Tag Archive for: Christian

Irish Bishop: 11 Christians are murdered every hour

Bishop [John] McAreavey is an exception to the rule. Most of his brother bishops would be scandalized that he even dared to speak of this. But of course he did not identify the perpetrator. The Church is in full denial and appeasement mode. In other words, most bishops are betraying the Christians of the present and the future, and leaving them prey to savages. Apparently most bishops are indeed in the line of apostolic succession. They’re the successors of Judas.

“Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.” — Robert McManus, Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, February 8, 2013.

“‘Eleven Christians Killed Every Hour,’ Says Irish Bishop,” by Thomas D. Williams, Breitbart, May 19,2015:

According to Bishop John McAreavey, the Chair of the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, statistics show that the situation of Christian persecution in the world is far more dire than most people understand.

The bishop called the breadth and scale of the suffering of Christians “unprecedented.”

At least 100,000 Christians are killed every year because of their faith, which amounts to 273 per day, or eleven every hour, McAreavey said, without mentioning those who are “being tortured, imprisoned, exiled, threatened, excluded, attacked and discriminated against on a widespread scale.”

In a sobering presentation before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade this past week, McAreavey said that Christianity is the most oppressed religion in the world, and the followers of Jesus are actively persecuted in some 110 countries.

More striking still, he contended, according to the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization, “80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.”

The bishop recalled how the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, recently described this suffering of Christians in the Middle East as “one of the crimes against humanity of our time,” comparing it to the Jewish pogroms in Europe and saying he was “appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.”

The barbaric actions against Christians, particularly in the Middle East, he said, call out for an urgent, coordinated and determined response from the international community. They are “a threat to our common humanity and to the religious and cultural patrimony of the world” as well as putting at risk “the peace and stability of the entire planet.”

The bishop noted with dismay what he called “a reluctance, including on the part of Christian based international aid agencies, to give direct support to minority religious communities, including to the Christian Churches.”

McAreavey also had strong words for the leaders of Western nations that refuse to commit to assisting Christians in the Middle East, or even to acknowledge the gravity of their plight.

“Perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country,” he said, “many Governments of majority Christian countries in the west seem reluctant to give direct aid to Churches and religious minorities.”

The West also runs the risk of losing its own understanding of the importance of faith and of religion for a healthy society, he said, which can endanger religious liberty even in democratic nations.

As Catholics, he said, we appeal “to all governments and societies to affirm the vital importance of respecting the right to religious freedom and conscience as a fundamental principle of genuine pluralism in a tolerant society.”…

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Worldwide Persecution of Christians at an ‘Unprecedented’ High; Here’s How Many Believers Are Killed for Their Faith Every Hour

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Since converting to Islam, UK woman has murdered 400 people


Presentation to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade by the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference on ‘The ongoing Persecution of Christians’

Bishop John McAreavey, Bishop of Dromore and chair of the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, today presented to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, on the subject of ‘The ongoing Persecution of Christians’. Bishop McAreavey’s delegation included:

Father Timothy Bartlett, an advisor to the Bishops’ Council for Justice & Peace and a priest of the Diocese of Down & Connor, and,
Mrs Áine O’Reilly, a member of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a Catholic charitable organisation that provides solidarity and financial support to the Christian communities of the Holy Land.
Before its presentation, the Church delegation circulated a letter to the Joint Committee from the Patriarch of Bagdad appealing for greater solidarity and support for Christians being displaced, persecuted and killed in Iraq. Please see full presentation below:

Presentation

Thank you, Chairman.

My name is Bishop John McAreavey. I am here today as Chair of the Council for Justice and Peace of the Irish Bishops’ Conference. I am joined by Mrs Áine O’Reilly, a member of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. This is a Catholic charitable organization that provides solidarity and financial support to the Christian communities of the Holy Land. It has over two hundred members in Ireland and more than thirty thousand members worldwide. I am also joined by Father Timothy Bartlett, an advisor to the Council.

I thank the Committee for the invitation to be here this morning with Trócaire, Open Doors and Church in Chains. The ongoing persecution of Christians is an issue that unites all Christians. Pope Francis has called it the ‘ecumenism of suffering’. The breath and scale of this suffering is unprecedented. The Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in the United States estimates that 100,000 Christians are being killed every year because of their faith. That is eleven every hour. Others are being tortured, imprisoned, exiled, threatened, excluded, attacked and discriminated against on a widespread scale. The Pew Research Centre says that Christianity is now the world’s most oppressed religious group, with persecution against them reported in 110 countries. Many of these countries have significant trade links with Ireland. Persecution is increasing in China. In North Korea a quarter of the country’s Christians live in forced labour camps. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Maldives all feature in the 10 worst places to be Christian. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.

As the other groups will explain in more detail, the situation for Christians in the Middle East is particularly acute and shocking. The rise of ISIS has accelerated a brutal religious genocide against Christians and other religious minorities that has been on-going for well over a decade. The former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, recently described this suffering of Christians in the Middle East as ‘one of the crimes against humanity of our time’. He compared it with Jewish pogroms in Europe and said he was ‘appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.’ I believe many Christians in Ireland, of all denominations, too are appalled at the relative lack of attention being given in the Irish media, in political discourse and in Irish Government policy and action to the urgent plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East at this time. Children, women and men being beheaded. Young men brutalized and left to die on make-shift crosses in town squares in the part of the world that was once described as the cradle of Christianity and of civilisation itself. Ancient Churches and religious monuments from various traditions being destroyed.

Such barbaric actions call out for an urgent, coordinated and determined response from the international community. They are a threat to our common humanity and to the religious and cultural patrimony of the world for future generations. They put at risk the peace and stability of the entire planet. Any response will require an honest and comprehensive effort to address the sources of violent conflict that converge on this region and have wider political and religious implications across the world. Yet so many remain silent and inactive.

I have spoken to senior representatives of the Christian community in Iraq in recent days, whom I will not name to protect their security. They simply cannot understand why so many in the international community turn a blind eye to their plight. Many governments, including the Irish Government are supplying modest amounts of emergency aid. This is welcome and helps to address some immediate humanitarian needs. However there is a reluctance, including on the part of Christian based international aid agencies, to give direct support to minority religious communities, including to the Christian Churches. Yet if their presence is to remain, if they are to draw strength from one another and continue their own religious, educational and charitable activities in the places where they live and work, where they have contributed for millennia to the shared educational, economic and cultural patrimony of their countries, then they need direct aid. They have a right to be supported in rebuilding their bombed-out Churches, schools, hospitals and halls that are availed of by the whole community. They have a right to receive support in building bomb proof walls and security around these buildings and their own homes. They are also best placed to ensure humanitarian support gets to those who need it most in the villages, towns and refugees camps where the local Church continues to be present. Yet, perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country, many Governments of majority Christian countries in the west seem reluctant to give direct aid to Churches and religious minorities.

The starting point for the Catholic response to this issue is our commitment to the inherent dignity and priceless value of every person before God, without distinction. Our concern is for all humanity. We utterly condemn the grotesque targeting and brutal murder of those with same-sex attraction by ISIS. We stand in solidarity and support with the Yazidi and other religious communities who face a similar extermination, displacement and lack of respect for their right to religious freedom and conscience as their Christian neighbours.

We appeal to all governments and societies to affirm the vital importance of respecting the right to religious freedom and conscience as a fundamental principle of genuine pluralism in a tolerant society. As Saint Pope John Paul II never tired of reminding the world, where this pivotal right to freedom of conscience and religion is denied, diluted or culturally suppressed other human rights abuses follow in its wake. The denial of religious freedom can run from subtle cultural exclusion of the religious voice from the public square and refusal to accommodate reasonable differences of conscience to active discrimination, forced displacement, exploitation and loss of life. Denial of religious freedom is a continuum along which many countries that pride themselves on being free, tolerant and diverse have already begun to travel.

I now hand over to Áine, who will conclude our presentation.

In commending the Committee for taking up this theme of the ongoing persecution of Christians, I would like to say that as a proud citizen of this country I believe many Irish citizens, Christian and others would like to see our political representatives and our Government give much greater attention to this issue. In particular, we ask you today:

To provide direct aid to the Christian Churches in the Middle East, and to other persecuted religious groups so that they can rebuild their communities and infrastructure and protect that which has not been destroyed. If they are to survive, they have urgent and particular needs which they alone are best placed to provide. They are also best placed to identify to provide humanitarian assistance in the most difficult to reach areas experiencing immediate violence and oppression;

We also ask you to assist the various Irish aid agencies in providing direct financial support to Christian and other religious communities in the Middle East without fear of being accused at home of being sectarian or giving offence to secularity in a predominantly Christian country. This is a real concern among Christian aid agencies which you can help to address;

We ask you to use your political influence to raise awareness of this issue where possible. In commending your own decision to hold this hearing, we encourage you to recommend a full Dáil debate on the ongoing persecution of Christians and respect for religious freedom and the particular plight of persecuted Christians across the world;

We ask you to encourage the Government and Irish MEPs to use their influence in the European Institutions to give greater political priority to addressing this issue at a European and international level. This includes the need to address the complex of issues in international relations that contribute to the ongoing conflict and instability across the region of the Middle East;

Finally, in keeping with its Christian roots and founding ideals, we appeal to you and through you to Europe to open wide the doors of our nations to the numerous refugees fleeing religious persecution in the Middle East. Many of them wish to return to their homeland at the earliest possible opportunity. Just as we did some decades ago for the Vietnamese boat people, let us open our shores, our homes and our vacant buildings in a welcoming and reassuring embrace to those fleeing the most brutal attacks by introducing special temporary immigrant schemes focused on responding to this issue.

In conclusion, I am reminded that the links between the Christian community in Ireland and the Christian community in the Middle East go back to the early Celtic Church. They continue today in the heroic work of many Irish missionaries who work in solidarity with persecuted Christian communities in the Middle East even at risk to their own lives. This continuing link is perhaps most poignantly symbolized by the new mosaic in the apse of the recently restored chapel of the Irish College in Rome. There in the midst of our national patron Saints Patrick, Brigid, Columcille and others, is the image of a young Iraqi priest. His name is Father Ragheed Ganni. He studied for several years in the Irish College. He worked in the pilgrimage site of Lough Derg and in various parishes around the country during his post-graduate studies. He loved the Irish people and they loved him. He radiated joy, gentleness and a true Christian spirit of service to all who knew him. Yet his heart was set on returning to bring comfort, strength and support to his suffering people in Iraq. The Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul in which he ministering was subject to regular bombings and attack. On the feast of the Holy Trinity in 2007, as he finished the celebration of Mass, Father Ragheed and three subdeacons were brutally murdered. The vehicle in which they had been killed was surrounded by explosives by those who had killed them so that no-one dare approach to offer comfort, prayers or help. Just a week before, Father Ragheed had written:

“In a sectarian and confessional Iraq, will there be any space for Christians? We have no support, no group who fights for our cause; we are abandoned in the midst of the disaster.”

It is with this painful, prophetic cry of a young man who knew, loved and appreciated the Irish people so much that we thank you again for giving time to the plight of persecuted Christians in our world today and appeal to you to consider positively the recommendations we have made.

Thank you for listening.

ENDS

Syrian Archbishop: “We expect Christians in the West to help us. They do not”

Why don’t the Christians in the West help them? Because it might harm the dialogue: “Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.” —Robert McManus, Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, February 8, 2013

“Syrian Archbishop: ‘We expect Christians in the West to help us. They do not,’” by David Gibson, Religion News Service, May 4, 2015:

NEW YORK (RNS) Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo is returning to the front line of the real war on Christians, which he calls home — that is, Aleppo in war-torn Syria, where his ancient church faces the threat of extinction.

I wrote here about Jeanbart, who was in the U.S. last week in an effort to raise awareness about the plight of Christians in Syria — they include his Eastern-rite Melkite Catholics as well or Eastern Orthodox and other churches — and to raise money for their survival.

The archbishop is a remarkable figure, facing the personal danger while trying to protect an entire community and tradition and way of life. He had controversial things to say (at least in the U.S. political context) about supporting Syrian president Assad; when faced with ISIS as the alternative, you understand his “devil-you-know” choice.

But Assad may be at risk of falling. Americans are not likely to shed a tear for him, and many have been pushing the administration to aid the Islamist rebels, who could wind up slaughtering what’s left of the Christians in Aleppo and elsewhere.

And American Christians know so little about their fellow believers in the region, or even that such Christians exist, that Middle East church leaders like Jeanbart face an uphill battle:

“We expect Christians in the West to help us. They do not,” as Jeanbart told Cardinal Timothy Dolan during the New York archbishop’s weekly radio show.

I couldn’t include all of the interview in the first version, so wanted to pick it up here with the question:
What does Archbishop Jeanbart want?

In short, he thinks the West, led by the U.S., should work to stop the flow of arms into the country. He does not want Western military intervention in terms of boots on the ground – just a ceasefire so that Syrians themselves have a chance to work out their problems in a way that respects each community. That’s how it was for centuries, and he says that’s how it can be again.

Most immediately, he wants material support for Syrian Christians.

A chief problem, church officials say, is that Christians who are among the nearly 8 million internally displaced people in Syria are afraid to go to refugee camps that receive the bulk of international humanitarian aid because they would have to register to enter and could then be pegged as Christians – and would be targets all over again.

So Christians wind up trying to stay put in war zones, or seek refuge in churches, Catholic hospitals or schools, or the homes of relatives. (Aid to the Church in Need has pledged $2.8 in emergency aid for Christians in Syria.)

“The church will support us in a way, morally and spiritually. But the church has very little material means,” Jeanbart said. “It doesn’t have armies. It doesn’t have budgets to help. Nobody has ever taken care of us.”

“We expect Christians in the West to help us. They do not,” Jeanbart, his voice rising in frustration, told Cardinal Timothy Dolan during the New York archbishop’s weekly radio show.

Jeanbart said that on the other hand, his Muslim neighbors and religious leaders in the city have often offered him a place to live or hold services….

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Oppression of Christians in U.S. Military is Triggering their Exodus

America has a Judeo/Christian ethos; 90% of Americans believe in God and 50% of them go to church and synagogue every week.  Christian members of the U.S. military are wondering long and hard about joining and/or making the U.S. Armed Forces a career. This concern by Christians to possibly avoid a U.S. Armed Forces that oppresses Christians appears to fit in with Obama’s Social Experiment On Diversity, in order to minimize Christian influence in the U.S. military.  The Social Experiment On Diversity that has been changing the make-up of the US Armed Forces is seriously eroding unit cohesiveness, unit morale, and  the “Combat Effectiveness“ of the U.S. military.

Chaplains are having their sermons and even the places where they are allowed to pray controlled and censored to be sure their statements are “Politically Correct” and in keeping with the what the Obama civilian appointees in DOD want them to say. Chaplains have been prevented from reading letters from their Cardinals in the pulpit to their parishioners. Chaplains have been prevented from giving bibles to patients in their hospital rooms. Catholic Chaplains who don’t believe in the use of birth control pills and abortion are prevented from preaching their religious beliefs in the pulpit. Army Ranger Chaplain Joseph Lawton was punished and served with a “Letter of Concern” for referring to solace and comfort he receives in his darkest moments by reading the Psalms of King David in the Old Testament of the Bible, while he was conducting a suicide prevention seminar for Combat Veterans suffering from PTSD.

The Defense in Marriage Act, a Federal Law, has been violated and disobeyed by Obama, and Holder without repealing it. Chaplains who support that Federal Law because of their religious beliefs have been discriminated against. Obama’s civilian DOD appointees have been intolerant toward Chaplains who do not believe in same sex marriage, supposedly in the defense of tolerance, to make them comply, which is not only hypocritical, but is bigoted. So if a Chaplain’s well held religious beliefs don’t allow him to support same sex marriage, he is threatened with career ending punishment which would result in his failure to be promoted, and/or would result in his removal from the U.S. Armed Forces. That treatment of Chaplains and Christians who agree with their Chaplains beliefs have been discriminated against and oppressive by the civilian appointees of the Obama administration at DOD.

Military personnel are prevented from having bibles at their desks in their work place, and military base commanders have been instructed not to allow bibles to be placed in base hotel rooms.

Open homosexuality in the U.S. Armed Forces has been approved by Obama’s Executive Orders, in a major “CHANGE” to General George Washington’s 238 year old U.S. Military Regulations. Last year because of the “CHANGE” of General George Washington’s Military Regulations, the U.S. Armed Forces authorized the recruiting of a large influx of gay males and women to join the U.S. military for the first time in U.S. history.  Last year 10,400 straight members of the US Armed Forces were sexually assaulted in their barracks and aboard their ships. The Navy has had straight female enlisted women sexually assaulted in their barracks and aboard their ships by lesbian crew members; and nearly 9, 000 female members of the US Armed Forces were sexually assaulted last year.

Gay Rights Political Events and gatherings are now being held on U.S. Military bases and in the Pentagon in violation of U.S. Military Regulations which prohibit political events of any kind. U.S. Military Color guards and military personnel in uniform are now being ordered to march in Gay Rights Parades (a political event) in violation of U.S. Military Regulations, while at the same time, members of the U.S. Armed Forces have been prevented from attending Christian events in their uniforms.

In 2014, at the Iron Mountain VA Hospital in Wisconsin, Chaplain Bob Mueller, relayed an unsettling experience he experienced in a conversation he had with one of Obama’s civilian appointee in the Veterans Administration, when he said “a couple of months ago, an order came down from Washington, D.C. to all Chaplains in VA Hospitals across the nation, ordering them to cover all icons associated with Christianity in VA Hospitals, like photos of Christ, crosses, and stained glass windows, because there are Christian symbols in stained glass.” Chaplain Mueller was told to “stop talking about Jesus, and to stop reading the scripture out loud.”  He said that the Obama administration has issued the same orders “to cover all things associated with Christianity” to all VA Chapels across the country.”  Click here to read Chaplain Mueller’s report.

The Flag and General Officer, who have always practiced and supported Judeo/Christian ethics, who opposed the hollowing out of the U.S. Armed Forces, and policies that degraded the “Combat Effectiveness” of the U.S. military by the occupant in the Oval Office, have been systematically eliminated over the last 6 years. A total of 195 Flag, General, and Senior Military Officers, who disagreed with Obama’s “Politically Correct” destructive military policies, and his executive Order that changed the U.S. Military into first major military force in the world that openly gay, a new and destructive policy that has negatively affected unit cohesiveness, the morale, and the “Combat Effectiveness” of the U.S. Armed Forces, have been purged by General Dempsey—those that remain have been conditioned not to defend Christianity.  Those 195 purged Senior Officers would have opposed the on-going attack on Christians in the U.S. Armed Forces, but they are no longer there to defend the Chaplains and the enlisted Christian personnel.  Senior enlisted military personnel who also practiced and supported Judeo/Christian ethics, and disagreed with an openly gay military, tried to utilized their right to complain thru the chain of command, and to express their concerns about the “Social Experiment on Diversity”, have also been purged, and in some cases have been court martialed and dishonorably discharged.

Although the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution guarantees Freedom of Religion, Christian members of the U.S. Armed Forces have had their religious rights systematically violated and oppressed, as previously discussed above and in the below listed article.  The suppression of Christianity in the U.S. Armed Forces is triggering an exodus from the U.S. military of many Christians who wanted to make the U.S. military a career when they joined.  After their first tour of duty, while witnessing how Chaplains and their Christian religious beliefs were oppressed, they have turned against making the U.S. Armed Forces a career.  The elimination of thousands of Christian personnel from the U.S. Armed Forces with their well held religious beliefs and ethics in the ranks, and having them replaced will personnel with a different set of beliefs in keeping with Obama’s beliefs, will change the nature of the U.S. Armed Forces.


WND RADIO

CRACKDOWN ON CHRISTIANS TRIGGERS EXODUS FROM MILITARY

‘They’re starting to wonder, is this going to be a place where I’m welcomed?’

GREG COROMBOS

Greg Corombos is news director for Radio America.

A leading defender of Christians in the military says the crackdown on the free religious expression of Christians in uniform is increasing despite Pentagon assurances to the contrary, leading active-duty personnel to re-evaluate their careers and young Americans and their parents to reconsider service at all.

Recent discipline for military chaplains dispensing biblical counsel have made national headlines, but a recent piece in the Washington Times suggests enlistment numbers are in danger of dropping as well.

Liberty Institute represents chaplains in two high-profile cases as well as several other personnel reprimanded for their free expression of Christian beliefs. Senior counsel Michael Berry said the American people are paying attention and getting increasingly worried about what’s happening in the military.

“A great deal of Americans of faith, which is still a majority of our country, are looking at the environment and climate within our federal government and military more specifically and seeing case after case, report after report,” Berry said in an interview with WND and Radio America.

He said the growing number of stories is causing committed Christians to ask some uncomfortable questions.

“They’re starting to wonder, ‘Is this going to be a place where I’m welcomed? Is this going to be a place where I’m tolerated? Am I going to be required to keep my faith in the closet, so to speak?’ Or are they going to be allowed, which has always been the practice in our country up until this point, to freely exercise their religion in accordance with their sincerely held beliefs as the Constitution allows?” asked Berry, a military vet who made his own difficult decision to leave the armed forces as he saw religious liberties eroding.

“I was on active duty, and I began to see the writing on the wall,” he said. “I realized this is not the military I grew up in. This is not the military that I was raised to believe in and to support. It’s changing, and I realized it was time for me to make a move.”

And Berry is not the only one thinking long and hard about military service as the right career path.

“I’ve had a lot of mothers and fathers ask me. They say, ‘Mike, I served and my son or daughter wants to follow in my footsteps. But, as proud as I am of my military service, I’m not sure I want my son or daughter to be serving in our military anymore, given what’s going on,’” Berry said. “That’s very scary for our country if that kind of conversation and dialogue is now happening.”

It’s difficult to get solid numbers on the impact religious freedom restrictions are having on recruiting and retention. Berry said the military almost always keep mum about drops in recruiting and retention and it never breaks down the reasons for the declines.

“It doesn’t behoove the military to report that they’re having problems with retention,” he said. “A group like a chaplain’s corps is not going to say, ‘We’re having a hard time attracting new chaplains’ because that doesn’t present them in a very favorable light.”

Read more.

The Islamic Genocide of Christians: Past and Present by Raymond Ibrahim

Last Friday, April 24, we remembered how exactly 100 years ago the last historic Muslim caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, tried to cleanse its empire of Christian minorities — Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks — even as we stand by watching as the new caliphate, the Islamic State, resumes the genocide.

And in both cases, the atrocities were and are being committed in the name of Islam.

In November, 1914, during WWI, the Ottoman caliphate issued a fatwa, or Islamic decree, proclaiming it a “sacred duty” for all Muslims to “massacre” infidels — specifically naming the “Christian men” of the Triple Entente, “the enemies of Islam” — with promises of great rewards in the afterlife.

The same Koran verses that the Islamic State and other jihadi outfits regularly quote permeated the Ottoman fatwa, including:  “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them — seize them, besiege them, and be ready to ambush them” (9:5) and “O you who have believed! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are but friends of each other; and whoever among you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them” (5:51) — and several other verses that form the Islamic doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity.

Many Muslims still invoke this doctrine; it commands Muslims to befriend and aid fellow Muslims, while having enmity for all non-Muslims (one Islamic cleric even teaches that Muslim husbands must hate their non-Muslim wives, while enjoying them sexually).

As happens to this very day, the Muslims of the Ottoman caliphate, not able to reach or defeat the stronger infidel — the “Christian men” of Britain, France, and Russia — satiated their bloodlust on their Christian subjects.  And they justified the genocide by projecting the Islamic doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity onto Christians — saying that, because Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks were Christian, they were naturally aiding the other “Christian men” of the West.

As happens to this day under the new caliphate — the Islamic State — the Ottoman caliphate crucified, beheaded, tortured, mutilated, raped, enslaved, and otherwise massacred countless “infidel” Christians.  The official number of Armenians killed in the genocide is 1.5 million; hundreds of thousands of Greeks and Assyrians each were also systematically slaughtered (see this document for statistics).

(Although people often speak of the “Armenian Genocide,” often forgotten is that Assyrians and Greeks were also targeted for cleansing by the Ottoman caliphate.   The only thing that distinguished Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek subjects of the caliphate from Turkish subjects was that the three former were Christian.  As one Armenian studies professor asks, “If it [the Armenian Genocide] was a feud between Turks and Armenians, what explains the genocide carried out by Turkey against the Christian Assyrians at the same time?”)

Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and personal witness of the atrocities, attested that “I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this.”   He added that what the Turks were doing was “a carefully planned scheme to thoroughly extinguish the Armenian race.”  In 1918, Morgenthau wrote in Red Cross Magazine:

Will the outrageous terrorizing, the cruel torturing, the driving of women into the harems, the debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at eighty cents each [today the Islamic State sells enslaved Christians and  Yazidis for as little as $43], the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to, and starvation in, the deserts of other hundreds of thousands, the destruction of hundreds of villages and cities, will the willful execution of this whole devilish scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian [or Assyrian] Christians of Turkey  –  will all this go unpunished?

Because this genocide of Christians is usually articulated through a singularly secular paradigm — one that recognizes only those factors deemed intelligible from a modern Western point of view, one that never uses the words “Christian” and “Muslim” but rather “Armenian” and “Turk” — few are able to connect these events from a century ago to today… Keep reading 

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Texas: Muslims murder woman for helping convert their daughter to Christianity

Muhammad said: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.” There is only disagreement over whether the law applies only to men, or to women also – some authorities hold that apostate women should not be killed, but only imprisoned in their houses until death.

Clearly some Muslims believe this death penalty extends t0 those who facilitate the conversion as well as to the convert.

“3 family members charged in Texas ‘honor killing’ of Iranian activist,” CBS News, April 23, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

HOUSTON – Investigators say that an Iranian activist was gunned down by Jordanian immigrants in 2012 because they believed she helped convert their Muslim daughter to Christianity, reports CBS affiliate KHOU.

Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a 30-year-old researcher at MD Anderson, was shot to death outside her parents home in the Galleria area.

Ali Irsan, 57, is charged with capital murder in the case. His wife, Shmou Ali Alrawabdeh, and their 21-year-old son, Nasim, are charged with murder. Irsan is also reportedly accused of killing Coty Beavers, his daughter’s husband, 10 months after Bagherzadeh was shot to death. Coty Beavers was the twin brother of Bagherzadeh’s boyfriend.

The station reports that Bagherzadeh was best friends with Ali Irsan’s daughter and he blamed her when the daughter left home and married a Christian, according to investigators.

“Nesreen Irsan would not succumb to her father’s complete domination and rule of her. And she left his home without his permission and went into hiding,” said Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson.

“These two murders are linked by the belief on the defendant’s part that his honor as a father and a Muslim has been violated by his daughter, who defied his rule and married a Christian man,” said Anderson.

The Irsan’s daughter Nadia is charged with stalking her sister while trying to find out where she and Beavers were living.

Montgomery County investigators have reopened the 1999 shooting of another of Irsan’s son-in-laws, reports the station. According to his death certificate, Amjad Alidam was shot and killed by Irsan but the case was ruled self-defense.

But Irsan’s daughter and Alidam’s wife, Nesreen, later told police the shooting was staged.

According to a search warrant obtained by KHOU, Nesreen Irsan told investigators that her father lured Alidam to the family’s home and then shot Alidam with a shotgun.

Nesreen Irsan said her father then fired a pistol into the wall and placed the gun near Alidam’s body to make it appear that he threatened and fired at Irsan first, the station reports….

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Raymond Ibrahim: Obama’s Christianity — A Political Tool to Silence Christians

Here in the United States, where Americans are used to hearing their president always invoke Christianity in a manner that silences Christians, United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent Easter message was moderately refreshing.

Among other things, Cameron made it a point to say “that we should feel proud to say, ‘This is a Christian country.’ Yes, we’re a nation that embraces, welcomes and accepts all faiths and none, but we are still a Christian country.”

The context of Cameron’s statement, it should be recalled, is a UK with a large, intolerant, and aggressive Muslim populace—a populace that increasingly seeks to treat the UK’s indigenous Christians the way the Islamic world’s indigenous Christians are habitually treated, that is, subjugated, enslaved, raped, and murdered.

In fact, Cameron touched on the phenomenon of Christian persecution in mostly Muslim lands:

We have a duty to speak out about the persecution of Christians around the world too.  It is truly shocking that in 2015 there are still Christians being threatened, tortured, even killed because of their faith.  From Egypt to Nigeria, Libya to North Korea.  Across the Middle East Christians have been hounded out of their homes, forced to flee from village to village; many of them forced to renounce their faith or brutally murdered.  To all those brave Christians in Iraq and Syria who practice their faith or shelter others, we will say, “We stand with you.”

While one may argue that Cameron is all talk—after all, the UK’s foreign policies, like America’s, have only exacerbated the plight of Christians in the Middle East—it is still refreshing to hear such honest talk, since here in the U.S., one seldom gets even that from President Obama.

Consider what Obama—who is on record saying “we are no longer a Christian nation,” who never notes the Islamic identity of murderers or the Christian identity of their victims, and who ignored a recent UN session on Christian persecution—had to say about Christians at the Easter Prayer Breakfast:  “On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love.  And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.”

This is in keeping with his earlier statements calling on Americans in general Christians in particular to be nonjudgmental and instead to have “humility” and “doubt” themselves.  For example, during the National Prayer Breakfast last February, after Obama alluded to the atrocities committed by the Islamic State—which include beheadings, crucifixions, rape, slavery, and immolations—he said:

I believe there are a few principles that can guide us, particularly those of us who profess to believe. And, first, we should start with some basic humility.  I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt—not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.

Humility, of course, is a well-recognized Christian virtue.  It is the exact opposite of pride; a modest if not humble opinion of oneself, one’s shortcomings.   But what does exercising humility have to do with our understanding of Islamic violence and terrorism, which was, after all, the topic Obama was discussing immediately before he began pontificating about humility?  Are we not to judge and condemn Islamic violence—since we’re apparently no better, as the president made clear when he told Christians to get off their “high horse” and remember the Crusades and Inquisition?

Furthermore, while Christian humility encourages self-doubt, it does not encourage doubt concerning right and wrong, good and evil.  The same Christ who advocated humility repeatedly condemned evil behavior, called on people to repent of their sins, and hurled tables in righteous anger… Keep reading

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The Left: Love Means Never Having to Say Anything is Wrong

CHRISTIAN LOVE

Christian love!

President Obama shows great respect for Muslims and their holy days and even lectures us to do the same. And yet, a few days after another slaughter of Christians which Obama refused to acknowledge, Obama cavalierly chose the Christian high holy day of Easter to take yet another of his signature shots at Christians. Obama displays a hypersensitive respect for Islam while displaying little sensitivity or respect for Christians while claiming to be a Christian. The Bible says by their fruits ye shall know them.

At the Easter Prayer Breakfast, Obama accused Christians of not acting in love.

This Leftist trick (tactic) has worked on too many Christians for far too long.

Candidly, I found myself in church rolling my eyes listening to a sermon in which the pastor chided his congregation. His rebuke is the LGBT community does not like Christians because we are not loving enough to them. Most Christians I know are extremely tolerant and loving to homosexuals. I sat there thinking, “Brother, that’s not what this is about. Obviously, you have not yet realized the Left’s War on Christianity.” This “ain’t” about homosexuals seeking acceptance. The Left’s mission hidden in plain sight is to force their secular, liberal and anti-biblical agenda down our throats. Some say the Left has already won over a generation of our kids; hijacking their thinking starting in kindergarten with books like “Heather Has Two Mommies.”

Whenever Christians catch wind of the Left’s stealthily orchestrated war on Christians and push back, the Left employs their you’re-not-acting-in-love according to the teachings of Jesus tactic. Insidious and repulsive. These people who despise Jesus dare to reference His teachings to manipulate Christians.

The Left’s narrative is love equals accepting someone just the way they are.

My brother said, “Love does not mean we should co-sign sin.” If your child is a thief, love does not require you to support their illegal behavior. Quite the opposite. Whom the Lord loves He chastens.

As I stated, far too many Christians are manipulated by the Left’s love guilt-trip tactic. In the name of love, duped Christians are ignoring God’s Word to adopt an anything goes mindset. The Bible says hate the sin, but love the sinner. The Left are highly enraged by this biblical command to Christians.

The Left demands that Christians enthusiastically rubber stamp anti-biblical behavior or risk being made an example of; humiliated in the mainstream media, sued and forced out of business. Hello, the Catholic nuns of Little Sisters of the Poor, Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-A, Sweet Cakes by Melissa, Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts, Elane Photography, Mozilla’S CEO, the Benham brothers who lost their show on HGTV and Memories Pizza to name a few.

The Left’s message is alarmingly loud and clear. To all who do not embrace our mission to kill babies and paint the mark of the homosexual rainbow over the door of your business, we will figuratively bury you.

Loyal to Obama, some black pastors now embrace same sex marriage. I heard a black minister scold his congregation. He preached that Obama is correct in embracing same sex marriage because he is president, not a Christian evangelist. A supposed man of God praising the president for siding against God’s Word.

A black Christian minister friend strongly opposed same sex marriage. Desperate to make Obama good and his Christian opposition wrong, my friend changed. His excuse is you can not legislate behavior. He said his faith does not permit him to attend a homosexual wedding ceremony, but he would attend the homosexual wedding reception. I thought, “What do you say chatting with guests? Wasn’t Harry a beautiful bride?“

Praise God! A coalition of over 3,700 black Christian ministers are pushing back against Obama and the Left’s anti-biblical agenda.

Folks, please listen to this compelling interview on the Joe Miller radio show with John Zmirak. John articulates what the Left has been scheming under the radar of most Christians. Note that John once supported same sex marriage, but has come to realize that it is only the tip of the iceberg of the Left’s scary anti-Christian agenda.

Bottom line, Christian’s strategy of appeasing the Left is in essence allowing the fox to run rampant in the hen house; corrupting the minds of our kids via public schools, Hollywood and the media.

In His love, it is time for Christians to stand up and be salt and light in our culture.

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Islamic State demands $30 million for Christian hostages

They are acting in complete accord with Islamic law. Here is a salient passage on this issue from a Shafi’i manual of Islamic law:

When an adult male is taken captive, the caliph considers the interests … (of Islam and the Muslims) and decides between the prisoner’s death, slavery, release without paying anything, or ransoming himself in exchange for money or for a Muslim captive held by the enemy. (Umdat al-Salik o9.14)

A revered Islamic jurist, Al-Mawardi, agrees with ‘Umdat al-Salik:

As for the captives, the amir has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first, to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale or manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. (Al-Ahkam As-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance), 4.5)

“ISIS demands $30 million in exchange for Assyrian hostages,” by Ariel Cohen, Jerusalem Post, April 12, 2015 (thanks to Blazing Car Fur):

The Islamic State group has set a demand of a $30 million ransom for the release of hundreds of Christian hostages in their captivity in Syria.

The terrorist organization is demanding up to $100,000 per individual, according to a report over the weekend from Fox News. The group captured between 250-300 Christians on February 23 in the Northern Hasaka province of Syria, an area native to the country’s Christian population.

The demands came during ongoing talks between the Assyrian leadership and ISIS fighters. Third-party Syrian Sunni Muslims are reportedly brokering the talks between the two sides. A total of 23 hostages have been released to date. Reports further indicate that ISIS is using these Christians as human shields in military confrontations.

“They know we cannot come up with this kind of money, so they are hoping other groups and countries will come up with the money,” FOX quoted an Assyrian official as saying….

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Genocide of Christians in Kenya, Syria and Iraq ‘Intensifying’

We wish all participants and observers of this Holy Season a Happy Good Friday, a Happy Easter, and a Happy Passover.

Today’s treatment of Christians in a great many nations is disturbingly and reminiscent of the brutal persecution and genocide of the early followers of Jesus Christ; it is a current day “Crime Against Humanity.” Christian Americans are frustrated by the indifference displayed by the U.S. Government’s in its refusal to join in with world leaders to condemn the persecution, torture, and genocide of helpless Syrian and Assyrian Christians by Radical Islamic Terrorists members of Islamic State and Al Q’ieda as the genocide intensifies from week to week. We are now also observing the religious persecution of conscientious and believing Christians in the United States, led by the left of center liberal media establishment, because of their refusal to participate in or provide support for religious ceremonies that their well held religious beliefs don’t agree with.

The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Royal Family in England, the UK Prime Minister, the King of Jordan, the President of Egypt, the President of Kurdistan, the Prime Minister of Japan, the Prime Minister of Australian, President George W. Bush, Reverend Billy Graham, the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Prime Ministers of NATO nations, the Prime Minister of Israel, Christian Religious Leaders of every denomination from throughout the world, the current crop of candidates seeking to run for President of the United States, Christians worldwide, and the Secretary General of the United Nations have all raised their voices in unison to demand that the bloody genocide of Christians in Africa, Syria, and on the Plains of Nineveh in Iraq stop.

Unfortunately for three years, the occupant of the Oval Office has not joined in with other world leaders in their condemnation of the genocide of Christians by Radical Islamic Terrorists members of the Islamic State and Al Q’ieda in this current Jihad against Christians—that silence from the Oval Office for the last three years has been deafening!

Inside ISIS’ Shocking Persecution of Assyrian Christians on the Plains of Ninveh in Iraq

Assyrian Christianity started in the Plains of Nineveh with first-century Apostles in churches the Disciples founded, and Assyrian Christians still speak Aramaic, the language that Christ spoke. For over 2000 years, they endured and survived the Roman persecution of Christians, sieges by Saladin, conquests by the Persians, persecution by the Ottoman Empire, oppression by the Mongols, the survived Turkish genocide at the turn of the century, WWI, WWII, Iraq’s long war with Iran, the US led coalition Iraqi War with Saddam Hussein.,

But in just 10 months of control, Islamic State and Al Q’ieda, the members of Radical Islamic Jihadists perpetrating worldwide Jihad, have forced hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians into exile. At one time, 4 million Assyrian Christians made the Plains of Ninveh, in what was once Mesopotamia (Iraq today), their traditional home for over 2000 years. By clicking on the below listed link you can view the 60 Minutes segment that will take you inside Iraq today and will describe the life and death struggle that the Assyrian Christians, trying to survive, are involved in with Radical Islamic Jihadists.

Assyrian Christians are being crucified, beheaded, being forced to kneel to be shot, thrown off buildings to their deaths, being buried alive, being burned alive, whose children are being cut in half, and whose female children & women are being raped then killed for refusing to deny that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. For the last 3 years the Obama administration has refused to provide logistic support and small arms to the Assyrian Christians; in the last 10 months the Assyrian Christian Militia has been training, employing the paucity of funds donated to their cause by American citizens. The newly constituted Assyrian Christian Militia has been trying to protect the Assyrian Christians who have migrate toward the Kurdish lines on the eastern end of the Plains of Ninveh Although 51 US Congressmen have petitioned the Obama administration to simply provide logistics and defensive small arms for the Assyrian Christian Militia engaged with ISIL, their requests have been ignored, yet US military air support and logistic aide is being provided to Iraq and their ally, the Iranian Quid’s Force, with boots on the ground in Iraq who are also engaged with ISIL.

Seyfo Center Organization Mission Statement and 100 Years Anniversary Of Assyrian Genocide.


​​New York Times

ISIS Onslaught Engulfs Assyrian Christians as Militants Destroy Ancient Art

By ANNE BARNARD

ISTANBUL — The reports are horrifying, something out of a distant era of ancient conquests: entire villages emptied, with hundreds taken prisoner, others kept as slaves; the destruction of irreplaceable works of art; a tax on religious minorities, payable in gold.

A rampage reminiscent of Tamerlane or Genghis Khan, perhaps, but in reality, according to reports by residents, activist groups and the assailants themselves, a description of the modus operandi of the Islamic State’s self-declared Islamic caliphate this week as it prosecuted a relentless campaign in Iraq and Syria against what have historically been religiously and ethnically diverse areas with traces of civilizations dating to ancient Mesopotamia.

The latest to face the militants’ onslaught are the Assyrian Christians of northeastern Syria, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, some speaking a modern version of Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

Assyrian leaders have stated hundreds Assyrian Christians men, women, and children have been taken captive, along with civilian men and fighters from Assyrian Christian Militias, said Dawoud Dawoud, an Assyrian political activist who had just toured the area, in the vicinity of the Syrian city of Qamishli. Thirty villages had been emptied, he said.

The Syriac Military Council, a local Assyrian militia, put the number of those taken in the hundreds.

Reached in Qamishli, Adul Ahad Nissan, 48, an accountant and music composer who fled his village before the brunt of the fighting, said a close friend and his wife had been captured.

“I used to call them every other day. Now their mobile is off,” he said. “I tried and tried. It’s so painful not to see your friends again.”
Members of the Assyrian diaspora have called for international intervention, and on Thursday, warplanes of the United States-led coalition struck targets in the area, suggesting that the threat to a minority enclave had galvanized a reaction, as a similar threat did in the Kurdish city of Kobani last year.

The assault on the Assyrian communities comes amid battles for a key crossroads in the area. But to residents, it also seems to be part of the latest effort by the Islamic State militants to eradicate or subordinate anyone and anything that does not comport with their vision of Islamic rule — whether a minority sect that has survived centuries of conquerors and massacres or, as the world was reminded on Thursday, the archaeological traces of pre-Islamic antiquity.

An Islamic State video distributed on the worldwide Internet shows Radical Islamic Terrorists smashing statues with sledgehammers inside the Mosul Museum, in northern Iraq, that showcases recent archaeological finds from the ancient Assyrian empire. The relics include items from the palace of King Sennacherib, who in the Byron poem “came down like the wolf on the fold” to destroy his enemies.

“A tragedy and catastrophic loss for Iraqi history and archaeology beyond comprehension,” Amr al-Azm, the Syrian anthropologist and historian, called the destruction on his Facebook page.

“These are some of the most wonderful examples of Assyrian art, and they’re part of the great history of Iraq, and of Mesopotamia,” he said in an interview. “The whole world has lost this.”

Islamic State militants seized the museum — which had not yet opened to the public — when they took over Mosul in June and have repeatedly threatened to destroy its collection.

In the video, put out by the Islamic State’s media office for Nineveh Province — named for an ancient Assyrian city — a man explains, “The monuments that you can see behind me are but statues and idols of people from previous centuries, which they used to worship instead of God.”

A message flashing on the screen read: “Those statues and idols weren’t there at the time of the Prophet nor his companions. They have been excavated by Satanists.”

The men, some bearded and in traditional Islamic dress, others clean-shaven in jeans and T-shirts, were filmed toppling and destroying artifacts. One is using a power tool to deface a winged lion much like a pair on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has presented itself as a modern-day equivalent of the conquering invaders of Sennacherib’s day, or as Islamic zealots smashing relics out of religious conviction.

Yet in the past, the militants have veered between ideology and pragmatism in their relationship to antiquity — destroying historic mosques, tombs and artifacts that they consider forms of idolatry, but also selling more portable objects to fill their coffers.

The latest eye-catching destruction could have a more strategic aim, said Mr. Azm, who closely follows the Syrian conflict and opposes both the Islamic State and the government.

“It’s all a provocation,” he said, aimed at accelerating a planned effort, led by Iraqi forces and backed by United States warplanes, to take back Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

“They want a fight with the West because that’s how they gain credibility and recruits,” Mr. Azm said. “They want boots on the ground. They want another Falluja,” a reference to the 2004 battle in which United States Marines, in the largest ground engagement since Vietnam, took that Iraqi city from Qaeda-linked insurgents whose organization would eventually give birth to the Islamic State.

The Islamic State has been ecumenical in its violence against the modern diversity of Iraq and Syria. It considers Shiite Muslims apostates, and has destroyed Shiite shrines and massacred more than 1,000 Shiite Iraqi soldiers. It has demanded that Christians living in its territories pay the jizya, a tax on religious minorities dating to early Islamic rule.

Islamic State militants have also slaughtered fellow Sunni Muslims who reject their rule, killing hundreds of members of the Shueitat tribe in eastern Syria in one clash alone. They have also massacred and enslaved members of the Yazidi sect in Iraq.

Read more.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Combat Veterans for Congress website.

Prayers for Kafirs (non-Muslims)

Since over half of Islamic doctrine is about Kafirs (non-Muslims), it follows that prayers would include Kafirs too, so every day, a Muslim prays for the punishment and suffering of all Kafirs. The prayers also follow the Koranic doctrine that Muslims are not to be a true friend of them. Muslims are to forsake and turn away from Kafirs.

Not only are all Kafirs to suffer punishment in hell, but Christians and Jews are singled out to be worthy of Allah’s anger and are condemned in their beliefs.

In the end, all references to Kafirs in Islamic prayer are negative, demeaning and hateful.

Assyrian Christians Defending Their Homeland from Islamic State Genocide

In a “Crime Against Humanity” on January 8, 1914 a Jihad was declared by the Ottoman Empire against “all Christians”; it was a government ordered genocide against Greeks, Assyrian, and Armenian Christians, the genocide resulted in the brutal murders of over one million Christians over the next two years.  For over the last 3 years, the world has been witnessing another “Crime Against Humanity”; today the same type Jihad that was perpetrated against Christians over 100 years ago by the Ottoman Turks, is being perpetrated by ISIL and Al Q’ieda in another bloody genocide against Syrian in Syria and against Assyrian Christians on the Plains of Ninveh in Iraq.

The Plain of Nineveh is the 2000+ year old ancient homeland of Aramaic speaking Assyrian Christians in what used to be Mesopotamia, but is called Iraq today.  The Assyrian Christians pride themselves on being the oldest ethnic Christian community in continuous existence since Jesus Christ walked the face of the earth; they speak the same language Christ spoke, worship in churches the Christ’s Disciples founded, and since Roman times theses courageous Assyrian Christians have been persecuted and murdered for refusing to denounce their faith in Jesus Christ.  The Pope called the Assyrian Church “The Martyr Church.”  Hundreds of ancient Assyrian Christian Churches, some that go back as far as 1800 years are being burned to the ground, along with their ancient religious artifacts and historic bibles by ISIL and Al Q’ieda; the Tomb of Jonah has also been destroyed.  For over 3 years particularly vulnerable Assyrian Christians have been fleeing their ancient ancestral homeland in the Nineveh Plain from the onslaught of ISIL and Al Q’ieda, seeking protection from the Kurdish Pershmerga Forces from the bloody genocide that has been underway for many years, as have thousands of peaceful Muslims who refuse to support the Jihad of Christians by Radical Islamic Terrorists.

For over 3 years the international media has reported that ISIL and Al Q’ieda has been insisting on mass conversion to Islam or death; hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Assyrian Christians, are being horrifically targeted for religious cleansing by Radical Islamic Terrorists.  The terrorists are brutally torturing, crucifying, beheading, burying Christians alive, shooting them execution style, dowsing them in oil and burning them alive, cutting the young Assyrian Christian children in half, raping & murdering female children and women, conducting mass executions, and selling some of the Assyrian Christian women into white slavery (there are hundreds of photos of those atrocities on the worldwide net).  The Greek Catholic Relief Agency has reported that 300,000 Syrian and Assyrian Christians refugees have been seeking resettlement in the US thru the UN Muslim Resettlement Program, but they have been rejected by the UN and by the Obama administration.

Leaders of the International Community have been raising their voices in opposition to the current “Crime Against Humanity.”  The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Royal Family in England, the UK Prime Minister, the King of Jordan, the President of Egypt, the President of Kurdistan, the Prime Minister of Japan, the Prime Minister of Australian, President George W. Bush, Reverend Billy Graham, the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Prime Ministers of NATO nations, the Prime Minister of Israel, Christian Religious Leaders of every denomination from throughout the world, and the Secretary General of the United Nations have all raised their voices in unison to demand that the bloody genocide of Christians in Syria and Iraq stop.  The occupant of the Oval Office has not joined world leaders in their condemnation of the genocide of Christians by ISIL & Al Q’ieda in this latest “Crime Against Humanity”: Obama refuses to utter one word of condemnation, nor has he called on the Radical Islamic Terrorists to stop the bloody genocide of defenseless Christians—his silence for the last 3 years has been deafening.  However, Obama did refer to Christians in a recent prayer breakfast, the same way Radical Islamic Terrorists refer to Christians, as “Crusaders.”

Less than 400,000 Assyrian Christians survivors of the 4,065,000 Assyrian Christians who once populated 70 Urmia villages in the Nineveh Plain remain in Iraq; many Assyrian Christians have fled the country and are among the 300,000 Christian refugees seeking entry into the US as refugees.  For over 3 years, the 400,000 Assyrian Christians have been desperately seeking military weapons and logistic support from the Obama administration and the Iraqi government.  Very little of the US military and logistic support, that is being sent to Iraq by the US, has been funneled by the Iranian controlled Iraq government to the Kurdish Pershmerga Forces.

For the last 3 years, the Iranian controlled Iraqi government has rejected distribution of any weapons and logistic support to the Assyrian Christians to save them from ethnic cleansing, or to the Sunni tribes who once allied themselves with US military forces in support of the “Surge” during the Iraqi War.  The friendly Sunni tribes have been persecuted by the Iranian controlled Iraqi Shite Government ever since friendly US military forces were summarily pulled out of Iraq by Obama. US Forces were completely pulled out of Iraq at the end of the Iraqi War, despite warnings from US military general officers and US senior intelligence officials, who warned that removing a residual US military force would destabilize Iraq, and allow Al Q’ieda to grow once again.  Future US military and logistic support from the US must to delivered directly to the Kurdish Pershmerga Forces, Assyrian Christians, and friendly Sunni tribes who once allied themselves with the US military during the “Surge.”

The Assyrian Christians in Iraq who make up the Assyrian Iraqi Democratic Movement (AIDM) have sought and obtained support from US Assyrian communities.  The American Mesopotamian Organization (AMO) and other Assyrian organizations in the US; have jointly developed a project entitled “Restore Nineveh Now” with AIDM    AMO is soliciting and collecting donated funds to equip and train 4000 Assyrian Christians volunteers in an newly developed Assyrian Militia, called “The Nineveh Plain Protection Units.”  Currently 600 volunteers are being trained to lead and mobilize “The Nineveh Plain Protection Units” in two locations in eastern Iraq.  The Nineveh Plain Protection Units will defend their fellow Assyrian Christians from being massacred in ISIL’s and Al Q’ieda’s Jihad (the below listed article provides specific details on the training that is underway).

The Combat Veterans For Congress support a coalition of 55 US Congressmen who have asked Obama to take immediate action to provide weapons and logistic support directly to the Assyrian Christian’s Nineveh Plains Protection Units and, after 3 years, to finally speak out against the bloody genocide being perpetrated by Radical Islamic Terrorists designed to annihilate the Ancient Faith Community of Assyrian Christians on the Plains of Ninveh.  Kindly click on the below listed link to watch a video of a Congressional spokesman for the 55 US Congressmen that was provided to us by Foster Friess.

Watch this 3:45 minute video from U.S. Representative Trent Franks:


‘We Love This Land’: Iraqi Christian Men Fight to Keep ISIS Away From Homes

A battalion of Assyrian Christian men train at a former U.S. military facility outside the city of Kirkuk, Iraq. (Photo courtesy: Kaldo Oghanna)

Athra Kado had never shot a gun before, let alone seen a battlefield.

Until recently Kado, 25, spent his young career in a classroom, teaching high school students how to speak Syriac, his native language.

But Kado is one of hundreds of Assyrian Christian men—many with no military experience—taking up arms to protect their towns from ISIS terrorists who invaded this part of Iraq early last year.

“If we don’t have land to live, what’s the purpose of teaching a language?” Kado tells The Daily Signal in a Skype interview from a former U.S. military facility outside the city of Kirkuk, where he is finishing up a training camp with 500 or so amateur fighters.

Recruits to the new Christian militia, or battalion, say their villages and families were abandoned by Iraqi government and peshmerga forces last summer, letting the terrorists seize control.

Since then, some 30,000 Christians have fled the Nineveh plains—an area inhabited by minority groups such as Iraqi Christians, Yezidis and Shabaks.

Without official government support, and with minimal equipment primarily funded through donations, the young Christian men—most in their early to mid 20s—feel a responsibility to defend their own.

“We saw that nobody was doing anything for us,” says Kado, whose home town, Al Qosh, is the only Christian town in the Nineveh plains free of ISIS control. “We know that we don’t have another chance if we don’t fight for ourselves. No one is protecting us. We want to make a change.”

Last summer, Iraq’s most prominent Christian political party, the Assyrian Democratic Movement, issued a call for volunteers from minority groups to form a local defense force to fight ISIS, the Sunni militant group also known the Islamic State or ISIL.

In late January, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s peshmerga—a leading force fighting ISIS that receives American support—offered up the Kirkuk training facility as the grounds for the Assyrian Christian battalion to learn military might.

“This is our right as human beings and as indigenous people: to protect our people and ourselves,” says Kaldo Oghanna, a party official from the Assyrian Democratic Movement who oversaw the training. “It is not logical for people south of north [of here] to secure this area.”

”This is our right as human beings and as indigenous people: to protect our people and ourselves,” says @KaldoRamzi.

Kado, the young fighter, said at least four Americans—volunteers with military experience—are helping train the men to use weapons such as automatic rifles, mortars, machine guns, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

Fighters acquire skills fast, because they have to. They train from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day.

“When someone wants badly to do something, everything is easy for him,” Kado says.

“Me and my friends are getting this information so fast. We want to do that. We will go to our villages and towns and protect them so ISIS can’t come to our families.”

The training wraps up Thursday, when the civilian fighters are expected to be able to defend their turf.

“I know I am ready,” Kado says.

500 iraqi christian fighters

Some 500 amateur Assyrian Christian fighters learn how to be a disciplined fighting force. (Photo courtesy: Kaldo Oghanna)

Help Wanted

Oghanna says the training of Iraqi Christian fighters has occurred without financial support from the Iraqi, Kurdish or U.S. governments.

Donations, mostly from Assyrians abroad, fund everything from guns to bullets to food.

He hopes the United States steps forward—help that may be on the way.

The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act, approved in December, includes language to train and equip fighters against the Islamic State.

As part of the legislation, up to $1.6 billion should go toward support for units such as the Iraqi Army, Sunni tribal fighters, peshmerga and local forces protecting “vulnerable” minority groups in the Nineveh plains.

“The U.S. supports many groups [fighters], especially in Syria, where many of them convert to join ISIS,” Oghanna says. “We know it’s complex [to decide who to support], but we are for sure not going to convert to ISIS.”

‘My Land’

The Assyrian Christians, who consider themselves the indigenous people of Iraq, want to survive on their terms.

For Kado and the battalion fighters, that means staying in their villages, no matter that ISIS militants want to wipe Christianity out of Iraq.

Oghanna says there are currently less than 400,000 Christians living in Iraq, down from about 1.6 million in 2003. Most have fled.

Kado will not. His family’s roots in Al Qosh date back 400 years.

More than 400 families from other Christian villages have come to Al Qosh to seek shelter. So Kado stays.

“We don’t want to be refugees in another country,” Kado says.

Adds Oghanna, “It would be bitter for us to migrate to Europe and the U.S.”

Kado has great respect for America.

He listens to American music, and he learned English through the songs and lyrics of Whitney Houston.

Two of his brothers live in Detroit.

“I want to vacation in the U.S.,” Kado says, smiling sheepishly, listing Las Vegas as a spot he hopes to visit. “But I want to stay and live here.”

Kado is risking everything to stay—to be the guardian of his religion, his land.

“I have thought about dying,” Kado says. “But the most important thing I’ve learned in the camp is discipline. It’s not just Christianity. If it was just Christianity, I could be Christian in Europe. It’s a matter of … this is our land. We want to live on it. We love this land.”

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of a battalion of Assyrian Christian men training at a former U.S. military facility outside the city of Kirkuk, Iraq. (Photo courtesy: Kaldo Oghanna)

What should Christians ask of the GOP nominee?

If Republicans win all three branches of government in 2016, what legislation will get passed?

Economic growth, ending middle-class stagflation, reversing the debt divide in college students, repealing Obamacare. Into the policy mix, social conservatives have an important question to ask themselves: What is it we want for our country from a potentially historic GOP victory in 2016?

gop crossRussell Moore laid down an important marker in a recent Wall Street Journal article, which I would translate as God Talk Is Not Enough:

In recent years candidates have assumed that they can win over evangelicals by learning Christian slogans, by masking political rallies as prayer meetings, and by basically producing a long-form new birth certificate to prove they’ve been born again. This sort of identity politics is a luxury of a past era when evangelicals were part of a silent majority in the U.S., with our First Amendment freedoms assumed and guaranteed. That is not the present situation.

Indeed it is not. Let me speak for traditionalists of all religions for a moment.

A few months before the Supreme Court is likely to rule on gay marriage, the incidents causing concern about what gay marriage will mean for dissenters (especially traditional Christians, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims) multiply:

Gordon College students are banned from tutoring public-school students, because of the college’s embrace of standard orthodox Christian rules (no sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman); the request of its college president for a religious exemption from President Obama has now triggered a possible threat to its accreditation.

Meanwhile, Marquette University (a Jesuit institution) is attempting to strip Professor Scott McAdams of his tenure and his job because he blogged critically about the way a college instructor (and grad student) treated an anti-gay-marriage student.

Kelvin Cochran, whose rags-to-riches rise from Shreveport poverty to police chief of Atlanta is as inspiring as any, was fired for self-publishing for his Bible-study class a book that contains two paragraphs exhorting his fellow Christians to live by Biblical sexual values.

In Lafayette, Calif., parents of 14-year-old public-school students are suing because their children were asked in English class whether their parents would embrace them if they were gay — and then these Christian students were publicly shamed and humiliated when they supported their parents’ values.

A Ford Motor Company worker (contractor) was invited to comment on pro-gay-rights material circulated by the company — and then fired for leaving an anti-sodomy comment on the blog.

Note the similar strategies here: invite or force public comment and then discipline those who say the “wrong” thing.

Angela McCaskill was disciplined by her federally chartered university for simply signing her name to a petition putting same-sex marriage to a vote in Maryland.

A judge in Washington State was found guilty of an ethics violation for saying privately in chambers (in response to a staffer’s question) that he would not perform same-sex marriages.

The great god of gay equality demands a sacrifice of $150,000 from Oregon bakers Melissa and Aaron Klein for the sin of refusing to bake a gay-wedding cake.

More than 70,000 people signed their names to a petition saying Mozilla founder Brendan Eich must either publicly recant his opposition to gay marriage (evidenced solely by a relatively small donation to the Prop 8 campaign) or be fired.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but it points to where I think the greatest threats lie: closing down educational and work opportunities to traditionalists who dare to speak.

If the GOP would like to leave a legacy that makes a difference, I would argue for generous anti-discrimination protections for those who favor or oppose gay marriage (unless they work for an organization whose substantial purpose is to favor or oppose gay marriage).

A new poll shows 57 percent of Americans believe small-business owners should not be forced to provide wedding-related services. It also shows 44 percent of Americans favor gay marriage, 39 percent oppose it, and a whopping 15 percent are unwilling to offer an opinion in the current environment. Threatening people with losing their jobs is a very effective way to silence and intimidate.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave a high-profile press conference offering to provide substantial new protections for gay people provided that robust religious-liberty protections are part of the deal. Live and let live is the offer on the table. So far the official voices of gay rights don’t like it: James Esseks, who directs the LGBT project of the American Civil Liberties Union, told ABC news that the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom “does not give any of us the right to harm others, and that’s what it sounds like the proposal from the Mormon church would do.”

One important marker will come out of Utah, where we will find out if it is possible to craft live-and-let-live legislation or whether gay-rights supporters value legislation primarily as a club to suppress dissent.

The report on the poll includes this comment from a respondent: “Why make an issue out of one florist when there are probably thousands of florists?” asked David Kenney, who’s 59. “The gay community wants people to understand their position, but at the same time, they don’t want to understand other people’s religious convictions. It’s a two-way street.”

Not yet. If social conservatives want to be taken seriously as a political force, we need to do what a handful of Common Core moms have just done: push our concerns into the presidential race.

And for me, if I were to prioritize, the right not to lose my job or my tax exemption because I publicly oppose (or support) gay marriage should be at the top.

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Westerners join Iraqi Christian militia to fight Islamic State

These individuals are doing what the governments of the post-Christian West have shown no interest in doing: protecting the Christians persecuted by the Islamic State. But since they self-identify as Christian, watch for them to be vilified and demonized by the mainstream media, and held up as the equivalent of the Islamic State: Christians committing violence in the name of their religion on one side, and Muslims committing violence in the name of their religion on the other. That these men have gone there to prevent atrocities rather than commit them will be glossed over and ignored.

“Westerners join Iraqi Christian militia to fight Islamic State,” by Isabel Coles, Reuters, February 15, 2015:

(Reuters) – Saint Michael, the archangel of battle, is tattooed across the back of a U.S. army veteran who recently returned to Iraq and joined a Christian militia fighting Islamic State in what he sees as a biblical war between good and evil.

Brett, 28, carries the same thumb-worn pocket Bible he did whilst deployed to Iraq in 2006 – a picture of the Virgin Mary tucked inside its pages and his favorite verses highlighted.

“It’s very different,” he said, asked how the experiences compared. “Here I’m fighting for a people and for a faith, and the enemy is much bigger and more brutal.”

Thousands of foreigners have flocked to Iraq and Syria in the past two years, mostly to join Islamic State, but a handful of idealistic Westerners are enlisting as well, citing frustration their governments are not doing more to combat the ultra-radical Islamists or prevent the suffering of innocents.

The militia they joined is called Dwekh Nawsha – meaning self-sacrifice in the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Christ and still used by Assyrian Christians, who consider themselves the indigenous people of Iraq.

A map on the wall in the office of the Assyrian political party affiliated with Dwekh Nawsha marks the Christian towns in northern Iraq, fanning out around the city of Mosul.

The majority are now under control of Islamic State, which overran Mosul last summer and issued am ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword. Most fled.

Dwekh Nawsha operates alongside Kurdish peshmerga forces to protect Christian villages on the frontline in Nineveh province.

“These are some of the only towns in Nineveh where church bells ring. In every other town the bells have gone silent, and that’s unacceptable,” said Brett, who has “The King of Nineveh” written in Arabic on the front of his army vest….

Tim shut down his construction business in Britain last year, sold his house and bought two plane tickets to Iraq: one for himself and another for a 44-year-old American software engineer he met through the internet.

The men joined up at Dubai airport, flew to the Kurdish city of Suleimaniyah and took a taxi to Duhok, where they arrived last week.

“I’m here to make a difference and hopefully put a stop to some atrocities,” said 38-year-old Tim, who previously worked in the prison service. “I’m just an average guy from England really.”…

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Christian horses found too high by President Obama

Uppity Christian horsemen from the Crusades are still trampling modern-day Muslim pacifists.

As everyone knows, the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington is a yearly event designed to put Christians in their place and advance Islam as the national religion. At the February 5th prayer breakfast, President Obama once again met the expectations of the progressive movement by telling off those uppity Christians like a true Muslim would:

“Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Indeed, in these dark times of Christian Extremism, what we need is a president who can inform the world about all of the Christian atrocities throughout history for which currently living Americans are personally responsible. Having effectively airbrushed “Islamic Extremism” from the lexicon, Obama completed his sermon with a prayer towards Mecca.

Christians are hereby instructed to remove incorrect pages from their Bibles and replace them with the following corrected transcript of Jesus’ words: “Thou shalt murder gays; thou shalt enslave minorities; thou shalt bomb women and children.”

Since there isn’t an equivalent in the Quran of anything so hateful as this corrected version of Biblical history, Christians need to get off their high horses and admit that Jesus had personally instigated terrible atrocities, as proven by the Crusades and the Inquisition.

As if that weren’t enough, Jesus had the audacity to die but not stay dead, to walk around alive and kicking for forty more days, and then to fly up to heaven. Such antisocial behavior allowed Christians to start getting uppity around 33 A.D., which still continues unabated to this day.

The science is settled: there are no Islamic Extremists anywhere on Earth because President Obama has never uttered the words. Christians, on the other hand, are committing terrible atrocities daily, taking hostages, cutting off heads, blowing themselves up in public places, burning people alive, and otherwise terrorizing the peaceful and rapidly diminishing Muslim community. No verification of these facts is required simply because Obama is a genius who would never tell a lie.

Obama_Horse_Stick.jpg

President Obama is seen modeling a People-approved low-horse for those who are barely Christians, pretending to be Christians, or embarrassed by Christianity.  (Photo Credit: blurbrain.com)

It is known that President Ronald Reagan liked to ride horses – all of them high – for which he is revered among Christian Extremists. He was once even injured in a fall from his high horse. Let that be a lesson to all Christians to get off their high horses and stay off.

Horse_Reagan.jpg

President Reagan’s horse was so high that in order to fit it into his Presidential Library, workers had to chop off its legs. This picture gives a whole new meaning to “Reagan’s quarterhorse.” Too high a horse would not be a humble memorial for a Christian anyway.

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Here, President Reagan is seen assisting his wife Nancy off of her high horse.

In view of the above, our scientists at the People’s Cube Karl Marx Treatment Center have developed recommendations on how to get Christians off their high horses efficiently: hack off the high horse’s legs or replace them with miniature low horses.

A standard horse owned by a Christian should be no taller than 36 inches. All horse-riding Christians will be subject to measuring with a pole similar to those used on amusement park rides.

Pony_Girl.jpg

This Christian got off her high horse, and the world is a lot better off.

Compliance with these measures is expected to level the playing field, bringing Christians closer to the ground where the peaceful Muslim crowd congregates.

And finally, as we discussed the subject of Christian high horses at our latest meeting, we received a few questions from confused members of the audience. People wanted to know whether the horse in question was a Christian, what exactly the definition of “high” was, and what if President Obama really meant to say that the horse was high from marijuana and the Christian should get off to avoid contact.

We will make sure to ask the White House spokesperson, Josh Earnest, for clarification on what the President really meant. Until then, the debate gallops on.

Horse_Athlete.jpg

This Christian white male needs to get off his high horse. It’s offensive to Muslims.

RELATED VIDEO: Coverage of the 2015 National Prayer Breakfast. Video courtesy of CSPAN:

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Peoples Cube.

Pope Francis: “You can’t make a toy out of the religions of others…In freedom of expression there are limits”

The Pope is speaking generally of religions here, but clearly he is only talking about one religion, and not his own. For those who insult the Pope’s religion, and there are many, have no reason to “expect a punch” from believers, and the Pope must be aware of that. Moreover, in these remarks he flatly contradicts himself. He says: “Everyone has not only the freedom and the right but the obligation to say what he thinks for the common good … we have the right to have this freedom openly without offending.” “Without offending”?

So the freedom, right and obligation to say what one thinks for the common good ends wherever someone else takes offense? But what if the offense is unreasonable or unwarranted? Is the fact that some people get offended to the point of murderous rage over a handful of cartoons really sufficient reason to curtail the freedom, right and obligation of others to say what they think for the common good? Then any tyrant can silence his critics by claiming that he is offended, and we will be ruled over, and indeed tyrannized, by the perpetually offended. And that is pretty much the situation we are heading toward these days.

“After Paris attacks, Pope speaks out against insulting religions,” by Philip Pullella, Reuters, January 15, 2015:

(Reuters) – Pope Francis, speaking of last week’s deadly attacks by Islamist militants in Paris, has defended freedom of expression, but said it was wrong to provoke others by insulting their religion and that one could “expect” a reaction to such abuse.

“You can’t provoke, you can’t insult the faith of others, you can’t make fun of faith,” he told reporters on Thursday, aboard a plane taking him from Sri Lanka to the Philippines to start the second leg off his Asian tour.

Francis, who has condemned the Paris attacks, was asked about the relationship between freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

“I think both freedom of religion and freedom of expression are both fundamental human rights,” he said, adding that he was talking specifically about the Paris killings.

“Everyone has not only the freedom and the right but the obligation to say what he thinks for the common good … we have the right to have this freedom openly without offending,” he said.

To illustrate his point, he turned to an aide and said: “It is true that you must not react violently, but although we are good friends if (he) says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch, it’s normal.

“You can’t make a toy out of the religions of others,” he added. “These people provoke and then (something can happen). In freedom of expression there are limits.”

Seventeen people, including journalists and police, were killed in three days of violence that began with a shooting attack on the political weekly Charlie Hebdo, known for its satirical attacks on Islam and other religions.

Referring to past religious wars, such as the Crusades sanctioned by the Catholic Church against Islam, the Pope said:

“Let’s consider our own history. How many wars of religion have we had? Even we were sinners but you can’t kill in the name of God. That is an aberration.”…

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