CNA<\/a>).- World leaders and diplomats must help prevent a total loss of Middle Eastern Christianity, Cardinal Christoph Sch\u00f6nborn of Vienna warned in a June 26 panel discussion in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\t\u201cReligious geography is mobile. And as things go, it may happen that the Near East will undergo the fate of the North African Christianity in the seventh century,\u201d Vienna's archbishop told listeners at the Hudson Institute. That \u201cflourishing\u201d North African Church, he recalled, \u201cvanished completely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt would be a deep wound for Christianity to lose the homeland, the land of origin, of Christianity, if it remained only a 'museum' for pilgrims,\u201d Cardinal Sch\u00f6nborn said. \u201cAnd it would be a tragedy for the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe Austrian Church leader spoke at Tuesday's roundtable, entitled \u201cPersecuted Christians and Other Religious Minorities in the New Middle East: Formulating an Effective U.S. Policy Response,\u201d along with Lebanese professor Dr. Habib Malik, and Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention.<\/p>\n
\tIn his keynote remarks, the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna recalled the seventh-century Islamic conquest of Damascus, Jerusalem, Egypt, and North Africa. While Christianity disappeared from some of these regions, it survived in others up to the present day.<\/p>\n
\tBut new religious and political realities \u2013 including the revolutions of the \u201cArab Spring,\u201d as well as the impact of the Iraq war \u2013 now threaten the Church's survival even in countries like Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, where it persisted after the initial Muslim conquests of the seventh century.<\/p>\n
\tCardinal Sch\u00f6nborn's remarks came just days after the election of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi as Egypt's new president. Meanwhile, Syria's ongoing conflict is increasingly seen as a civil war, while bombings and other attacks in Iraq killed around 180 people during June 2012.<\/p>\n
\tIraq has lost more than half of its Christian population since 2003. Observers have warned that Syria and Egypt could suffer similar losses, if Christians opt to flee the sectarian violence and political pressure brought by the new Arab revolutions.<\/p>\n
\tIn Tuesday's speech, Cardinal Sch\u00f6nborn advised Western politicians and diplomats to deepen their awareness of religious factors at work in the Middle East \u2013 which have been \u201cseriously neglected,\u201d to the detriment of vulnerable groups.<\/p>\n
\tWestern nations must also \u201cinsist on the importance of the secular state\u201d for the future of the Middle East. If U.S. policymakers want to help the cause of Arab democracy, they should \u201chelp the Christians and the other minorities to breathe,\u201d the cardinal advised.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe Christians and other minorities in the Near East know that their only chance for survival is a secular state, with real religious freedom,\u201d Cardinal Sch\u00f6nborn observed. All religions, he said, must must reject theocratic ideas that lead to \u201ctotalitarianism\u201d by identifying God's kingdom with the state.<\/p>\n
\tHe also warned political leaders \u201cnot to repeat, in Syria and elsewhere, the mistakes of Iraq,\u201d where the unleashing of sectarian conflict led to the devastation of the Christian population.<\/p>\n
\tCardinal Sch\u00f6nborn concluded his remarks with a mention of the new Christian migrant-worker populations that have come to the Middle East in recent years, mostly from countries such as India, the Phillipines, and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOne million Catholics are living in Saudi Arabia \u2013 as servants, as housemaids, as workers \u2013 with no religious rights at all,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
\tThe U.S. \u201chas an enourmous influence in Saudi Arabia,\u201d Vienna's archbishop pointed out. \u201cThe question of religious freedom from these large minorities should not be forgotten on the political agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tCardinal Sch\u00f6nborn's keynote speech was followed by an analysis of regional factors by Dr. Habib Malik, a Catholic scholar and human rights advocate who teaches history at the Lebanese American University in Beirut.<\/p>\n
\tMalik's remarks on the \u201cso-called 'Arab Spring'\u201d outlined the \u201cvery real fears being felt and expressed daily\u201d by religious minorities, \u201cregarding the disturbing trends and emerging ominous outcomes of this new Middle East taking shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe region's \u201crepressive dictatorial regimes,\u201d established and solidified during the mid-20th century, are now \u201ccollapsing like dominoes before our very eyes,\u201d Malik noted.<\/p>\n
\tBut today, 18 months after this process began in Tuniasia, \u201cwhat remains of the anticipated 'Spring' is a jumble of disturbing outcomes and ominous tendencies, that resemble anything but a democratic new birth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWestern media initially hailed the regional revolutions as the moment of emergence for a new \u201cFacebook generation\u201d of Arab youth, expected to promote democracy and human rights. But these activists, Malik said, failed to maintain their momentum or make a lasting political impact.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cInstead, as has happened in Egypt, the revolution was hijacked along the way,\u201d by hardline Salafist Islamists, who were \u201cbetter-organized, better-funded, and better-motivated\u201d than the region's emerging liberal elements.<\/p>\n
\tNow, Egypt and the rest of the region have been placed \u201con the precarious incline toward greater empowerment of Salafist ideology.\u201d Throughout the Arab world, \u201cthe voice of the liberals is giving way to defiant chants of 'Allahu Akbar.'\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIndigenous Middle Eastern Christians do not see a 'Spring' anywhere in sight,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cTo them, the term 'Arab Spring' actually sounds increasingly like a bad joke, black humor. They see, instead, the makings of a 'Arab nightmare'\u201d \u2013 with dire consequences for the region and the world.<\/p>\n
\tThe opposition Free Syrian Army is \u201clooking increasingly like a militant Islamist grouping\u201d \u2013 with its long beards, kidnappings, beheadings, and internet footage of attacks on the regime accompanied by religious chanting.<\/p>\n
\tMalik believes that states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which enjoy \u201cunwavering Western backing,\u201d have no real interest in promoting a liberal and democratic replacement for the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n
\tRather, the professor said, \u201ceverything they are doing there seems to be furthering a militant Sunni, Salafi, Wahhabi replacement\u201d in Syria, \u201cand indeed, anywhere else in the region they can manage it.\u201d Western powers, meanwhile, are pursuing \u201cshort-sighted policies\u201d that play into this agenda.<\/p>\n
\tSyrian Christians \u201care not blind supporters of the bloody regime,\u201d but are caught between \u201cbad or worse\u201d options for their country's future. In Egypt, likewise, Christians face \u201cawful choices\u201d between military rule and political Islam.<\/p>\n
\tIf the Middle East loses its Christians and other religious minorities, Malik warned, then \u201cpluralism is all but dead\u201d in the region \u2013 \u201cand along with it, any real chances for genuine freedoms and democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe professor credited certain U.S. government figures, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, for adopting a more cautious line of \u201cprudent reluctance\u201d toward the Syrian opposition in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
\tRather than allowing radical Islamic elements to take power, the U.S. and its Western allies should \u201cprotect and preserve whatever meager freedoms already exist in parts of the Middle East, and build upon them. This means, among other things, active protection for minority rights and for pluralism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tPotential persecutors of these communities should be put on notice \u201cthat they will be watched like a hawk by the international community.\u201d Lebanon, an \u201coasis of freedom\u201d in the region, should be \u201cprotected\u201d and \u201cnurtured\u201d as a model of pluralism.<\/p>\n
\tAn effective official response to the changing Arab world, Malik said, would also involve U.S. and European pressure against Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to \u201ctemper Sunni agitation, and stop fanning the flames of Sunni fanaticism with money, arms, and propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cBlowing up the entire region is not the way to change a dictator in Syria, or elsewhere,\u201d he stated. \u201cThis charade of arch-repressors like Saudi Arabia and Qatar leading a crusade versus regional dictators, with American and Western backing, has to end.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Washington D.C., Jun 30, 2012 \/ 05:04 pm (CNA).- World leaders and diplomats must help prevent a total loss of Middle Eastern Christianity, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna warned in a June 26 panel discussion in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
\t“R…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
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