The Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, His Eminence Edwin F. Cardinal O'Brien, recently addressed the dire plight of Christians in the Middle East when he spoke with members of the Order in Sydney, Australia. As the Catholic Review, reports, he spoke bluntly but truthfully:
“I think our public is very blasé about the whole thing,” he told The Catholic Weekly, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Sydney.
“We’re afraid to say that this is an extremist terrorist group that is basing their principles falsely on the tenets that they believe are theirs from God himself.
“Unless we face the facts, this radicalism, this extremism, is going to keep spreading.”
Most disturbing for Cardinal O’Brien is the lack of military response from the United States.
“We’ve had an opportunity to stop those forces,” he said.
Islamic State fighters attacked 35 Assyrian villages on the Khabur River in Syria in February, killing a dozen people, kidnapping more than 90 Assyrian Christians, burning two churches, and forcing more than 3,000 people to flee.
“We did nothing to stop them,” he said [more].
“And now those Christian villages have been eradicated, (people) killed, taken into slavery.
“What have we done about it?”
It is time for us to wake from our slumber and to step up our efforts, both communally and individually, to assist our brothers and sisters suffering for their faith in Christ.
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