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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWNews.com - At least six people were killed and dozens injured in a series of bombings in Baghdad, as violence against Christians escalated across Iraq.
Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki visited the Baghdad church that was the site of a massacre last week, and pleaded with Christians not to leave Iraq. He promised that the government would “do everything possible” to encourage Christians to remain.
But on the same day, mortar shells and homemade bombs exploded at several Christian homes in Bagdad, making it clear that the campaign of violence and intimidation was continuing.
Archbishop Atanase Matti Shaba Matoka, the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad, told the Fides news service: "Despite the proclamations, the government does nothing to stop this wave of violence that overwhelms us. There are policemen in front of the churches, but now the homes of our faithful are being attacked.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, said that “Iraqi authorities should take into serious consideration” new measures to provide security for the country’s Christian minority.
Iraq’s Christian population, which stood at about 1 million in 2003 before the start of the second US military incursion, is now estimated at something less than 500,000. That number is likely to dip further as the violence drives more families to seek security elsewhere.
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CWNews.com - The Serbian Orthodox community in Gary, Indiana, is planning a service in honor of Bishop Varnava Nastic (1914-64), the first US-born saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Bishop Nastic’s family moved to Yugoslavia in 1923. Consecrated a bishop in 1947, the prelate was imprisoned by the nation’s Communist regime and may have died by poisoning.
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CWNews.com - Prompted by the European Court of Human Rights, a Turkish tribunal has given the Ecumenical Patriarchate legal title to a disputed orphanage.
The ruling is a major victory for the Orthodox patriarchate because for the first time, the Turkish government is recognizing the Ecumenical Patriarchate as a legal institution with international standing. The orphanage-- like many other Christian institutions in Turkey-- had been taken over by the government on the basis of an earlier ruling that the rejected the legal claims of the Patriarchate.
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Rabweh, 8 November 2010
Christian bloodbath
in the Cathedral of our Lady of Deliverance Baghdad |
The carnage which took place on Sunday, November 1, 2010 in the Syrian Catholic Cathedral of our Lady of Deliverance in Baghdad was of an unprecedented cruelty and barbarity. It was an attack capable of undermining the good will of genuine bridge-builders between cultures, brave heroes of inter-religious dialogue, as well as the optimism of the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East.
I offer my sincere condolences and the assurance of my prayers and those of our Church to His Beatitude Patriarch Ignace-Joseph III (Younan), to His Eminence Cardinal Emmanuel III (Delly) and to all those who are broken-hearted at this crime.
We know that this criminal act is not the work of authentic Islam, and cannot be based on it. Despite that, we hold Muslims in Iraq and in all Arab countries to be responsible for Christian security, since they have power, and control the army and police force.
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CWNews.com - A Syrian Orthodox bishop based in London is urging Iraqi Christians to abandon their native land.
“I say clearly and now-- the Christian people should leave their beloved land of our ancestors and escape the premeditated ethnic cleansing,” said Archbishop Athanasios Dawood, one week after a massacre at the Syrian Catholic cathedral in Baghdad. “This is better than having them killed one by one.”
The archbishop, a native of Iraq, added:
The Iraqi government is weak, biased, if not extremist. It does not protect us and the other minorities. It has ignored our legal rights. We ask the British government, the EU and the U.N. to protect us…. I ask the British government again to help the Iraqi Christians and grant them the rights of humanitarian asylum in order to preserve what is left of the victims who do not carry a weapon to fight and kill.“You know, everybody hates the Christian,” he said in additional remarks to BBC. “Yes, during Saddam Hussein, we were living in peace-- nobody attacked us. We had human rights, we had protection from the government but now nobody protects us.”
“Since 2003, there has been no protection for Christians,” he added. “We've lost many people and they've bombed our homes, our churches, monasteries.”
“Why are we living now in this country, after we had a promise from America to bring us freedom, democracy?”
“Staying or leaving-- we will leave it to the people to decide,” responded Father Saad Sirop Hanna, a Catholic priest in Baghdad. “I can understand this bishop, this priest, I can understand him. I agree with him from a certain point of view, but I disagree with him from another.”
“We are afraid, but not desperate.”
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CWNews.com - A Melkite Greek Catholic prelate says that the Latin Rite should learn from the experience of Eastern Catholic Churches and consider ordaining married men to the priesthood.
“We always propose this to the Latin church because you are Catholic and we are Catholic, but we always feel a lot of reticence when we mention this issue to the Roman Catholic Church,” said Archbishop Georges Bacaouni of Tyr, Lebanon. “I don’t know, but I think it could be helpful to allow a married person to be a priest.”
His rite’s tradition, he added, is “to choose someone who has his own work in the particular village, a good man, a faithful man, a Christian man. He will study a little bit, some theology and philosophy, and he will be ordained.”
In its Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, the Second Vatican Council voiced respect for the Eastern tradition of ordaining married men to the priesthood and strongly praised clerical celibacy.
Born in 1962, Archbishop Bacaouni was ordained a priest in 1995 and appointed archbishop in 2005.
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