{"id":5040,"date":"2010-10-15T10:03:31","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T10:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=5040"},"modified":"2010-10-15T17:07:58","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T17:07:58","slug":"the-cross-in-torment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/the-cross-in-torment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cross in Torment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Christian<\/a> 10\/15\/2010 – Stephen Brown –<\/p>\n

While Tariq Ramadan is hectoring Americans about \u201cIslamophobia,\u201d calling Muslims the new \u201cblacks\u201d in America, a synod is currently underway in the Vatican to save Christian communities in the Middle East\u2019s Islamic countries from extinction. The flight of the region\u2019s Christians to the West from the area where Christianity was born has reached such alarming proportions, Pope Benedict XVI gathered 285 delegates in Rome last Monday to investigate the phenomenon.<\/p>\n

In his homily in St. Peter\u2019s Cathedral to open the two-week synod, the Catholic pontiff called upon the delegates to scrutinize the situation with a \u201cview to God\u201d to ensure the region\u2019s Christians can escape \u201cdiscouragement\u201d and \u201cthe temptation to flee.\u201d The pope also indicated that the heart of problem lies in the threat Middle Eastern Christians face from Islamic radicalism, calling it, along with the international drug trade, \u201cterroristic ideologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cViolent acts are apparently made in the name of God; but this is not God: they are false divinities that must be unmasked,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Among the synod\u2019s delegates are 185 representatives from ten Middle Eastern countries (Turkey, Syria, Cyprus, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Egypt) including nine patriarchs from the Middle East\u2019s ancient Christian churches. It was in Cyprus last June that the pope announced this week\u2019s \u2018Synod on the Middle East\u2019. After a mass, the pontiff distributed its working paper, the Instrumentum Laboris, to members of the Special Council of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East.<\/p>\n

While in Cyprus, the leader of the world\u2019s one billion Roman Catholics said the October synod will \u201ctry to deepen\u201d the ties between the region\u2019s churches and promote the solidarity of Christians everywhere with those in the Middle East. The synod\u2019s other purpose, the pontiff said, would be to draw the world\u2019s attention to Middle Eastern Christians who \u201csuffer great trials due to the present situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an opportunity to highlight the significant value of the Christian presence and witness in the countries of the Bible, not only for the Christian community worldwide, but also for your neighbors and fellow citizens,\u201d he said in June.<\/p>\n

Those \u201cgreat trials\u201d the Middle East\u2019s Christians are enduring have been well documented. In Iraq, for example, the Islamists are cleansing the country through violence of all Christians similar to what the Nazis once did to make Germany \u201cJudenrein.\u201d In 1980, Catholics made up almost three percent of Iraq\u2019s population, but only formed .89 percent two years ago.<\/p>\n

A study by Phillipe Fargue, \u201cThe Arab Christians in the Middle East: A Demographic Perspective\u201d, cited in Robert Spencer\u2019s Jihad Watch, states that the Christian population in the Middle East has gone from 26.4 percent of the area\u2019s population in 1914 to at most 9.2 percent in 2005. An Egyptian newspaper, referring to Vatican statistics, recently put the current Christian representation for the entire region at a dismal 5.62 percent.<\/p>\n

HT: FrontPageMag<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10\/15\/2010 – Stephen Brown – While Tariq Ramadan is hectoring Americans about \u201cIslamophobia,\u201d calling Muslims the new \u201cblacks\u201d in America, a synod is currently underway in the Vatican to save Christian communities in the Middle East\u2019s Islamic countries from extinction. The flight of the region\u2019s Christians to the West from the area where Christianity was … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113,68,61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-persecution","category-christianity","category-islamo-fascism","category-roman-catholic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}