Despite the efforts of many, including this website, to raise the plight of Iraqi Catholics during the US Presidential Election, it appears as though many in the West are determined to forget the crimes committed there under the Bush and Obama administrations. During the Iraq War and its aftermath, which Joe Biden played a hands on role in, 82% of Iraq’s Christian minority were either killed or cast out.
There have been no movies made about the suffering of these people, no ‘protest songs’ written about what they had to endure and certainly no trendy hashtags raising awareness.
Yet, despite this abandonment, the Catholics of Iraq have kept the faith. Through the United States led occupation and later through the terror of ISIS, somehow they have kept the faith.
Now, there is the news that Pope Francis hopes to travel to see them in March. Ahead of that visit, the Catholics in Qaraqosh have installed a rebuilt statue of Our Lady that was destroyed by ISIS in 2015. ISIS also burned the church during that attack.
One of the things that ISIS targeted also was the local library, which has also been rebuilt.
Designed by artist Thabit Michael, the statue of Our Lady has served as reminder of the fidelity to the church despite their horrific trials this past two decades.
In recent months, Chaldean Catholics have returned to some degree of normality, with communions taking place.
Christmas celebrations were also able to take place once again.
In 2010, Chaldean Catholic Tariq Aziz was sentenced to death for his part in the pre American regime under Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi President refused to sign his execution order and he eventually died in 2015 in prison. The Vatican condemned the death sentence that he received. His story was one of many in the messy and horrific Bush/Obama period in Iraq.
With these horrors in mind, please pray that Pope Francis’s visit to Iraq in the coming weeks goes ahead. It will be a tremendous boost to these long suffering people who are an example to all of us in their faith and hope.