Putting our problems as Catholics in the modernist world in perspective, here is a story from CNA.
Priest says Muslim extremists want to rid Middle East of Christians
Cairo, Egypt, Dec 19, 2010 / 06:02 pm (CNA).- An Egyptian priest has explained that radical Muslims are trying to rid the Middle East entirely of Christians, who once comprised the largest religious group in the region.
“This is what the Muslim fundamentalists want,” the Egyptian Catholic spokesman Fr. Rafic Greische told Vatican Radio.
“They want the Christians to evacuate from the Middle East and leave. And this is what is happening every day.” He expressed frustration that governments throughout the region, not noted for their responsiveness to popular concerns, “do not take serious action to relieve or solve these problems.”
Egyptian Christians face significant public and private discrimination, including policies that make it nearly impossible for them to build churches. In November, a crowd demonstrating for their right to build a church in Giza clashed with police, who fired on unarmed protesters.
[…]
Even instances of Christians becoming Muslims can make these tensions turn explosive. In October, when suicide-attackers at Iraq’s Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation killed almost 60 worshipers at a Sunday Mass in Baghdad, the Islamic State of Iraq group claimed it was an act of retaliation for two alleged female converts from Christianity to Islam, supposedly being held captive by Coptic Christians.
[…]
Fr. Greische said the Baghdad incident had given rise to a climate of fear among Christians throughout the region. “All the churches, we have police all around our churches,” he told Vatican Radio. “It’s as if we are in a fortress.”
It’s made for a difficult Advent season. “Up to now, we don’t really feel Christmas in the joyful way,” he acknowledged. But within churches that may feel like fortresses, Egyptian Christians have a deeper source of security: “Jesus, who is with us (through) all these difficulties that we have.”
Read the whole piece over there.
Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us.
