The suffering Chaldean Church
This received in the combox today from Tim Shamoon:
And here is a link to the Chaldean Church. To encourage you to read further, I quote from the page An invitation to save Christian Iraqis.
Despite everything that we have gone through we will increase and multiply. We Chaldeans are proud of heritage and of culture. We speak an ancient language derived from the time of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will not be wiped out by a bunch of psychopaths determined to cause terror and drive us of our land. Christianity was started in what is now Iraq by St. Thomas while he was on India. We will survive with the help of the Holy Spirit.Here is a picture of the recent first Holy Communion celebration at St Peter's Church:
The Blood of Martyrs will save us. Please see link enclosed of a recent First Holy Communion of over 100 Chaldean Catholic kids at St. Peter’s Church in San Diego California and what you will see is just a fraction there are Chaldeans in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK and many other countries and we will not be killed off by those who have no fear of God.
And here is a link to the Chaldean Church. To encourage you to read further, I quote from the page An invitation to save Christian Iraqis.
On November 21st, 2004 while Layla, a mother of two orphans, was heading home at Al-Dawara in Baghdad, a fanatic Islamist thug stopped her and ordered her to take off her Cross so she could become clean again!Tim Shamoon also wrote:
Layla refused to remove her Cross using strict and polite words. The extremist Moslem reached to her Cross, snapped it off, threw it on the ground, then grabbed his gun and shot her in the head.
Iraqi Christians are now more persecuted than ever and now more than ever they need help. They have no armed militias and they are simply kicked from pillar to post. Please take time to read and then if you can please sign the petition the link for which I have enclosed and should you agree to sign it then you might be good enough to pass it to others for their signature too.Tim - you said "Thank you for your time". This is very humbling. If we can give a little of our time, that is not much. Thank you and your brothers and sisters for your courageous witness to the faith. It teaches us a great deal.
[Link to the petition]
For further information about the plight of Iraqi Christians you can go to a number of websites such as:
http://fayrouz.blogspot.com/
http://www.ankawa.com/
http://www.aina.org/
http://www.kaldaya.net/2007/4_DailyNews_April2007/Apr18_07_E4_ConvertOrDie_Fatwa.html
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idcategory=33&idSub=125&idArticle=9136
Please note that by signing the petition you are NOT being anti multinational forces in Iraq or anti Islam however governments around the world are simply turning a blind eye to this disaster.
Can anyone imagine that in 2007 a group of people over 1 million are murdered threatened and not a finger is lifted! The last time the world did not act we had Rwanda and earlier last century we had the holocaust. Please sign the petition maybe for a change the Iraqi government the international community will act and not bury its head in the sand.
All we ask is your signature, prayer and please spread the word. This will not cost you any money!
When Fr. Ragheed and the three deacons where murdered while I was very sad I was not surprised a number of us (Iraqi Christians) have been warning people that something bad was about to happen. Please do not ignore us.