Reminder

You may have seen news reports last weekend about Baghdad celebrating Christmas publicly this year for the first time. I noticed that the pictures all seemed to be of Santa Claus and his elves, so I am not sure what message exactly was being sent. But it seems to have been peaceful. Perhaps the organizers thought that Santa Claus has become practically a secular image and would not create religious tensions. Apparently many of those who came to the party were Muslims, happy to have any reason to celebrate.

The following report from CNN, however, highlights the ongoing tragedy of Christians in Iraq. My friend, Archbishop Sleiman, is the Roman Catholic archbishop of Baghdad, but most Roman Catholics there are actually from other countries (Philippines, France, etc.) The Christians native to Iraq, while in communion with Roman Catholics and accepting of the pope, are mostly Chaldean Rite. Keep all of them in your prayers.

Iraq Christians face 'bleak future'

By Joe Sterling
CNN

(CNN) -- It's a bittersweet Christmas season for Joseph Kassab, who grew up in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime and now lives in Detroit, Michigan. Tempering the season's joy is his concern for fellow Iraqi Christians, who have endured killings, displacement and daily intimidation.

Christians in Iraq face a "bleak future," said Kassab, executive director of the Chaldean Federation of America, a nonprofit group that helps Iraqi Christians.

"We are heading for a demise," he said. "It's getting to the point where it might be an ethnic cleansing in the future."

A recent U.S. government report focused on the plight of Iraq's Christian minority. U.S. diplomats and legislators are worried, too.

"I think the Christians are caught in the middle of a horrible situation," said U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat of Assyrian and Armenian ancestry.

She said Iraqi Christians are suffering as a result of "religious cleansing," and she has urged more help for minorities who have fled their homes in Iraq.

The Iraqi government has worked to be inclusive and accepting toward Christians, but daily intimidation has cowed the Christian community, with crosses removed from churches, priests afraid to wear their clerical garb, the faithful reluctant to attend church, and churches hiring private security guards.

Iraq's Christian population has fallen from as many as 1.4 million in 2003 to between 500,000 and 700,000 more recently, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

A recent commission report outlined chilling abuse that Christians suffer in Muslim-dominated Iraq. It sounded an alarm about the treatment of minorities such as Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, an ancient people who embraced the Christian faith in its early years and still speak a form of Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

The community has endured displacement, killings and kidnappings, with churches being attacked and occupied.

The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report for 2008 says two-thirds of Christians in Iraq are Chaldeans, a branch of the Catholic Church. Almost a third are from the Assyrian Church of the East. The rest include Syriac Christians, who are Eastern Orthodox; Armenians, both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox; and Anglicans and other Protestants.

Christians and other minorities represented about 3 percent of Iraq's population before 2003, but many have fled to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and other countries.

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