Statement on the Persecution of Christians in Iraq

Rutherford Card. Johnson-Etruria-di Daniell
Patriarch of Saint Stephen

Sub Tuum. 

The Taking of Jerusalem from the Muslims by the Crusaders.

Christians in Mosul, Iraq, have been given a deadline (that has now passed) to convert to Islam, pay a tax, leave, or be killed. (Read the story here.) This comes after more than a decade of war waged primarily by the United States in Iraq ostensibly to stem the tide of terrorism and create a free society there. The job clearly was not done properly. I lay this squarely at the feet not of the soldiers, but of the politicians and political military commanders who insisted that the war be fought politically. They were more concerned about not offending Muslims than they were of gaining military supremacy and control. If the latter goal was not possible, then the exercise was not worth the time, money, and human life spent on it.

People in recent times are fond of claiming that acts of terror and violence by Islamists are really the work of "Islamic extremists" and not those who follow the true principles of Islam. Utter garbage! Sheer insanity and stupidity! Those Mohammedans in Mosul who are telling Christians to convert, pay a tax, leave the area, or be killed ARE FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES OF ISLAM! That is what their religion tells them to do. They are following it to the letter. Christian people of the world, stop placating and equivocating and apologizing. Call it what it is - the brutal acts of individuals following a brutal religion that is, as a matter of historical fact, a heresy off of Christianity.

And where is the true international outrage? Where are the calls to invade Iraq again? Are Christians less important than oil or supposed weapons of mass destruction? Was Kuwait worth liberating, but not the Christian people of the Middle East? Why is the international community not concerned about the genocide of Christians in Muslim lands? Surely we do not think that Muslims have the right to treat our Christian people in this way? Then again, perhaps those in government actually think this. I recall some years ago some persons in the administration of the SolBridge International School of Business in South Korea, where I was a professor and chaplain, telling me that the Islamic students had every right to desecrate Christian iconography because that was part of their religion. Such is the vile influence of Islam. That was merely a small-scale example. Imagine the effects on a large scale when Muslims control the government, society, and the streets.

We are truly living in the age of the great martyrdom. More people are dying for the Cross of Christ than in any other period in history. Most Christians stand idly by with their heads in the sand, blind to what is going on. It is time to call what is going on what it truly is. It is time to condemn the genocide being waged by Muslims against the Christian people.