The leader of Catholics in England and Wales has issued an urgent call
to rebuild persecuted Christian communities in Iraq and other
minorities pushed to the brink of extinction.
In a statement released today, Thursday 30th May, Cardinal Vincent
Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, said: “The need to reconstruct towns
and villages [in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains] destroyed by Daesh and rebuild
trust in that region is pressing.”
Highlighting how the presence of Christians in Nineveh dates back
almost 2,000 years, the cardinal said: “We are united in prayer and
support for the Christians and other minorities in that region as they
seek to rebuild their lives.”
The Cardinal’s message followed his meeting last week with Iraq’s
Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil, Bashar Warda, who visited London
at the invitation of Catholic charity Aid to the Church Need, which has
provided key emergency and pastoral help for persecuted Christians in
the region.
During his London visit, Archbishop Warda asked Foreign Secretary
Jeremy Hunt for UK aid for persecuted Christians in Iraq and called on
the British Government to urge Iraq to safeguard the presence of
minorities in Iraq whose numbers have fallen drastically.
Reflecting on his meeting with Archbishop Warda, Cardinal Nichols
went on describe his visit to Iraq four years ago just after invading
Daesh militants forced entire communities in Nineveh and nearby Mosul to
flee in fear of their lives.
The cardinal, who is President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of
England & Wales, states: “Since my visit to Iraq in 2015, when
Archbishop Warda hosted us and we visited numerous refugee camps across
Erbil, the plight of persecuted Christians and other minorities in those
ancient lands has been of particular concern.”
From a pre-2003 total of 1.5 million, Iraq’s Christian population has
declined rapidly, raising fears for the community’s survival, amid
declarations of a genocide by Daesh against minorities in the region.
Archbishop Warda thanked the Cardinal and other bishops who have visited
Iraq in support of the Christian community there. He said: “My greatest
thanks to Cardinal Nichols for his deep passion, prayers, wisdom for
the persecuted Iraqi minorities. His guidance since our darkest hours
has helped me immensely and given me much needed strength to fight for our continued existence in our ancient land.”
The urgent need to help Christians wanting to stay in Iraq was spelt
out by Archbishop Warda who, during his London visit last week, gave
testimony to the Foreign Secretary’s review into the persecution of
Christians and spoke in Parliament at an event organised by ACN.
For displaced Christians and others arriving in Erbil and elsewhere, the charity provided food, shelter, medicine and schooling.
After the communities began returning home following the expulsion of
Daesh, ACN began rebuilding homes, convents, churches and other
structures.
Nearly half of the families forced to leave Nineveh in 2014 are now back in the region.