Where are all the Christian Syrian Refugees?

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ — Christians and other religious minorities in Syria have been targeted for death, sexual slavery, displacement, cultural eradication and forced conversion by ISIS.

Many of these persecuted Christians hope to escape to the United States. They have been largely excluded, with the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration admitting to officials at The Barnabas Fund, a Christian relief agency, “There is no way that Christians will be supported because of their religious affiliation.”

Read more

Secretary of State John Kerry shows off his new chin at Vatican meeting

Cardinal-designate Pietro Parolin, who as secretary of state is considered the highest Vatican official, met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Jan. 14 for a conversation that lasted an hour and 40 minutes.

Link

John Kerry Plastic Surgery Before and After Photos

Ron Paul Institute: Targeting the Vatican embassy was likely no accident.

In keeping with recent practice of bombing the diplomatic facilities which oppose their struggle to overthrow the Syria government, the insurgents in Syria have hit the Vatican Embassy with a mortar shell today.

Targeting the Vatican embassy was likely no accident. As the US was on the verge of bombing Syria in late-August, the pope held a peace vigil at the Vatican attended by more than 100,000. As support for a US attack sagged among the American public and in Congress, this Vatican effort to head off a US war on behalf of the anti-Assad fighters was certainly of great significance. It may have been a deciding factor.

Link

Editor’s note: How’s that for “dialog”?

Syria: Mortar/Missile strike on Vatican embassy in central Damascus.

Damascus, 5 Nov. (AKI) – The papal envoy to Syria Mario Zenari on Tuesday swore he would remain in the war-wracked country despite a missile strike on the Vatican embassy in central Damascus.

“We represent the Pope in Syria and we won’t leave the country,” Archbishop Zenari told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone interview. “If there are further attacks like today’s we will move to another area,” Zenari said, adding that the embassy was located in a “sensitive area” of the capital.

Link

Editor’s note: Was this just a coincidence, or was the Vatican Embassy deliberately targeted?

Seen on the web: Disappointment

What does it mean to be Catholic?

Today, I experienced sadness as I visited St. Mark’s parish to unite with Pope Francis’ peace initiative.

I wished to do so in within a church.

I believe that “the Catholic community of St. Mark the Evangelist” consists of more than 30,000 Catholics.

Went I went there today to unite with Pope Francis, five people were present.

Not once this week did the main page of “the Catholic community of St. Mark the Evangelist’s” web site even bother to exhort the Faithful to fast and pray in unity with Pope Francis and his peace initiative.

The parish…sorry…”the Catholic community” in question was not interested in leading organized public prayer in unity with the Pope Francis and his peace initiative.

What does it mean to be Catholic? Today, it felt barren and empty to me at “the Catholic community of St. Mark the Evangelist.”

More than 30,000 Faithful…larger than a great many towns across the country and world…and we failed to unite publicly in a spirit of fasting and prayer as Pope Francis desired.

Please pray for me as I fell empty inside. Oh, well. That is Novus Ordoism for you.

Site Link

There goes the ol’ Peace Prize…

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday prepared for the possibility of launching unilateral American military action against Syria within days as Britain opted out in a stunning vote by Parliament. Facing skepticism at home, too, the administration shared intelligence with lawmakers aimed at convincing them the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its people and must be punished.

Despite roadblocks in forming an international coalition, Obama appeared undeterred and advisers said he would be willing to retaliate against Syria on his own.

Link

Editor’s note: No doubt the president believes that Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohamed will be proud of him. As everyone already knows – President Obama’s word – is his bond!

Making preparations for Armageddon?

A Syrian Chaldean Catholic bishop on Monday warned that an armed intervention in Syria could unleash a “world war”, while the Vatican’s official newspaper called for more “prudence” from Western powers.

“If there is an armed intervention, that would mean, I believe, a world war. That risk has returned,” Monsignor Antoine Audo of Aleppo told Vatican radio.

“We hope that the pope’s call for real dialogue between the warring parties to find a solution can be a first step to stop the fighting,” he said.

Audo is also the head of the Syrian arm of the international Catholic charity Caritas and has repeatedly warned about the human cost of the war.

The Vatican daily, L’Osservatore Romano, meanwhile criticised Western powers in an editorial.

“The drumbeat of an armed intervention by Western powers is becoming ever more insistent and ever less restrained by prudence,” it said.

Link

Pope Benedict XVI prepares to embark on high-risk trip to Lebanon

“My apostolic voyage in Lebanon, and by extension in the Middle East in its entirety, comes under the sign of peace,” Benedict said Sunday during the Angelus prayer at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. Despite the “dramatic situation” of a region torn by “incessant conflict,” people “shouldn’t resign themselves to violence or worsening tensions,” he added.

Read more

More of the same in Syria: Wherever the US and its NATO allies have intervened to change regimes in the Middle East, Christians are the first to be targeted (and killed)

Christians are being systematically targeted for genocide in Syria according to Vatican and other sources with contacts on the ground among the besieged Christian community. According to reports by the Vatican’s Fides News Agency collected by the Centre for the Study of Interventionism, the US-backed Free Syrian Army rebels and ever more radical spin-off factions are sacking Christian churches, shooting Christians dead in the street, broadcasting ultimatums that all Christians must be cleansed from the rebel-held villages, and even shooting priests.

French Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos, a greek-Catholic Melkite Archimandrite, traveled through Syria and, according to the Holy See’s press agency, reported back that Western press was spreading disinformation about the real nature of the uprising in Syria and thereby prolonging and deepening the conflict.

Read more

Patrick J. Buchanan: Syrian Christians likely to be biggest losers if govt. falls

The secular despot Saddam Hussein protected the Christians. But the U.S. liberation brought on their greatest calamity since the time of Christ. Scores of thousands of those Iraqi Christians fleeing terrorism and persecution after 2003 made their way to Syria, where they received sanctuary from President Bashar Assad.

Now, as the FT and Washington Post report, the Christians of Syria, whose forebears have lived there since the time of Christ, are facing a pogrom should the Damascus regime fall.

Read more