Iraq: Crosses Go or Christians Murdered
By J. Grant Swank Jr. (04/29/07)
Some zealot Muslims have climbed atop church roofs to rip off the crosses.
Christians have been threatened with their lives if they do not remove crosses from their churches.
Per AsiaNews: "’Get rid of the cross or we will burn your Churches’. This is the threat aimed at the Chaldean Church of Sts Peter and Paul, located in the ancient Christian quarter of Baghdad, Dora.
"Local sources say an unknown armed Islamic group is behind the threats which are inseminating terror in the capital. The Arab website Ankawa.com and Aina news agency speak of a campaign of persecution in act in the area. Even Mosul, a Sunni stronghold, the Christian presence is being gravely threatened.
"Msgr. Shlemon Warduni, Chaldean auxiliary bishop of Baghdad, tells AsiaNews ‘in the last 2 months many Churches have been forced to remove their crosses from their domes’.
"In the case of the Church of St. George, assira, Muslim extremists took the situation into their own hands: they climbed onto the roof and ripped out the cross.
"In the Chaldean Church of St John, in Dora, which has been without a pastor for months now, the parishioners themselves decided to move the cross to a safer place following repeated threats."
Christians in droves have fled Iraq. Many remaining there have been slain by zealot Muslims.
Christians are considered damned. They are the chief infidels and therefore, according to the Koran, must be eliminated from the planet. They deserve eternal fire, per Koran’s murder and maiming verses. Allah has spoken.
"The same threats which have arrived at the Church of Sts Peter and Paul, which has so far however withstood intimidation: the cross hasn’t been removed but the threats continue.
"’The Iraqi people are tired – says Warduni – we have been suffering for far too long the situation has become unsustainable; we ask God to give us peace. The Christians, just like the Muslims, want to rebuild Iraq, we don’t want to be forced to flee, because this is where we were born, this is where we have lived our lives’"
Yet Iraqi conflict will continue for decades. Muslim factions are in civil war while multinational troops are caught refereeing. Extremist Muslims are quite pleased with the multinational troops remaining for that gives them all the more the rationale for slaughtering Christians in particular.
Even if it means bombing their own neighborhoods, zealot Muslims will slay Muslims in order to slay one Christian or burn one church. This will not cease.
"The Islamic group active in Dora seems to have delivered an ultimatum to the Christian community there: convert to Islam or die; moreover reports say that they have delivered a Fatwa forbidding Christians to wear the cross or make any religious gesture. It also permits the confiscation of goods and properties belonging to the Christian families who find themselves forced to flee their homes for safety at short notice."
It is hoped that from this carnage will come truth. If truth comes to the fore for free nations’ attention, then hopefully those republics will set up forces by which to suppress, then eliminate extremist Islamic fanatics. Wherever such fanatics move, even in non-Muslim environs, they take with them their slaughtering-Christians agenda.
"Baghdad’s Christian community’s worries have been added to by the US military’s decision to forcibly occupy Babel College, property of the Chaldean Church. The Babel, the only faculty of theology in the country, houses on of the most ancient religious libraries in the region, full of priceless manuscripts.
"Because of the increased insecurity in the city and continual abductions of religious the faculty had transferred to Ankawa, in Kurdistan January last, leaving the building empty. The US military are now using it as an observation outpost.
"The building is located at a strategic crossroads: within a Sunni enclave, in front of a Shiite district. Leaders from the local Church are discussing the issue with military representatives. Apparently they have promised to abandon the structure in the coming weeks."
Copyright © 2006 by J. Grant Swank, Jr.
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