Morning Star

The heart of faith is sacrifice

For Muslims, sacrificing others; for Christians, sacrificing themselves in union with Christ.

 

 An interview with the young man who created the film is here.

Prayers for this poor child

She has paid a tremendous price for her father's fidelity:

Five Muslims in eastern Uganda gang-raped the 17-year-old daughter of a pastor because the church leader ignored their warnings that he stop worship services, she said.

The daughter (name withheld) of the pastor of New Hope Church was approaching the church building at Kiryolo, Kaderuna Sub-County, Budaka District, at about 7:30 p.m. on March 28 when the men took her into bushes and assaulted her, an area church leader told Morning Star News. The site is about 300 yards from her home.

“The five Muslims took hold of me, and they raped me there,” she told the Morning Star News source. “I tried to scream, but they threatened to kill me. One of them said, ‘Your father should stop this prayer meeting of trying to change Muslims to become Christians and close the church building – we have warned him several times.’”

We pray that she gets the help she needs to deal with this traumatic attack, and that the community stays firm in their faith. It's one thing to pay a price for the faith, but to have a child punished in this vile way would test any parent's forbearance. The Lord hears the cry of the poor, but at times it's difficult to see his protective hand.

Her father (name withheld) said her injuries are so serious that he would like to send her for specialized treatment at Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala. He said she continues to be traumatized. “The girl still has problems communicating,” he said. “She just says a few words and then keeps quiet. She needs trauma counseling.”

If this happens when the Muslim population is so small, what happens when the Christians are even more marginalised. Mary, lay your mantle on her and heal her quickly. Such trials!

Another sister in peril

The Spirit moves where It wills, and in this case, a young woman in Central Asia was inspired to convert to Christianity--for which she is paying a brutal price:

A young Kyrgyz girl is forced to work in a sewing workshop after being tortured by her parents in Kyrgyzstan because she converted to Christianity, well-informed investigators said Tuesday, December 18.

The troubles began when the girl "accepted Jesus [Christ]" as her Lord and Savior "during a church meeting" despite opposition towards Christians in this heavily Islamic nation, explained aid and advocacy group Open Doors.

"When her parents found out about her decision, they were very upset and took her home to their village" where she was soon mistreated, the group told BosNewsLife in a statement.

"They wanted her to recant and renounce her faith in Christ, so they began to beat her systematically till she lost consciousness." Yet the girl, who was wrongly identified as "Almas" amid security concerns, "did not give in", added Open Doors.

"It was winter when all of this happened, so her parents put her into a cold room and kept her there for several days. Still they were unable to break her spirit," said Open Doors, which is in close contact with local believers.

"They then started pulling her hair and put her face against the stove, burning her face. In spite of this, she remained faithful," the group claimed.

Her parents reportedly also burned all her Christian literature and decided to closely watch their daughter. "They put her to work in a sewing workshop, where she is forced to work from early in the morning till late in the evening."

Sewing sweatshops are believed to be widespread in the country where many struggle with crippling poverty. "It has become virtually impossible for Almas to have any contact with her Christian friends," Open Doors said.

The findings come amid reported growing pressure on minority devoted Christians in this country of some 5.5 million people, where roughly 75 percent is Muslim.

May the good Lord sustain her, and kindly remember her your prayers, considering her isolation and suffering. God grant her--and all persecuted Christians--fidelity, courage and perseverence amidst their myriad trials.

"We die, but the cross lives"

Those were the last words of one of many victims slaughtered in a Catholic church in Baghdad, Iraq in October, 2010. Scores were killed in a violent rampage:

"It was a Sunday and evening mass had just begun. Shortly after the Gospel reading, about 17.15, we heard the sound of gunfire outside the church. Don Tha'er, who was celebrating the liturgy, tried to calm everyone down, telling us to pray together. The noise became louder, then we heard a loud explosion and the terrorists entered the Church – five or six in all - and started shooting everywhere".

He has asked to remain anonymous. "For safety reasons," he says. He will not speak about his life before the attack. He just says: "I have always taken part in the pastoral activities of the church, I was friends with both the priests, Don Tha'er and Don Wassim. The first 32, the second 27, both mowed down by the terrorists. "I was sitting in the front pew, as usual, and as the gunfire broke out I threw myself on the ground. Don Tha'er called me and told me: 'Try to get everyone into the sacristy'. Those were difficult moments, because the attackers were firing everywhere. I was trying to get to the sacristy along with others , when not far away I saw a girl wounded in the neck. I did not know what to do, whether to help her or run for my life”.

It was supposed to have been an interview. But the first question: "Do you want to talk, to tell us what happened?" was answered with a deluge of words. Unstoppable. "I saw the injured girl. I decided to go and get her to try and bring her to safety. I took her on my shoulders, but one of the terrorists saw me and threw a grenade at us: the girl died and I was on the ground wounded. I pretended to be dead. While I was on the ground I saw Don Tha'er trying to defend the altar servers: he embraced them and covered them with his cassock, to protect them, as if he wanted to hide them. One of the men attacked him, trying to beat him to his knees, but he resisted and remained standing, in the end the terrorist killed him. I could hear the cries of the people in the church, terribly afraid, when at one point I heard a voice, I do not know who he was shouting to the terrorists: 'We die, we die, okay. But the cross lives.' Whoever it was, was immediately killed. "

That parish was reopened today, amidst more threats, as Catholics celebrated Gaudete Sunday in a beleagered city.

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, presided over the rededication ceremony of the restored Syrian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The place which reopened yesterday to worship and to the faithful, was the scene October 31, 2010 of a massacre carried out by a group of al Qaeda, which killed about 50 faithful and two priests.

During the homily, the cardinal immediately recalled the "testimony offered by many of our brothers and sisters" who "preceded by two young and heroic priests" united forever "their lives to Jesus Christ." He highlighted the "honorable sacrifices" that have allowed the reopening of the cathedral and pointed out that, through the comfort and hope "the Lord encourages Eastern Christians, and especially those of Iraq, to ​​communion and testimony." Bringing the greetings of Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Sandri invoked the Lord, so that "the tears shed in this sacred place, become the good seed of communion and witness and bear much fruit."

The threat recently issued is a standard fatwa offered by an Iraqi Ayatollah, who announced that local Christians

must choose "or Islam or death," while "their women and girls may legitimately be regarded wives of Muslims."

The Christian population--one of the oldest in the world--is dwindling, and few want to engage in serious discussion about the rights of minorities in predominantly Muslim lands.  Those who remain are degraded, and it's obvious that women stand to lose the most whenever conflicts arise. May those heroic, martyred souls--especially Fr Tha'er and Fr Wassim--protect this vulnerable flock and grant them the courage to stand firm.

From the readings of the Third Sunday of Advent:

Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

What's worse than death?

The Coptic Christians don't know, unless it's just more death. The "Arab Spring" has not helped their plight, only worsened it. Just this week, a draft constitution passed posing a greater obstacle to their well-being:

The draft constitution has an Islamist bent. It strengthens provisions that set Islamic law as the basis of legislation, gives clerics a still undefined role in ensuring laws meet Shariah and commits the state to enforce morals and "the traditional family" in broad language that rights activists fear could be used to severely limit many civil liberties.

Almost all liberal and secular members of the assembly had quit in the past weeks to protest what they called Islamists' hijacking of the drafting process. As a result, 85 members - almost all Islamists, with no Christians - participated in the session that began Thursday. The voting, which had not been expected for another two months, was hastily moved up to approve the draft before the Supreme Constitutional Court rules on Sunday on whether to dissolve the controversial assembly.

Racing against the clock, the members voted article by article for 16 hours on the draft's more than 230 articles, passing them all by large margins. The rush resulted in a process that at times appeared slap-dash. Assembly head Hossam al-Ghiryani doggedly pushed the members to finish.

When one article received 16 objections, he pointed out that would require postponing the vote 48 hours under the body's rules. "Now I'm taking the vote again," he said, and all but four members dropped their objections.

In the session's final hours, several new articles were hastily written up and swiftly voted on to resolve lingering issues. One significant change would reduce the size of the Supreme Constitutional Court by nearly a third to 11 judges, removing several younger, sharply anti-Brotherhood judges.

The voting ended just after sunrise Friday, to a round of applause from the members.

Women have no illusions about what shari'a law demands of them: second-class status, and an even lower rank for Christians.  The marginalisation of one of the largest religious communities signals more violence, which this excellent photo-essay depicts.

[Hanna Nabi Ayub, 31-year-old widow of Feriz Rezik Ayub, a victim of Maspero violence, and her daughter Carolyn. Hanna is eight months pregnant. Photograph by Rena Effendi.]

The only quibble I would offer is the constant reference to "sectarian strife" or "violence," which seems to indicate that the Muslims and Christians are harassing each other and share in the harms. If you notice, the violence is all in one direction: Muslims harassing (and killing) Christians. If there is the slightest indication of Christians chafing or fighting back, the retaliation is horrific: many killed, neighbourhoods torched, and businesses looted on the slightest suspicion (or rumour) of Christain wrong-doing. Technically, this is sectarian violence, but it doesn't really tell the story. Widespread persecution is what's happening, and the draft constitution only cements the attitude.

How the next chapter is written depends on what happens to those who protest it in the coming weeks. We must pray for calm to prevail.

Another assault on the Bride of Christ (II)

The latest tragedy was in Aleppo, Syria, where Armenian Christians had gathered to evade growing persecutions. On Monday (29Oct12) their church was torched and a group of Christians are now missing:

Speaking to the online paper, the spokesman [of the local Armenian prelacy], Zhirayr Reisian, confirmed that the church had become a target of rebels and that it had almost been reduced to ashes. Reisian also said that the Mesrobian Armenian school adjacent to the church has been seriously damaged, too.

Later Reisian told state-run agency Armenpress that a group of 10 Christians, including seven Armenians, was kidnapped near Aleppo.

Prayers for our brothers and sisters in Christ -- may they be returned quickly and safely. [This follows closely on the heels of another Muslim attack on a Christian church in Nigeria.]

What is Islam?

While Islam is commonly referred to as "the religion of peace," one has to admit that there must be different definitions of peace. Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that "peace is the tranquillity of order," and by this we understand that true peace is only possible when society (and the persons in it) are all dedicated to living according to God's law. (Unfortunately because of original sin, peace is not possible in this life, but we're obliged to do our best.)

But what about in Islam? There is the understanding that within the boundaries where that religion reigns, the House of Islam (dar al'Islam) there is peace, but not outside its borders, where one finds the House of War (dar al'harb). 

But is the House of Islam peaceful? Not for Christians who live there, and certainly not for Christian women and children:

On August 14, another Christian girl, 12-year-old Muqadas Kainat (which means "Holy Universe") was ambushed in a field near her home in Sahawil by five Muslim men who "gang raped and murdered" her. At the time, her father was at a hospital visiting her sick mother. He and other family members began a frantic search, until a tip led them to the field where his daughter's body lay. The postmortem revealed that she had been "gang raped and later strangled to death by five men." Police, as usual, did not arrest anyone. As a Salem News report puts it, "Complicating matters is the fact that several Christian girls in this remote area have been raped and forced to both marry into the Muslim community and abandon their own religion, human rights groups report…. there is a history in this part of Pakistan according to the Christian community, of local authorities failing to investigate cases of rape or other violence against Christians, often for fear of influential Muslims or militants."

Similarly, on August 20, an 11-year-old Christian boy, Samuel Yaqoob, went to the markets of Faisalabad to buy food for his family, never to return. According to Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, "After extensive searching his body was found near a drain in the Christian colony, bearing marks of horrific torture, with the murder weapon nearby. His nose, lips and belly had been sliced off, and his family could hardly recognize him because the body was so badly burnt. Some 23 wounds by a sharp weapon have been identified in the autopsy. When sending his body for an autopsy, police raised the possibility of sodomy. Parts of Pakistani culture have a strong homosexual pederast culture, and Christian and other minority boys are especially susceptible to rape and abuse because of the powerlessness of their community and their despised status. In one case fairly recently, a Christian boy was kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed by a police officer, his body similarly being dumped in a drain."

Does this encourage conversion to Islam? There is the firm understanding that Muslim women cannot be treated this way (though there are constraints on their dignity within Islam), but does that make the faith appealing for the right reason? or do people thereby seek refuge in Islam so that they will not be abused and harassed? and what does this say about the integrity of Muslims who kidnap, rape, and kill with abandon? or found new families by coercively marrying kidnapped women and children?

There are those who say that any country or region has its criminals. To that we respond: if any of these crimes were punished by the appropriate authorities, it would speak well of Islam. But they were not. The Qur'an clearly states that non-believers do not enjoy the same rights as Muslims, and thus this behaviour must be placed squarely at the feet of Islam, not just the indiginous culture.

For the vilest beasts in God's sight, are the deaf, the dumb, who understand not (Qur'an 8:22).

For the worst of beasts in the sight of God are those who reject Him: They will not believe (Qur'an 8:55).

Verily those who believe not, among those who have received the scriptures, and among the idolaters, [shall be cast] into the fire of hell, to remain therein [for ever]. These are the worst of creatures. (Qur'an 98:6).

With such teachings, why would a Muslim need to worry about the rights of non-believers?

Deeply troubling. Please read the entire report, as distasteful as it may be. It's the least we can do for those who are persecuted for their faith and who will never find justice in this life.

£4,000 bounty on her head

Today marks the third anniversary of the arrest of Asia Bibi for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam.  Having resisted an "invitation" from her fellow workers to become a Muslim, the discussion turned acrimonious. Tempers flared, and the angry women then attacked her for drinking from a communal water bucket.

Parched, she drew water from the estate well, dipped her cup into the bucket and gratefully drank big mouthfuls. No sooner had the cup left her lips than one of the farm hands, “her eyes filled with hatred”, screamed out “Haraam!”, a term meaning “forbidden” in Islamic law. To the other workers, stirred by the commotion, she screamed: “This Christian has defiled the water from the well by drinking from our cup and by repeatedly plunging it into the well. The water is now impure. We can no longer drink it because of her.”

She was immediately arrested (14 June, 2009) and sentenced to death for blasphemy. Subsequently, she was to learn that Pakistani politician, Salman Taseer, was assassinated merely for speaking out in support of her. Even if she were freed -- perhaps through international pressure or the Pakistani court deciding to follow its own laws which have not made it a crime to be a Christian,  her life would still be in peril from her fellow citizens.

Legal and cultural structures that discriminate against individual religious freedom, like Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, effectively sanction wanton acts of violence against religious minorities.

“After the newspaper reports,” writes Bibi, “10 million Pakistanis are ready to kill me by their own hands.” In Pakistan, she says, Christians are like orphans in their own land. On paper, they have the same rights as everyone else. In practice, they do their best not to draw the attention of the rest of society. At home, she says, there is no cross or icon of the Holy Virgin – only a small Bible hidden under the mattress.

More than 80 per cent of acts of discrimination and violence against minority groups, which are growing in a number of places around the world, are directed against Christians.

A French journalist has had access to the illiterate mother-of-five, and has penned an autobiography for her (not yet available in English). In it, our sister Asia begs for prayers:

“Now that you know me, tell those around you what is happening. Let them know about it. I believe this is my only chance of not dying in the pit of this dungeon. I need you! Save me!”

More information here, as well as a musical tribute. Important petition to be signed on behalf of Asia Bibi here, and please don't neglect prayers for her safety and that of her family. Here is the Holy Father asking for her release:

 

The faith of Asia Bibi

While political events swirl about her, Asia Bibi, imprisoned in Pakistan since 2009 on blasphemy charges, awaits her trial that is still two years down the road. This dedicated Christian woman spends her days praying in a stifling, mosquito-infested cell. An interview has been posted on-line with the author of a book whose English edition will be released this fall. Anne-Isabelle Tollet has spent time with Asia's family, and her book tells the story of this devout mother-of-five whose trouble began when she tried to drink water from a bucket shared by her Muslim friends.

She spends the day praying in her bed. And she waits every week for Tuesday to arrive, when her husband goes to the prison to see her. Otherwise she kills time reminiscing, thinking about her children and praying.

A petition signed by 50 UN NGO's can be found here. Although she is alone in her cell, she is not alone in her predicament -- in fact another Christian woman has just been sent to jail on similar charges. As that news account reminds us, freeing the prisoner is not the end of the ordeal, for many are killed by "vigilantes" upon their release.

Unfortunately, Christian minorities don't have much hope when the Muslims themselves treat their own children like this. Fundamental human dignity and a sacramental view of marriage are entirely missing from such cultures.

Confronting the myth of "islamophobia"

John Allen has some sobering words on who is really being persecuted today:

Stoked by historical images of the Crusades and the Inquisition, and even by current perceptions of the wealth and power of church leaders and institutions, it's tough for Western observers to wrap their minds around the fact that in a growing number of global hotspots, Christians today are the defenseless oppressed, not the arrogant oppressors.

Here's the stark reality of our times: In the early 21st century, we are witnessing the rise of a whole new generation of Christian martyrs.

Christians are today, statistically speaking, by far the most persecuted religious group on the planet. According to the Frankfurt-based Society for Human Rights, fully 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians. The Pew Forum estimates that Christians experience persecution in a staggering total of 133 nations, fully two-thirds of all the countries on earth.

As part of that picture, the Catholic relief agency "Aid to the Church in Need" estimates that 150,000 Christians die for their faith every year, in locales ranging from the Middle East to Southeast Asia to sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America. This means that every hour of every day, roughly 17 Christians are killed somewhere in the world, either out of hatred for the faith or hatred for the works of charity and justice their faith compels them to perform.

Perhaps the emblematic example is Iraq, where a strong Christian community that took two millennia to build has been gutted in the arc of a little more than two decades. Prior to 1991, the year of the First Gulf War, there were more than 2 million Christians in Iraq, while today the high-end estimate is that somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 may be left.

Mark Durie writes extensively on Islam, pointing out that their claim to truth is the attendant expansion of their numbers. In fact, the call to prayer heard five times daily includes the words, "Come to success."

Christianity makes no such claim. Those who follow Christ are called to pick up their own crosses and follow in His footsteps.  Just as Our Lord was persecuted, his followers will be as well. As difficult as this is, we know that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church, and our fidelity is what matters, not success. It sounds dark, but there is joy in such oblation, for we do not live by the spirit of this world. In fact, success in human terms might be a distraction, a temptation or a sign of compromise.

Persecution has a way of purifying our intentions, but that said, we pray for those being so mistreated.