Catholic patriarchs from the Middle East encouraged their troubled people to find inner peace at Christmas and urged the world to remember them.
Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad said: “In Iraq, we will celebrate the birth of Christ who comes into our hearts in silence and tears.”
“We remain sustained by an inner peace that perpetuates the joy of faith and hope that we will, despite the trials, work towards a fairer country and a better future.
“This year, Iraqi Christians celebrate Christmas in deplorable conditions,” he said, citing “the deteriorating situation at all levels in our country” and “what they experienced as Christians, victims of segregation and exclusion”. ISIS still occupies Mosul and the cities of the Nineveh plains, he said.
Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan, based in Beirut, said that, at Christmas, “our present world urgently needs any glimmer of hope” for people who are “persecuted, displaced and uprooted coercively from the land of their fathers and grandfathers”.
Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregoire III Laham, who was born in Syria, said: “The Arab world – our churches, communities, patriarchs, archbishops, priests, deacons, monks, nuns, faithful sons and daughters of our parishes, fellow citizens and the whole world – all need this joy heralded by the Christmas angel: ‘I bring you glad tidings of great joy!’”
Patriarch Laham said there was “no sign on the horizon of any joy or relief, no end to this dark tunnel, this bloody Way of the Cross which our Middle East, especially Syria, has been treading for the last five years.” But he added: “May the New Year 2016 be a year of peace for Syria, the whole region and the world.”
Priest is freed after being held for second time by ISIS
An Iraqi Franciscan priest kidnapped in Syria for the second time by Islamist militants has been released.
The Custody of the Holy Land, the Franciscan authority of the Holy Land, released a short statement this week confirming that Fr Dhiya Aziz had been freed. He disappeared after setting out from Lattakia, Syria, to return to his parish in Idlib province on December 23 in time for Christmas. He was making his way back from Turkey, having visited family who took refuge there after ISIS took over their hometown of Qaraqosh in Iraq.
“Today we received the communication that Fr Dhiya Aziz has been liberated and that he is doing well,” the statement said.
The Custody of the Holy Land also “thanked all those who helped us to liberate him”, but the statement added that “due to confidentiality reasons” no further details could be given about Fr Aziz’s release.
The kidnapping was the second time that the priest has been kidnapped in Syria. He was abducted last year on July 4 by militants in Yacoubieh and released after five days.
Star Wars dismays Vatican critic
The Vatican’s film critic was not impressed with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Writing in L’Osservatore Romano, Emilio Ranzato said the first instalment of the sequel trilogy was “confusing and vague”, and that the film’s new villains Kylo Ren and his Dark Side mentor, Supreme Leader Snoke, failed “most spectacularly” in representing evil.
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