By Baghdadhope
Every year for Lent the Austrian branch of Christian Solidarity International organizes a silent march for the persecuted Christians, and every year hosts a religious representative of a country to be given special attention. This year, on March 27, the march to which 800 people participated ended in the central cathedral of Wien dedicated to St. Stephen and had as its special guest Msgr. Louis Sako, Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk.
Msgr. Sako, who arrived in Austria thanks also to the invitation of Church in Need and Pro Oriente, referring to the fate of Iraqi Christians spoke clearly of a "tragedy".
2/3 of the Iraqi Christian population left the country, about 750 Christians were killed, said the bishop who pointed out that the situation for the community was reversed by the fall of the regime: "before we had security but no freedom, now is the opposite."
While conceding that the situation has improved in Baghdad and Basra the Bishop explained how it is still critical in Mosul because of the presence of Wahabites groups, a radical theological current of Sunni Islam that in Saudi Arabia is the state ideology: "Fundamentalist want to establish an Islamic state," said to Radiovaticana "and they think that Christians are foreigners." Recalling that the presence of the Christian community in Iraq dates back to two thousand years ago, Archbishop Sako complained that its rights are not respected and that the emigration that decimated it can cause the loss of part of the culture and history of the country. He also suggested, as reported by Derstandard, that the best support for Iraqi Christians can be represented by visiting them, by seeing personally their conditions of life.
A tip that recalls the appeal made on mid-March by some Iraqi bishops and priests (including Msgr.Sako) who invited the American Catholics to visit Iraq. Present to the march there were the Cardinal of Wien, Archbishop Christoph Schönborn, Father Ra'ad Washan Sawa who follows the Chaldean Catholic community in Austria, and Austrian and Iraqi priests.