Bishop laments indifference to fate of Syrian, Iraqi Christians

The Eastern-rite bishop responsible for ministering to Syriac Catholics in the United States and Canada lamented Western political indifference to the fate of Syrian and Iraqi Christians. 

“You can’t even imagine,” said Bishop Yousif Habash in an interview with the National Catholic Register. 

“Even a picture cannot express and show the misery. If you don’t know a person, you cannot really comprehend the suffering. But when you do know them, then you understand how the misery, the suffering is so deep.” 

Recounting the hospitality he received in the tents of Christian refugees during a recent visit to Iraq, he said, “Honest to God, almost every family said this: 

‘We give thanks to the Lord. We are still Christian.’ And our people were very convinced that, although they had been through a very evil storm, the arm of God saved them. They understood this very well.” 

He added: I came from Irbil, I saw the miserable people, the catastrophe, and I have to speak with diplomatic words and to hide the crime, the crime of the world. 

Because what happened is truly genocide: uprooting innocent people of the wonderful and peaceful civilization of Christianity in this part of the world. But, unfortunately, when you speak about human rights in Europe or America, it is only for your people inside your country. 

But concerning the outside, the other human beings: “No, we don’t care; it’s their problem.” When we speak out, we get the routine answer from the Islamic religious or the Muslim authorities: “They are non-Muslim, the Islamic State.” 

How can it be, they are non-Muslim? All of them are Muslim. Or: “They work outside of the Islamic world.” So who is the financial source of ISIS? It’s very clear; it’s Saudi Arabia. 

Unfortunately, no one has the guts to say that. Who is fighting Syria? Who is supporting and financing the war against Syria? It’s very clear: Saudi Arabia.

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