Scottish Catholic Observer

The Holy Father made the appeal after reciting the Angelus prayer in St Peter’s Square last Sunday, in response to news that the day before the last of Mosul’s Christians have left the city, driven out by Islamist militants. Until now, the city, which had 60,000 Christians before the Iraq War began, had not been without a Christian presence for 1600 years.

The Pope said he had learned of the news ‘with concern’ and recalled that in Mosul and in other parts of the Middle East, Christians from the very beginning of Christianity ‘lived with their fellow

citizens, offering a significant contribution to the good of society.’

“Today they are persecuted, they are driven away, they have to leave their homes without the possibility of taking anything with them,” he said. “To these families, to these people, I want to express my closeness and assure them of my constant prayer. Beloved brothers and sisters who are so persecuted, I know how much you are suffering, I know that you have been stripped of everything.

“I am with you in the faith of Him who has conquered evil! And to those of you, here in the piazza and those who are following us by means of television, I address the invitation to remember these Christian communities in prayer.”

A senior Iraqi bishop urged the world to act after Islamic hardliners drove Mosul’s Christians from the northern Iraqi city, effectively ending a presence there dating back to Christianity’s earliest years.

“The world must act, speak out, consider human rights,” Chaldean Catholic Bishop Shlemon Warduni said on Sunday.

The bishop said the solution to the crisis should be in Iraq’s own hands, but the state was weak and divided, and Muslim leaders had failed to speak out.

—Read the full report in this week’s SCO print edition in parishes from Friday