day, unsuccessfully.
“It was clear that they had disappeared” by Jan. 22 “and therefore we immediately alerted the French authorities,” the group said, adding that both French and Iraqi authorities are working to find them.
The missing employees had gone to Baghdad “to renew their visas and the registration of association with the Iraqi authorities and to monitor the association’s operations” in the country.
In a Jan. 24 statement, SOS Chrétiens d’Orient said that “we have received no ransom demand, no information on the fate of our four friends and collaborators. We are of course in close contact with their families. The association and all our teams share their terrible concern.”
Christians in Iraq have suffered persecution in recent years, especially during the invasion of the Islamic State.
Prior to when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, there were about 1.5 million Iraqi Christians. Today, that number is believed to be fewer than 500,000.
Khartoum, Sudan, Jan 28, 2020 / 04:27 pm (CNA).- According to a local rights group in Sudan, three churches in a town were burnt down in December 2019 and quickly rebuilt, only to be burnt down again earlier this month.
Human Rights and Development Organization said that a Catholic church, an Orthodox church, and a Sudan Internal Church in Bout were burnt down on both Dec. 28 and Jan. 16; the church buildings had been rebuilt in the interim. Bout is the capital of Tadamoun district in Blue Nile state, more than 300 miles southeast of Khartoum.
According to HUDO, the alleged arsons were reported to Bout police each time, “but police did not investigate further or put preventive measures.”
The human rights organization has decried the attack and criticized the government for negligence of religious freedom.
But the Sundanese religious affairs minister, Nasr al-Din Mufreh, has claimed that only one church had been attacked twice.
The Sudan Tribune reported that Mufreh stated “Sudan’s full commitment to protecting religious freedoms.”
“If it is proven that it occurred as a result of a criminal offence, the perpetrators will be identified, pursued and brought to justice,” he said. He added that a suspect had been interrogated, but was released for lack of evidence.
Mufreh added that “The Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Blue Nile state government have committed themselves to build a church with modern materials (…) and taking appropriate measure for its future protection.”
Sudan was listed as a Country of Particular Concern for its religious freedom record by the US Department of State from 1999 to 2019.
In December 2019, it was moved to the Special Watch List “due to significant steps taken by the civilian-led transitional government to address the previous regime’s ‘systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.’”
Sudan had been under the military dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir since 1989, but pro-democracy protests led to his overthrow in April 2019. The country is now led by a transitional government.
According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, under Bashir the government “actively promoted and enforced a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam and imposed religious-based constraints on Muslims and non-Muslims.”
At least 90 percent of Sudan’s population is Muslim, and sharia is the source of the nation’s legislation. Apostasy from Islam is punishable by the death penalty.
Washington D.C., Jan 28, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a new peace plan for the Middle East on Tuesday. The plan includes an independent Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.
Trump said Jan. 28 that the plan offers a “win-win opportunity for both sides” and a “realistic two-state solution that resolves the risk of Palestinian statehood to Israel’s security.”
“This is the first time Israel has authorized the release of a conceptual map, illustrating the territorial consequences it’s willing to make for the cause of peace,” said Trump. “And they’ve gone a long way. This is an unprecedented and highly significant development.”
Netanyahu, who was in Washington on Tuesday for the unveiling of the plan, also used the term “realistic” when describing the proposal and said that it “strikes the right balance where others have failed.”
Despite optimism from the two leaders, the proposal was not welcomed by the Palestinian Authority. President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement on Tuesday evening that the proposal “will not pass.” Protests erupted in Gaza following the announcement of the plan.
Under the terms of the proposal, the Palestinian state would have a capital city called Al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, which would include parts of East Jerusalem. Despite this, Trump insisted that Jerusalem would also remain “Israel’s undivided–very important–undivided capital.” The United States moved their embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in 2017.
Under the plan, none of Jerusalem’s Old City or territory within the current security wall would be ceded to the Palestinian state. The agreement also preserves the status quo policy regarding control of various religious sites, including the site of the Temple Mount and Al Aqsa Mosque, and, under the proposal, Muslims would still have access to the site.
The plan also proposes the construction of a “West Bank-Gaza Tunnel” to connect the two halves of the new state, and that a third of the Gaza Strip be designated as a “high-tech manufacturing industrial zone.”
Trump claimed Tuesday that the plan would “more than double Palestinian territory” without causing additional displacement for either Israelis or Palestinians. The plan includes provision for a “land freeze” over the next four years to maintain the borders of the proposed Palestinian state.
As part of the plan, Trump also pledged $50 billion towards the Palestinian state for job creation and poverty reduction. Trump said that if Abbas and the Palestinian Authority “choose the path to peace,” that the United States and other countries “will be there, we will be there to help you in so many different ways.”
After the announcement of the plan, Trump sent out a variety of tweets in English, Hebrew, and Arabic championing the proposal.
“I will always stand with the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I strongly support their safety and security and their right to live in their historic homeland. It’s time for peace!” the president tweeted in English and Hebrew.
“This is what a future State of Palestine can look like, with a capital in parts of East Jerusalem,” Trump tweeted in Arabic and English. Both tweets included a map of the proposed two states.
Parts of the proposed plan would seem to be in line with the Holy See’s stated preferences for a lasting peace in the Holy Land.
Monsignor Fredrik Hansen, chargé d’affaires of the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See, told the UN Security Council on Jan. 22 that Pope Francis continues to advocate for a two-state solution and a status quo policy in Jerusalem for shared religious sites.
“Indeed, the appeal to maintain the status quo of the holy sites of Jerusalem, dear to Jews, Christians and Muslims in virtue of their religion and important for the cultural heritage of the whole human family, is one that has been repeatedly made,” said Hansen.
Pope Francis, Hansen said, wishes for Jerusalem to live out “its vocation as a city of peace,” which can be a symbolic location of peace and encounter, with respect between religions and continued dialogue.
New York City, N.Y., Jan 23, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis is concerned about the worsening situation in the Middle East, and is urging a continued commitment to dialogue in the region, a senior Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Security … […]
Kaduna, Nigeria, Jan 20, 2020 / 11:30 am (CNA).- A Nigerian seminarian who was abducted this month was freed by his kidnappers after 10 days in captivity. Three seminarians kidnapped with him remain in captivity.
The freed seminarian, who has not yet been identified, is being treated at a Catholic hospital in Kaduna, Nigeria. The extent of his injuries is unclear, but he is being treated in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
“From the time of the abduction, this seminarian was stubborn to the abductors; he could hold on anything he could find, resisting the kidnapping,” a source close to Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Kaduna told ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner.
“The seminarian was beaten up badly resulting in some fractures of his body parts, yet they took him still,” the source said of the Jan. 8 kidnapping.
The seminarian, still suffering injuries from his abduction, was dumped by kidnappers Jan. 18 on the side of Nigeria’s Kaduna-Abuja highway. He was taken to the hospital after being found by passing motorists.
The seminarian might have been freed and dumped along the road “because the abductors felt the boy could not survive in their hands,” a source told ACI Africa.
The abducted seminarians were first year philosophy students at Good Shepherd Seminary.
The students, Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; Stephen Amos, 23; and Michael Nnadi, 18, were abducted on the night of Jan. 8 in a 30-minute operation that saw the kidnappers, dressed in military uniform and armed with guns, force their way onto the Catholic seminary campus, which is home to 268 seminarians.
Since Jan. 11, the abductors have been making contact with family members of the seminarians to discuss ransoms for their release, a source in Nigeria told ACI Africa Jan. 12.
According to a Sunday news report, Archbishop Matthew Man’oso Ndagoso of Kaduna has cautioned against speculation about the abductors’ demand for ransom for the safe release of the seminarians.
“We have streamlined discussion with the kidnappers, it is only one person that is communicating with them, we can’t disclose any discussion with them,” Archbishop Man’oso told local media. Good Shepherd Seminary is located just off the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Express Way. According to AFP, the area is “notorious for criminal gangs kidnapping travelers for ransom.”
The news agency said that schoolgirls and staff from a boarding school also located near the highway were kidnapped in October, and were later released.
Kidnappings of Christians in Nigeria have multiplied in recent months, a situation that has prompted Church leaders to express serious concern about the security of their members and to call on the government to prioritize the security of its citizens.
A version of this story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner. It has been adapted by CNA.
Jerusalem, Jan 17, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Following a trip to the Holy Land, a group of bishops from the United States and Europe called on their countries’ governments to acknowledge the state of Palestine and to apply international law in Israel and the surrounding area in order to promote peace and justice.
“We are inspired by their enduring resilience and faith in a worsening situation,” the bishops said of those who live in the Holy Land in a Jan. 16 statement.
The bishops added that the Catholic bishops of the Holy Land have “lamented the international community’s failure to help realize justice and peace here in the place of Christ’s birth. Our governments must do more to meet their responsibilities for upholding international law and protecting human dignity. In some cases they have become actively complicit in the evils of conflict and occupation.”
The bishops are part of the Holy Land Coordination group, which was founded by the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales and is comprised of bishops from the U.S. and Europe. Besides their annual trip to the Holy Land, the group promotes awareness, action, and prayer for the region.
During the Jan. 11-16 trip, the bishops visited Christians in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and Ramallah.
After their recent visit, the bishops said it was “painfully clear” that living conditions for the people of the Holy Land are worsening, particularly “in the West Bank where our sisters and brothers are denied even basic rights including freedom of movement.”
“In Gaza the political decisions of all sides have resulted in the creation of an open-air prison, human rights abuses and a profound humanitarian crisis. We were welcomed by families whose focus is now day-to-day survival and whose aspirations have been reduced to bare essentials such as electricity and clean water,” they said.
The visiting bishops said that local bishops warn “that people are facing further ‘evaporation of hope for a durable solution’.” They added: “We have witnessed this reality first-hand, particularly how construction of settlements and the separation wall is destroying any prospect of two states existing in peace.”
The bishops encouraged their own countries’ governments to find political solutions to the conflicts in the Holy Land, including: “insisting upon the application of international law; following the Holy See’s lead in recognizing the State of Palestine, addressing the security concerns of Israel and the right of all to live in safety, rejecting political or economic support for settlements, and resolutely opposing acts of violence or abuses of human rights by any side.”
The Vatican recognized the state of Palestine in May 2015.
They also thanked the religious sisters, priests, and laypeople in the region who are providing services such as education and healthcare to the vulnerable populations, and encouraged the increasing number of Christians making pilgrimages to the Holy Land to engage with the local communities in the area on their trips.
“In taking these steps the international community can meaningfully stand in solidarity with those Israelis and Palestinians who are refusing to give up their non-violent struggle for justice, peace and human rights,” the bishops added. “We pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
The delegation on the trip included Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton, chair of the Holy Land Coordination; Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the U.S. Military Archdiocese; bishops from throughout Europe; and an Anglican bishop.
Gaza City, Jan 14, 2020 / 12:47 am (CNA).- With fewer than 1,000 Christians in a population of 1.8 million, the Christian population in Palestine’s Gaza Strip today is less than half of what it was 10 years ago.
“They are — of all the Christian groups in the Holy Land — certainly by far the group that’s facing the most difficulty,” Robert Nicholson, president and founder of the Philos Project, told CNA.
Nicholson is currently leading an initiative to help Gazan Christians. He insists the world does not need to wait for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to help the dwindling Palestinian Christian population.
“Christians are often forgotten in this conflict,” he said. “They are really caught between forces that are much bigger than them … They’re looking for stability, they’re looking for freedom.”
“Strengthening these communities need not necessarily be tied to politics,” Nicholson said.
Humanitarian circumstances for Gaza’s Christians have deteriorated since the radical Islamist Hamas takeover in June 2007, which prompted an Israeli blockade restricting the flow of commercial goods into Gaza. According to Caritas International, 80% of Gaza’s population lives below the poverty line.
The Christian minority in Gaza, which is mostly Greek Orthodox, also faces discrimination from the Muslim majority, according to Nicholson. “They are of course in Gaza being ruled by Hamas, a very extreme Muslim group that is rejected even by the Palestinian Authority. And, as Christians in this very difficult fundamentalist society, they face all kinds of social and political persecution,” he said.
This is one of the many factors that has led more and more Palestinian Christians to try to escape Gaza and to relocate to the West Bank, where many end up living with an irregular status and separated from their families.
“They are living in what is essentially an illegal immigrant status because of the way they moved from Gaza to the West Bank. They are washing dishes, they are cleaning homes. If they get arrested at a check-point, they get sent back to Gaza. And so these people, they’re living on the fringes of the society. Even the Christians of the West Bank are not doing that much for them,” Nicholson said.
Witnessing this struggle led Nicholson to start the Gaza Exodus initiative, which seeks to help reunite Christian families divided by the Green Line.
“We’re working with the Israeli and Palestinian governments to get their status normalized, to help them reunite with their families who are still in Gaza and to provide some basic level of financial support for them to make this transition,” Nicholson told CNA in October.
“There’s like social entrepreneurship that can happen that can lift the status of these Christians,” he said.
The Gaza Exodus initiative raised more than $20,000 in a three-month campaign at the end of 2019 to reunite four Christian families for Christmas.
Days before Christmas, Israeli authorities reversed a Dec. 12 announcement barring Gaza Christians from visiting Bethlehem and Jerusalem in the West Bank. Of the 800 travel permits requested, 316 were granted by Christmas Eve, Reuters reported.
Through the Philos Project, Nicholson has worked since 2014 to expose young people to the plurality of voices in Israel, Palestine, and throughout the Middle East.
The Philos Project brings Christian college students and young professionals on organized trips to the Holy Land to engage with the local religious and political realities. It is an ecumenical initiative with staff and fellows from Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Assyrian backgrounds.
“What I’m trying to do is bring people into an encounter with the birthplace of their faith because there’s power in that encounter,” Nicholson said. “The Middle East is and will remain important.”
Kaduna, Nigeria, Jan 13, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- Four seminarians, between the ages of 18 and 23, were abducted Wednesday night from their seminary in Kaduna, in northwestern Nigeria.
Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; Stephen Amos, 23; and Michael Nnadi, 18, were taken from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna, around 10:30 pm on Jan. 8 by gunmen. Police are searching for the four young men.
Nearly 270 seminarians live at Good Shepherd.
“The security situation in Nigeria is appalling”, Thomas Heine-Geldern, executive president of ACN International, said Jan. 13. “Criminal gangs are further exploiting the chaotic situation and making matters still worse.”
He compared the situation in Nigeria to that of Iraq prior to the Islamic State’s invasion: “Already at that stage, Christians were being abducted, robbed and murdered because there was no protection by the state. This must not be allowed to happen to the Christians of Nigeria. The government must act now, before it is too late.”
The gunmen, disguised in military camouflage, broke through the fence surrounding the seminarians’ living quarters and began shooting sporadically. They stole laptops and phones before kidnapping the four young men.
A source in Nigeria told ACI Africa that the kidnappers made contact with family members of the seminarians Jan. 11, “but never pronounced any amount of money as ransom.”
Each of the abductees were first year philosophers, sources told ACI Africa.
Good Shepherd Seminary is located just off the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Express Way. According to AFP, the area is “notorious for criminal gangs kidnapping travelers for ransom.”
The news agency said that schoolgirls and staff from a boarding school also located near the highway were kidnapped in October, and were later released.
Kidnappings of Christians in Nigeria have multiplied in recent months, a situation that has prompted Church leaders to express serious concern about the security of their members and to call on the government to prioritize the security of its citizens.
A version of this story was initially reported by CNA’s sister agency, ACI Africa. It has been adapted by CNA.
Erbil, Iraq, Jan 8, 2020 / 11:48 am (CNA).- After Iran attacked an air base in Erbil early Wednesday, the Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil said the current tensions between Iran and the U.S. threaten the fragile Christian communities in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains.
“The current tensions between the two powers must not escalate. Iraq has been suffering from proxy wars for decades; they have torn our country apart,” Archbishop Bashar Warda told CNA Jan. 8.
In retaliation for the U.S. drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, Iran fired a more than a dozen ballistic missiles at the Al Asad and Erbil air bases, where U.S. troops are stationed. There were no casualties from the attacks, according to U.S. and Iraqi forces.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a speech Jan. 8 that he is asking NATO to become much more involved in the Middle East, and said Iran appears to be “standing down.”
Warda said his Catholic community in Iraqi Kurdistan is tired of war and its tragic consequences. “They have continually suffered far too much and can no longer face an unknown future,” he said.
“We are a courageous people of hope. Since the defeat of ISIS in May 2017 by the coalition forces, our archdiocese has been working with other church leaders, Christian agencies, humanitarian agencies, governments and NGOs to help rebuild our fractured communities in Mosul and Nineveh Plain. It has been a very challenging road to raise funds and international support to help us to physically regain what we lost starting in August 2014. The current tensions are threatening the serious fragility of the communities,” Warda said.
Iraqi Christians “need the certainty, reassurance, hope and the belief that Iraq can be a peaceful country to live in rather than being victims and endless collateral damage,” he said.
The Archbishop of Erbil said he was united with the appeal from Cardinal Louis Raphael I Sako, Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, prudently to seek civilised dialogue and to pray for peace.
“As Church leaders we will always follow the path of God in seeking peace, reconciliation, mutual dialogue and not conflict,” he said.
Fr. Benham Benoka, a priest of the Syriac Archeparchy of Mosul, said that he hopes the situation of Christians in the Nineveh Plains will be taken into consideration as Iran and the United States confront one another.
“We feel increasingly insecure, especially now that we are talking about the withdrawal of military forces,” Benoka said in an an Italian interview with Vatican Radio Jan. 8.
Fr. Benoka is currently based in Bartella, a Christian city fewer than 20 miles east of Mosul controlled by Shia militiamen.
Following Islamic State’s occupation of the Bartella, the city’s Christian population has been reduced to less than a third of what it was, according to the Associated Press, who reported in 2019 that Christians families were afraid to return to Bartella due to intimidation by the Shabak, a Shia ethnic group who make up the militias controlling the town.
“Since we returned, even if only partially, to our land, after the defeat of IS in October 2016, we have been engaged in the reconstruction of houses and churches. But there are other forces, such as the so-called ‘Thirty Brigade’ of Shiite Shabak Muslims, who have taken control of the Christian city of Bartella and every day we must suffer their aggressive acts against churches and against our Christians, especially against women. This is why we have been asking for a solution to our situation for some time,” Fr. Benoka said.
The Iraqi priest said that he was particularly concerned to hear that the Iraqi parliament voted to ask the government to end the presence of international coalition forces.
“We only have 24 soldiers from the so-called NPU, the Protection Units of the Nineveh Plain, that is, Christian popular mobilization forces, and these 24 soldiers will never be able to defend us. So how can we do it? Where should we go?” he said.
“We truly pray that the military solution is not the only solution, but that there is a diplomatic solution to protect Iraqi blood,” the priest said.
Fr. Benoka said that his community prays the rosary every day for solutions to the problems facing the Iraqi people: “We ask that everyone agree – politicians and everyone else – to solve the problems that our Iraqi people suffer from, instead of chasing the interests of other foreign agendas.”
“We ask that the situation of us Christians here in the Nineveh Plain be taken into consideration: we have neither weapons nor anything,” the priest said.
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