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Toronto, Canada, Aug 3, 2016 / 03:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious freedom is for non-Muslims in the Middle East, too, a Syrian Catholic leader said in a strong warning about the future of the region’s Christians and about the “Machiavellian” nature of Western foreign policy.

“My friends, the very existence of Eastern Churches, those churches that are from the apostolic time, is at stake. They are in danger,” Patriarch Ignatius Youssef III Younan of the Syriac Catholic Church of Antioch said Aug. 2.

Christian leaders try to encourage their flock to stay in their home country.

“But believe me, this is not easy,” the patriarch said. “Because the Christians in Syria, they feel abandoned, even betrayed, by the so-called powerful nations, most particularly in the West.”

Patriarch Younan delivered remarks to the Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus in Toronto, Canada Aug. 2. He had strong words for Western foreign policy.

“We have to stand up to apply the principle of religious freedom. You can't be the best ally with regimes that discriminate and do not grant religious freedom to non-Muslims,” he said.

“We have to say it with a clear voice:  it is not honest and sincere to be the ally of such regimes and just say ‘we have an annual report about religious freedom’,” he added, in an apparent reference to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

He called for the enforcement of the U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights and action from Western countries, the Russian Federation, China, Brazil and the United Nations.

“What we need most is to stand up and defend our religious freedom and our civil rights,” he said.

The patriarch is based in Lebanon but oversees many of the Catholic faithful in Syria. He recounted Middle East Christians’ past warnings to the West to be careful in Syrian intervention and to reject talk of the “Arab Spring.”

“The situation in Syria is very complex,” he said.

The patriarch cited the complex web of religious, racial and linguistic minorities. He warned of the risk of exporting western-style democracy into regions where it has never been exercised and where the separation of religion from state has not taken place.

If Islam is the religion of the country, he said, that means “you’re going to discriminate against non-Muslims, for whatever confession they are.”

Given that religious freedom in the Middle East is linked to relations with the Islamic religion, he said, contemporary Middle East Christians “do not understand how we can close our eyes to political parties based on Islam.”

He cited the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood: “Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way and dying for God is our ultimate desire.”

Patriarch Younan warned that some methods of teaching Islam to children lack exegesis and are a danger, leading to situations like the murder of the French priest Fr. Jacques Hamel.

“In the Koran we have verses that inspire tolerance, this is true, but also we have verses that inspire violence,” the patriarch said. “And if you tell those kids that all those verses are coming from God, literally the words of God…you will be able to change that young man into a beast.”

The general situation of Iraqi and Syrian Christians was also a focus of the patriarch’s remarks.

He spoke of he kidnappings and killings of civilians and the atrocities committed by the Islamic State group or the warring parties in Syria. He recounted the destruction of churches and monasteries in Iraq and Syria and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian Christians.

Unless Christians are protected, he warned, Christianity will soon die in Syria, Iraq and even Lebanon. He said it would be comparable to Turkey where there are so few Christians despite its history of ecumenical councils and Fathers of the Church.

The Knights of Columbus have raised over $11 million for Christian refugees since 2014. The Catholic fraternal organization has helped provide food supplies, medical clinics, infrastructure, and housing. It has also supported Syriac Catholic priests exiled from Mosul.

Holy See Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, writing to the convention on behalf of Pope Francis, thanked the Knights of Columbus for their “strenuous efforts” to defend the human rights and legitimate aspirations of persecuted Christians and to provide for their needs.

Supreme Knight Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus responded to Patriarch Younan. He cited atrocities like the murder of four Missionaries of Charity in Yemen and the kidnapping of their priest Fr. Thomas Uzhunnalil.

He asked the convention for a moment of silence to pray for “these martyrs of our faith and victims of religious hatred.”

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Toronto, Canada, Aug 3, 2016 / 12:04 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, said in Toronto that Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia, is a controversial document, but that it has not introduced any change to existing Catholic doctrine.

The Canadian-born cardinal spoke during the closing address of the States Dinner at the 134th Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus.

“Before concluding,” he said, digressing from his prepared remarks, “let me say a word about the papal document, Amoris Laetitia, that was born of the two recent Synods on the Family.”

“In all honesty, I think that controversies around Amoris Laetitia are understandable, but, in all confidence, I believe they might even be fruitful in the end.”

Titled Amoris Laetitia, or The Joy of Love, the April 8 document is the conclusion of a two-year synod process at the Vatican that gathered hundreds of bishops from around the world to discuss both the beauty and challenges of family life today.

Both of the synods sparked controversy amid speculation over whether there would be a change in the Church’s practice that the divorced-and-civilly remarried may not receive Communion. In accordance with the words of Jesus that “anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery,” the Church says that those living in adultery – or any other unrepentant grave sin – may not receive Communion.

In his 1981 exhortation Familiaris consortio, St. John Paul II wrote, “The Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried.”

In his new document, Francis stresses the importance of individual discernment over one-size-fits-all style rules. In chapter eight – a section that particularly sparked controversy – he suggested that in some cases, a person who is divorced-and-civilly-remarried may not be in a state of mortal sin, due to mitigating factors such as a lack of full knowledge and consent.

The document was met with confusion, although numerous bishops and theologians have said that the exhortation does not change the teachings of the Church.

Cardinal Ouellet said that Amoris Laetitia “is a document worth reading and rereading, slowly, one chapter after another – enjoying the marvelous chapter four on Love.”

He nevertheless said that chapter eight should be entrusted “to the careful and open minded discernment of priests and bishops towards people in need of charity and mercy.”

“What is essential is that we try to grasp the Holy Father’s desire and intent to provide for the true and substantial reconciliation of so many families in confused and difficult situations.”

“No change of the doctrine is proposed, but what is proposed is a new pastoral approach: more patient and respectful, more dialogical and merciful,” the cardinal said.  

“For the most part, priests and bishops are being asked to care for and walk with them in order to help people make spiritual growth even in objective irregular situations.”

“I am grateful to the Holy Father and am convinced that this whole process of discernment and pastoral accompaniment will bear fruit for all families,” Cardinal Ouellet concluded.

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Dale Gavlak

By Dale Gavlak

IRBIL, Iraq (CNS) -- The upcoming military offensive to root out Islamic State militants from Mosul and surrounding villages will be a "huge challenge," the United Nations says, as it expects about 1.5 million people to flee the warfare in a short amount of time.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, and other humanitarian agencies -- including Catholic groups -- in Iraq are scurrying to ready preparations, as it is believed that the U.S.-led assault could be pushed forward as early as September. But aid groups fear they may be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers involved.

The U.N. says that as the Mosul crisis evolves, up to 13 million people throughout Iraq may need humanitarian aid by the year's end -- far larger than the Syrian crisis. This would make the humanitarian operation in Mosul likely the single largest, most complex in the world in 2016.

Bruno Geddo, UNHCR chief for Iraq, told Catholic News Service the United Nations has issued an appeal for the $284 million needed in part for the "preparation of camps ahead of the humanitarian emergency from Mosul." Geddo said a cluster of camps needs to be built in six locations in disputed territory.

"Not only do you have to make sure that the location is not in the direct range in the line of fire," he said, "but the terrain must be fit to build a camp."

He said safety and security screenings are top priorities as Sunni Muslims flood out of Mosul, controlled by the Islamic State group for the past two years. Iraqi authorities will be charged with conducting the security screenings to identify Islamic State collaborators.

Others who pass the screening may escape to the Ninevah Plains -- the ancestral heartland of Iraqi Christians for centuries -- and this will not be acceptable to either Christians or Yezidis persecuted by Islamic State militants.

"We are very sensitive to this issue. Yezidis always consistently said 'We will never again be able to live side by side with Sunni neighbors after what they perpetrated against us,'" Geddo told CNS. Yezidis and other religious minorities will be located in camps separate from Mosul's Sunni Muslims.

"Those security-cleared will be able to go elsewhere in the country based on sponsorships by family members, relatives, or religious institutions. They can fan out all the way down to Basra," Geddo said.

"This key for us to meet this massive humanitarian need," he added, "so they will not have to stay in camps but move on, on a sponsorship basis while they have been security cleared."

Hani El-Mahdi, country representative of Catholic Relief Services in Iraq, said the Catholic agency is building capacity with its personnel, Caritas, and church volunteers to administer emergency assistance to the newly displaced who choose to shelter in communities, rather than camps, in the Ninevah Plains, Zumar, Kirkuk and Dahuk.

"We are anticipating that the vast majority of the displaced, perhaps more than 90 percent, will shelter in noncamp areas," El-Mahdi told CNS. "CRS responded to the latest crisis in Fallujah in noncamp areas, and the lessons learned will be applied in this situation."

El-Mahdi said CRS does not promote using tents for the displaced people and has devised a new transitional shelter model made from locally available materials that is preferable in temperature extremes and more cost-effective than tents.

Retaking Mosul from the Islamic State group is significant because it is where the militant group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced the self-declared caliphate.

The city, once Iraq's second-largest, has also been the largest city under the extremists' control with an estimated population of 500,000 to 1 million. It is believed that Islamic State fighters there may number 10,000, but there are also reports of militants fleeing to Syria ahead of the offensive.

Reports have also emerged of families trying to escape Mosul and surrounding villages, once mainly populated by Iraqi Christians, ahead of the military onslaught. Some humanitarians fear a repeat of the recent burning by Islamic State militants of a 2-year-old girl and her family escaping their clutches.

Aid workers like Betsy Baldwin, who directs Tearfund's Iraq response, say their greatest concern is having enough water, shelter and other basic necessities available.

"The volume of people coming toward us is at such a large scale. While we will do our best, I have a feeling that it will be overwhelming to all players involved," said Baldwin. She said if people continue to trickle out of Mosul at a slower rate, the assistance will be more manageable, but humanitarians will need to be prepared for "a sudden and uncontrollable flow of people."

"We expect people to live in everything from abandoned buildings that have been disused for some time now. There are also a lot of unfinished buildings throughout the Kurdish region of Iraq," Baldwin told CNS. "People may shelter in open areas outside of villages, where they will be able to connect to existing services in villages, perhaps such as fetching water from them."

But Baldwin also warned that winterization supplies must also be planned for now, should the conflict drag on or the displacement be very widespread.

"If people are not able to return to their homes and face a protracted displacement, we need to think now about heaters, stoves and similar items," she added.

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