IRBIL, Iraq - A delegation of U.S. Catholic leaders visiting
northern Iraq was challenged to go home and work for peace in
the troubled region.
"You have come to listen to your brothers and sisters in Iraq
who are suffering. The situation is very hard. We cry out
with one voice, 'Don't forget us,'" Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon
Warduni of Baghdad said during a Mass in the small village of
Inishke, near Dahuk.
The Chaldean Catholic service included members of the local
Christian community, as well as Christians who were displaced
by the Islamic State group from elsewhere in Iraq.
Representatives of the Yezidi and Muslim communities also
greeted the delegation, which was headed by Cardinal Timothy
M. Dolan of New York, chair of the Catholic Near East Welfare
Association. He was accompanied by Bishop William F. Murphy
of Rockville Centre, New York, who is also on the CNEWA
board.
The group spent April 9-11 in Kurdistan, the autonomous
region of northern Iraq. When Islamic State swept through
Mosul and Qaraqosh in 2014, more than 125,000 Christians,
along with other victims, fled to safety in Kurdistan, where
CNEWA has helped local churches construct housing, clinics
and schools.
Yet Bishop Warduni said peace trumps humanitarian aid any
day.
"We don't want anything. Iraq is very rich, but now it is
very poor. We only want our rights to go back to our homes
and villages," he said.
Looking directly at Cardinal Dolan, Bishop Warduni said: "We
need a good Samaritan, but a new one, and this is you, along
with the other leaders who came with you. We thank you and
your people, for they have done so much for us with their
prayers and with their money. But we ask you to ask your
government to establish peace in our country. Tell your
president, please, that our children and our youth want to
grow in freedom. Your Eminence, take with you our good wishes
to your faithful, and don't forget us."
In his homily for the Mass, Cardinal Dolan told those packed
into the small church: "You are now suffering away from your
homes and families. You are on the cross with Jesus. But we
can never forget that Easter always conquers Good Friday. The
resurrection always triumphs over the cross."
Speaking through a translator because the service was in
Aramaic, Cardinal Dolan said: "Jesus is alive in the love and
charity that his people have for one another. That is why in
our time here in Kurdistan we have seen Jesus alive in
hospitals and clinics and refugee camps and schools and
parishes like this. And it is our privilege to be able to be
part of this love and charity that you have for one another
here."
"We have come to tell you we love you very much," Cardinal
Dolan said. "We know of your suffering. And we can never
forget you."
In an April 11 Mass in a camp for the displaced in Ankawa, on
the outskirts of Irbil, the delegation got the same message
it heard the previous day.
"We feel very grateful for this fraternal solidarity that you
are showing. And we all do hope that you will intervene with
your government, with those who have a word to say on the
international scene, to be faithful to the principles on
which your country was founded. That includes the right of
all people, every human being, to live in freedom and
dignity," Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan
said in his homily.
"When we see that strong nations like yours uphold the rights
of those who have been uprooted, at that time we will really
live the hope of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ."
In an interview at the end of the visit, Cardinal Dolan told
Catholic News Service that the pastoral visit would provoke
renewed advocacy back home.
"We value the relationship we have with our government, but
we sometimes smile when outsiders think we have a lot more
clout than we really have. But that's not going to stop us
from trying," the cardinal said. "When we get back, Bishop
Murphy and I will brief our fellow bishops and the Holy See,
and we will share with our political leaders what we have
seen and heard. We owe it to the people here because they
have asked us to do that."
Cardinal Dolan acknowledged that the church's counsel was
rejected in the lead up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq,
which many believe helped create the conditions from which
Islamic State emerged.
"Catholics in the United States can at least be grateful
that, more often than not, the church has been on the right
side when it comes to these issues," Cardinal Dolan said.
"Pope St. John Paul II told our presidents, 'This will be a
road of no return, and you will look back in future years and
regret what you're doing.'"
Bishop Murphy said the U.S. bishops always spoke of the need
for caution in the region.
"Maybe we were too cautious with our cautionary words, and I
think you could make a case for that, but there are a lot of
people who have strong opinions against what happened who
voted for it at the time. We never did," he told CNS.
As they visited with the displaced and the pastoral workers
who accompany them, some of what the U.S. church leaders saw
and heard was not easy to experience. In an April 9 public
forum in a displaced camp in Ankawa, Amal Mare was one of
several displaced persons who offered testimony. She praised
local Christians for welcoming her family when they fled from
Qaraqosh.
"Yet when are we going to be able to leave? We are living
here in misery, and we want to go back to Qaraqosh," she
said, sobbing as Cardinal Dolan embraced her. "We miss our
churches. We are sons and daughters of the church. Here we
created a church in this hall, and every night for the last
18 months we have all prayed the rosary here. But now we're
losing hope. How much longer will we have to wait?"
Meeting April 9 with a group of students at the Chaldean
Catholic St. Peter's Seminary in Irbil, Cardinal Dolan told
the seminarians that they had good models of ministry from
which to learn.
"Pope Francis keeps saying that we priests must be with our
people. We just came from a refugee camp where we met a
priest who slept outside on his mattress because he said he
couldn't sleep inside if his people were outside. We've met
with sisters and priests who walked with the people from
Mosul as they were fleeing. That's the model of the
priesthood. That's Jesus. To be with our people all the time,
to be especially close to your people in the difficult
times," the cardinal said.
Bishop Murphy told the seminarians he was impressed by their
faithfulness in the midst of violence and terror.
"Although these are difficult times, the church has always
known difficult times. You lift me up. It is the strength of
your faith that has brought you here, and it is that faith
which gives me great hope for your future," he said.
The head of the Chaldean Catholic community in Kurdistan,
which has provided a variety of services to the displaced,
praised the church leaders' visit.
"It has been a visit of solidarity, a visit of love, a visit
of hope, where we can really feel that we are not forgotten,
that we've been in the prayers of His Eminence and the
bishops and the whole Christian community in America. It
means a lot for us," Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil told
Catholic News Service.
"And once we're not forgotten, we are sure they will make
every possible effort to remind the politicians, to remind
everyone, that there are persecuted, vulnerable communities
in Iraq. They are Christians, Yezidis and others, and we have
to do something for them. We are brothers, and whenever a
brother suffers or experiences sadness, the family gets
together, prays together, and works together to overcome
this."
In addition to Cardinal Dolan and Bishop Murphy, the
delegation included Msgr. John Kozar, president of CNEWA, and
Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic
Charities for the Archdiocese of New York.