Reportage / Religion 02.05.2023

Time for impact assessment

On Tuesday 31 January 2023, the country is in turmoil. Pope Francis has arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first stage of his African tour. All the institutions of the republic, the opposition, civil society and pressure groups…

Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma

On Tuesday 31 January 2023, the country is in turmoil. Pope Francis has arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first stage of his African tour. All the institutions of the republic, the opposition, civil society and pressure groups converged at Kinshasa’s Ndolo international airport, where the papal mass was held. Thousands of Catholic faithful were also present. On average, more than one million people joined in. Two months on, opinions differ on Pope Francis’ visit to the DRC

Insecurity in the East of the country

Pope Francis’ visit to the DR Congo has put a forgotten war on the world stage. National opinion in the DRC is that the Congo war has been forgotten by everyone and that the international community is not offering the necessary support to end it. The pontiff is therefore a very good way of drawing the attention of the other peoples of the world to the drama that is taking place in Congo. “The Congolese people, wounded by the recurrent insecurity, the multiform violations of human rights, the massive displacement of populations, especially in the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, welcomed the Pope as a Consoler” Abbé Georges KALENGA, second Deputy General Secretary of CENCO

The Pope saw the victims of the war but did not go to Goma, in the east of the DRC and the heart of all the violence. This is something that Placide Nzilamba, technical secretary of civil society in North Kivu province, said. “The Pope should be going here to Goma but it is Rwanda with the M23 that has brandished terrorist threats, has taken over the localities just a few metres from where he should be holding his mass. Everything has been done so that the Pope does not see the reality on the ground,” he denounced in InsdeOver. A thesis that seems to convince also the Abbot Georges KALENGA who indicates that “the pullers of the strings of the insecurity that prevails in the East of the DR Congo wanted to prevent him by reviving the insecurity in North Kivu in Ituri while the first program provided as a place of visit Kinshasa, the capital, the city of Goma, and even Beni in the very first scheme. The Pope decided to carry out the apostolic visit to DR Congo, without the stage of Goma, undoubtedly because of insecurity” he said.

Some members of the citizens’ movement regretted the fact that the country did not mention Kigali, which Kinshasa accuses of supporting the M23, the rebellion that controls part of the national territory and has repeatedly threatened the city of Goma for several months. “We have raised awareness and our members have had to make banners and banners so that journalists and delegations who come with the Pope can know that the country is under attack. If the Pope would have mentioned Rwanda by name, it would be a good thing, but since he didn’t, it doesn’t matter,” says Marc, an activist from Kinshasa.

But if there is one point on which everyone agrees about the Pope’s visit to the DRC, it is the fact that it is making headlines in the international press.

Take your hands off the Congo!

“Take your hands off the Democratic Republic of Congo, take your hands off Africa! Stop smothering Africa: it is not a mine to be exploited or a land to be robbed. Let the world remember the disasters committed over the centuries to the detriment of the local populations and not forget this country and this continent,” said Pope Francis at Ndolo airport for his mass.

The Pope denounced the factors, including neo-colonialism, which favour the control of the natural resources of the DR Congo. “He called into question the great powers and multinationals that are laying their hands on the wealth and causing insecurity for a systematic plundering of the resources of the Congo. His visit, with its high pastoral and social impact, is a real plea, not only to the Congolese, but also to the international community for a responsible and humane ecology,” says Abbé Georges.

“The Pope used a magic formula. “Take your hands off the DRC”, it is addressed to everyone,” says Bienvenu MATUMO. Bienvenu is an activist of the “Struggle for Change” LUCHA, a citizen’s movement that participates as a pressure group on the country’s issues.

The contrasting socio-political situation

“The Pope’s visit to the DR Congo confirmed the Congolese episcopate in its prophetic mission for the benefit of the population. In fact, the Catholic Church of Congo, through its pastors, the bishops of the 48 Catholic dioceses of the DR Congo, united in the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO), accompanies the Congolese state in its quest to be a state of law”, said Abbé Georges.

From the management of public affairs through democratic issues to the fight against the pursuit of personal interests, the Pope used a direct but gentle style to charge the Congolese authorities. 

“Many of you shine in the role you play. Those who hold civil and governmental responsibilities are called to act with crystalline clarity, living the function they have received as a means of serving society. Power is only meaningful if it becomes service. And at the same time, promote free, transparent and credible elections; extend participation in peace processes to women, young people and various groups, to marginalized groups; seek the common good and the security of people rather than personal or group interests; strengthen the presence of the State throughout the territory; take care of the so many displaced persons and refugees”.

Several observers believe that the Pope has not been listened to by the ruling class on the drifts that are observed in the country. 

“Here the Pope said but it is necessary that the structures of the Catholic Church put pressure to achieve the desired changes because the vision of the Pope is not different from that of the CENCO,” says Placide Nzilamba.

Bienvenu Matumo describes an alarming situation in the country on the points raised by the Pope during his visit to the DRC: “The Pope came with a speech of unity, love and forgiveness. But in practice there is mutual detestation for political reasons. When we look at the matters retained in the national assembly, we understand that there is a clear desire to create more division within the Congolese population through the Tshiani law (a law that aims to reserve the highest offices of the state, including the supreme magistracy, only to Congolese born of Congolese father and mother – editor’s note). 

“The year 2023 is a year of expiry of mandates according to the provisions of the Constitution. The Church expects inclusive elections in the sense that the whole population, throughout the national territory, and even Congolese abroad, can participate in the elections without any discrimination,” adds Abbé Georges. 

According to Bienvenu, the Pope has left a great reserve with the archbishop of Kinshasa. “The Church in Congo has always been politically involved in the major issues of the country from Cardinal Malula to Cardinal Ambongo. The Pope’s message has come just to reinforce this social and political role that the Catholic Church does all the time. I am convinced that the church will remobilise to counter the political bodies that do not want to serve the people.

His message “All reconciled in Jesus Christ 

Catholic Christians and the Congolese people received the Holy Father’s message “All reconciled in Jesus Christ” as an invitation to national cohesion. The Pope’s apostolic journey was seen as a favourable moment to give more importance to what makes a nation strong. 

“Faced with so many challenges, the DR Congo, like a wounded man, abandoned to himself, seeks to heal its wounds of corruption, inter-ethnic conflicts, tribalism, insecurity carried by internal armed groups and those from abroad. The Congolese people, in their ethnic, geographical and cultural diversity, are called upon to root themselves in Christ as the vertebrae connect to the spine. The various tribes and ethnic groups that make up the Congolese people are called upon to enrich themselves with their differences and to share what is best in each of them,” says CENCO.

 “It is a message of peace and reconciliation that Pope Francis has come to bring to DR Congo. All his speeches and homilies, with the very rich symbols expressed, were centred around “peace”. He marked out the path to peace.

L'articolo <strong>Time for impact assessment</strong> proviene da InsideOver.

When the world met Pope Francis with the famous “good evening” pronounced from the central gallery of St. Peter’s, Matteo Maria Zuppi was recently auxiliary bishop of Rome for the historic center. Ten years later, the Roman prelate is not only a member of the sacred college and holds a chair formerly occupied by two greats of the Church such as cardinals Giacomo Biffi and Carlo Caffarra, but also presides over the Italian Episcopal Conference. In this interview with the Archbishop of Bologna we have analyzed some of the most characteristic aspects of the current pontificate.

Your Eminence, what impressed you most about that evening of March 13, 2013?

“I remember above all the big surprise of the name. It was an immediately attractive name, because it was used for the first time and then because it represented one of the most evangelical, popular and even creative names. The Holy Father motivated that choice by speaking of the Church of the poor and certainly, calling himself that way, he immediately gave a precise program to his pontificate”.

Did you already know the then Cardinal Bergoglio?

The Community of Sant’Egidio was present in Buenos Aires and I therefore had the opportunity to learn about his activity as archbishop.

A Pope who came from the end of the world but with Italian origins. In these ten years, in your opinion, has a particular pastoral solicitude of Francis manifested itself towards Italy and the Italian Church?

“I would say a lot. I think that one of the most important speeches of Francis was precisely the one made in Florence in 2015 on the occasion of the fifth Italian Ecclesial Convention. I believe that was one of the moments in which he showed his great attention to the Italian Church”.

This pontificate has had to confront more than any other with the power of the media, but also of the web and social media. Can we say that in the narrative of many media there has been a certain tendency to “hide” the most “uncomfortable” statements of the Pope? I am thinking, for example, of the interventions on themes such as the defence of life and the denunciation of ideological colonisation.

“Unfortunately, the mass media sometimes interpret or distort the very meaning of a discourse or use only a part of it. This is always a danger and can become a source of great confusion because complete information is not given. However, it depends a lot on the situations and the newspapers but that there may have been this risk of a partial reading, it is true”

When the Pope spoke years ago of the danger of World War III and rearmament, there were those who thought they were speeches that had become anachronistic with the end of the Cold War. Now that these scenarios have become dramatically topical again, is there not a risk of repeating the same error of underestimation when the Pope invokes peace when speaking of the war in Ukraine?

“Unfortunately, it is true: what seemed to some to be exaggerations turned out to be prophecies. Above all, what he said about the signs of the times and the risks that conflicts bring with them was underestimated. The truth is that we thought we had an infinite time of peace ahead and instead it is not so, we always arrive at a redde rationem. There have been partial readings on the war, but it is clear that the Pope does nothing but seek the path of peace and explain to everyone the complexity of this. And seeking peace is not a shortcut, nor ideological maximalism.”

The lesson of this pontificate on old age? Francis has repeatedly urged us to listen to and attend to the elderly so as not to forget our roots without which we lose our identity. In your opinion, has it managed to convey a message of “usefulness” of the elderly in spite of a society increasingly accustomed to considering them “waste”?

“A lot. He gave centrality to the theme of the elderly, meanwhile warning society against considering them through the lens of the consumer mentality and then reminding themselves that they have a role and inviting them to look ahead, to dream, not to be satisfied. An elder can still give so much to the community. This is why Pope Francis’ speech on old age is very important and it is a lesson from which we still have much to learn”.

The Pope has repeatedly recalled not only that work is dignity, but that just retribution is also dignity. Do you think that the popularity of your magisterium on this point will be sufficient to make people understand the timeliness of the teachings of the Social Doctrine of the Church in contemporary society?

“Of course, Francis has linked the social aspect to spirituality and has thus avoided that risk that he identifies with Pelagianism. He wanted to remind us that the social part is always linked to the spiritual part, otherwise it ends and becomes only the work of men. So he also gave the spiritual a necessary embodied, non-intimistic dimension. Those who say that there is a social insistence of the Pope forget that all this is linked to the proclamation of the Gospel and to holiness itself. A holiness to be understood not in abstract terms, but in life. The Social Doctrine of the Church is connected to Christ and putting it into practice is a way to live spirituality more. The discourse of the link between spirituality and social is fundamental, otherwise we would not understand Pope Francis. On the other hand, he and Benedict XVI wrote it together in the encyclical Lumen Fidei: love needs truth and truth needs love.”

L'articolo Pope Francis, Ten Years Later. A dialogue with Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi proviene da InsideOver.

No Pope has paid so much attention to happiness before Francis. After all, the recent pandemic years have caused many people to forget what it means to be happy. Confined to their homes, some decided that satisfying only the most basic needs is more important.

Yet, Catholic social teaching is not just a way to „be happy”. It is first and foremost a signpost of the way to salvation and a crucial resource for Europe, and the world. John Paul II realized this, producing some of the most powerful social teaching of the 20th century and raising it to the level of moral theology, making it an integral part of the proclamation of the Christian faith in the world. Francis has carried forward his predecessor’s vision, taking us to the social and environmental peripheries of our world and showing, that Christ will meet us anew there.

This new dynamic is possibly the first, though probably not the most important, evolution of the CST in the Francis papacy: the Church’s social teaching has gone beyond the library bookshelves and started circulating among people. The proposal that the Church brings to the world in its social teaching has entered into dialogue with the world, tying the debate between different, often distant, places and points of view.

Solidarity 

The concept of solidarity stands in the center of the social teaching of the last three popes. It could hardly be otherwise, since one of the most important moments in the forging of Catholic social teaching in the previous century was captured with the changes of 1981-1991 and the Polish „Solidarity” movement. Under the Francis papacy, however, the evangelical notion of solidarity is being extended to more areas than just the economy or work.

This stretching of the concept of solidarity can be traced back to John Paul II’s message on World Peace Day in 1990. Peace with God the Creator, peace with all creation. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the current Pope has made a major evolution in CST on this point. Although the 1990 document already emphasized that the environment is of increasing concern to various, often grassroots and spontaneously organized Catholic groups and leaders of the Church at all levels, Francis has devoted the greatest space in his social teaching to covering environmental issues. This change can be summed up by recalling the papal words of March 2021, when the Pope spoke in an empty St Peter’s Square, saying that „we cannot be healthy in a sick world”.

Dialogue

Even if it was Benedict XVI, in his message for the 2008 World Day of Peace, who introduced the concept of the ‘covenant between human beings and the environment’ into the discussion, Francis has made it one of the highlights of his teaching, expressed in his first encyclical, Laudato si’. While in Benedict’s Caritas in veritate, he elaborates on this theme, describing the threefold responsibility that is part of man’s relationship with the environment and pointing to „responsibility for the poor, for future generations and for all humanity”, Francis goes further, saying that this is a part of our „vocation” as human beings, and therefore appropriate human development projects, echoing the previous pontiff, that we „cannot ignore future generations, but must be characterized by solidarity and intergenerational justice”.

The formulation of environmental issues in terms of the covenant — including between generations — has to be acknowledged as a huge step in the transition from a ‘governance model’ to a more updated approach. The new vision of „ecological solidarity”, in a world of multiple crises, when most of the Earth’s seven basic ecosystems are under threat, is one of the most important evolutions, brought about by Francis.

Power 

Globalization is yet another issue, that has come to the fore in Church discussions of social teaching in the last decades. Although, it has received some attention in John Paul II’s Centesimus annus, in regional synods of bishops, and elsewhere, and even if the far-reaching impact of this phenomenon was a major concern of Benedict’s in Caritas in Veritate Francis takes this thinking further with in-depth analysis and clear reflection in the Christus Vivit encyclical and during the Synod of Synodality — his flagship project.

The post-pandemic world raises many new questions. One of them is of the power and the abuse of such, as well as the question of the role of corporations, bigger, and more powerful than many states, and the inquiry of understanding freedom in a world of galloping technological progress. Addressing these questions the Pope turned to during his trip to Congo saying „Hands off Africa!”.

The Church has experience in all these matters. For many millennia it has been the most global structure, reaching out to the world with its experience of connection and mercy. Maybe that’s why the pope smiles so often, showing that a different approach is possible.

Michał Kłosowski

publicist, deputy editor-in-chief of the Polish monthly „Wszystko Co Najważniejsze”, U.S. State Department and Rome’s Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) alumni, author of the book „Pope Francis decade” (2023).

L'articolo <strong>How Pope Francis transformed Catholic Social Teaching and brought it out into the light</strong> proviene da InsideOver.

For the first time in three years, in a few days Easter will be celebrated without health restrictions at the Vatican.

The image of a lonely pope, in the deserted square, in the shadow of a sky full of clouds and rain remains one of the most impressive images of the pandemic. On that day in March, in its emptiness, St. Peter’s Square had embraced a new, planetary universality.

The full return of Easter

In the setting of his Urbi et Orbi prayer, Francis had found a way to communicate with closed, confined humanity, regardless of its faith or its atheism. The absence became a more acute presence. “No one is saved alone,” he said.

The decision to limit the participation of the faithful in the Easter celebrations, broadcasting them via streaming, represents a moment that perhaps has passed too quickly in the dizzying actuality that crosses our screens, but which will probably remain for a long time to define one of the basic trends of our time. The Catholic Church followed, in part indeed accompanied the distancing measures, because it understood the health and political reasons that presided over this choice, sometimes adopting in a clumsy way the possibilities allowed by digital to limit the spread of the virus.

How did this decision come about? Paradoxically – at least if we stop at the story of the Vatican divisions – it was Cardinal Robert Sarah, appointed by Benedict XVI prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, who signed the decree “In time of Covid-19” (Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum, Prot. no. 153/20) which offered general indications to the Bishops.

The text of the decree in its dryness recalled that Easter as “the heart of the liturgical year is not a feast like any other and cannot be transferred.” However, he expressed a decisive formula three times. The celebrations are authorized “to the extent of the real possibility established by those in charge“. In short, if it had not been allowed, the decree encouraged parish priests to celebrate alone “the liturgical mysteries by informing the faithful of the starting time so that they can join in prayer in their homes”, suggesting to help each other with the “means of telematic communication live, not recorded”.

The tight curve of the pandemic has seen a united Catholic Church pass on a front that we could define as responsible. Between health and holiness, in this complicated passage we can measure the relationship of the Church with our extreme modernity. A force that slows acceleration, reduces friction and brings stability to the convulsions of the contemporary.

There was certainly no lack of opposition, among all that of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben who was scandalized by this choice: “The Church has denied purely and simply its principles, forgetting that the saint whose name the current pontiff took embraced lepers, that one of the works of mercy was to visit the sick, that the sacraments can be administered only in presence.”

We must note, however, that within the Church few important figures have distanced themselves in a blatant way from these unprecedented measures, even shocking from the liturgical point of view. An exception is perhaps represented by the case of Archbishop Carlo Vigano, former apostolic nuncio to the United States, who entered a conspiratorial spiral that led him to take increasingly radical positions, developing an apocalyptic reading of the pandemic and of political and ecclesiastical management through the notion of deep state and deep church. He will end up being supported by the then President of the United States Donald Trump to whom he had written a letter with singular tones in which he evoked the American President’s struggle against “the children of darkness”.

The position of the Orthodox Church

We find here a radical difference with the position taken by a substantial part of the Orthodox Church that has often explicitly evoked the eschatological dimension of the crisis: the pandemic was read as a sign and as a call to be ready for the end times. In its hierarchy as a whole, however, it has adopted a much less meek approach to health indications, especially in relation to distance and gestures barrier to communion. It should be remembered that the Orthodox make communion with blessed bread and wine, mixed in the holy chalice and administered by the priest with a spoon.

To prevent sacred gifts from falling to the ground, a red veil is held under the chalice and cleans the mouths of the faithful who have received communion. The faithful then kiss the chalice symbol of their belonging to the priesthood of Christ. At the end of the liturgy, priests or deacons consume the remains of sacred gifts and wash the chalice with hot water.

The risk of contagion of these gestures seems evident, but a theological argument was opposite to the epidemiological argument. According to Archpriest Maxim Kozlov, chairman of the Education Committee of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church: “As Orthodox Christians, we are convinced that it is impossible to be infected through the communion of holy gifts, through the Body and Blood of Christ.”

The dialectic between faith and the world

We observe here a tension already noted by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini at the end of the Soviet Union, who had discovered with concern the unpreparedness of a Church “coming out of the catacombs,” but “frozen and therefore unprepared for confrontation with pluralism and democratic freedom.”

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n this sense, even the gifts of the Orthodox Church, defined by Joseph Ratzinger as an “authentic Christian asceticism,” risk being an obstacle to the expression of that “clear and profound faith, capable of expressing itself and engaging even in the most delicate frontiers and in the most intricate crossroads of history” of which Martini spoke.

Unfortunately, we must note that this discrepancy will explode with the invasion of Ukraine. The crasis between Muscovite Orthodoxy and Putin’s apparatus will be taken to the extreme by Patriarch Kirill when on March 6, 2022, during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow on St. John’s Sunday, Adamic Exile Sunday (“Sunday of Forgiveness”), he delivered a fiery sermon to justify the causes of Putin’s war in Ukraine:

“Today there is a proof of loyalty to [Western] power, a sort of pass for this ‘happy’ world, a world of excessive consumption, a world of apparent ‘freedom’. Do you know what this test is? The test is very simple and at the same time terrifying: it’s a gay pride parade.”

The lesson of Carlo Maria Martini

It is in this sense that, as the vaticanista Jean-Benoit Poulle has noted, a biblical word paradoxically dedicated to “forgiveness” serves as a justification for war in the Byzantine tradition of Caesaropapism:

“And so today, on this Sunday of forgiveness, I, on the one hand, as your pastor, invite everyone to forgive sins and debts, even where it is very difficult to do so, where people are fighting each other. But forgiveness without justice is a surrender and a weakness. Forgiveness must therefore be accompanied by the indispensable right to be on the side of light, on the side of God’s truth, on the side of the divine commandments, on the side of what reveals to us the light of Christ, his Word, his Gospel, his greatest covenants given to the human race”.

In the upheavals of the twenties, a radical difference and a challenge for the universal Church, not only or not so European, of Francis re-emerges. Faced with the return of political theology, confronted with a “holy war” waged by a nuclear power, we can perhaps start again from a piece of advice from Carlo Maria Martini: “the Western Churches will have to show that faith can be lived seriously and meaningfully even in a technical and complex world like ours”.

L'articolo Francis and Kiril: the tale of two Easters proviene da InsideOver.

Why Lebanon? Some years ago the distinguished historian Jonathan Steinberg wrote a book entitled Why Switzerland? And a similar question can be posed for Lebanon which, like Switzerland, is host to several different communities. In the Lebanese case we need to go much further back in time than the thirteenth century AD which saw the birth of the Swiss cantons. Instead, we are looking at the thirteenth century BC. For the coast of Lebanon might appear to be a narrow strip hemmed in by mountains, an unlikely centre of trade and industry, but its original importance lay precisely in the extensive resources of wood. As far back as 1075 BC an Egyptian official named Wenamun set out from the Nile Delta on his way to Byblos (modern Jubayl in Lebanon) to obtain timber for the rebuilding of an Egyptian temple. His adventures, fictional or more probably true, are recorded on a papyrus scroll that has survived till today. The resources in wood of the Lebanese mountains were a vital resource for the Egyptians, who could obtain poor quantities of wood of poor quality in Egypt.

It is therefore no great surprise that the strip of coast that now constitutes Lebanon was the birthplace of trans-Mediterranean trade in antiquity. The Phoenician merchants were easily able to obtain the wood they required for building sturdy ships able to sail to and beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. The merchants of Tyre founded new settlements as far west as Carthage and Cádiz. They also looked eastwards towards the growing power of Assyria, providing luxury goods for the court of the Assyrian kings. They remained a significant presence in imperial Rome, bringing luxury goods from the east. Lebanon was therefore already the crossroads between the landmass of the Middle Est and the entire length of the Mediterranean, a role that it would preserve for most of its history.

In the Middle Ages this same stretch of coast was conquered first by Muslim armies, in the seventh century, and then by the crusaders at the end of the eleventh century. The crusaders held it for less than two centuries, but they eagerly exploited its resources. Near Tyre sugar plantations, many of them owned by Venetian merchants, supplied what was still a rare and costly delicacy to western Europe. The conquest of the coastline by the Mamluk rulers of Egypt in the late thirteenth century was accompanied by the destruction of many of the Levantine ports, but this only gave greater prominence to Beirut, which was preserved and built close business ties to the Genoese and Venetian merchants who operated out of Famagusta in Cyprus. Among the products these traders handled was cotton, exported to northern Italy and transformed into textiles including the famous fustians of Lombardy made out of a combination of cotton and wool.

This was also an area of great ethnic and religious diversity. A Spanish traveller, Benjamin of Tudela, passed through Lebanon in around 1170 and noted the presence in the mountainous interior of the Assassin sect of Shi’ite Islam and of the Druze warriors, members of a religious group that diverged from Shi’ite Islam in the eleventh century and preserves distinctive beliefs and practices; one is reincarnation but others are still kept secret. To these groups should be added the Maronite Christians in the interior, who venerated several local saints and from the sixth century onwards developed loose ties to the Roman Catholic Church as a result of their common theological position, a relationship that was confirmed during the late twelfth century and still holds. The religious map of modern Lebanon is further complicated by the very substantial Shi’ite population living between Tyre and the Israeli border, as well as a large population of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who are predominantly Sunni Muslim, while the country’s Jewish population, once a significant element, has all but disappeared.

When Lebanon emerged from centuries of Ottoman domination (the Turks conquered the region in 1516) these religious divisions became crucial in determining its future. The Druze and Maronite leaders were already cooperating with one another in the local government of the region during the eighteenth century; but the French mandate in Syria following the First World War and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire at last offered a chance for the ambitions of the nationalists to become real. In establishing a republic of Lebanon within French Syria in 1926, France recognized the exceptional significance of its Christian inhabitants while trying to accommodate the interests of the other groups as well. French attitudes were moulded by a nostalgic affection for the era of the crusader states, which were seen by historians as an early expression of the mission civilisatrice of France in the Mediterranean (not a view held nowadays). An fully independent Lebanese republic came into being in 1943 amid the chaos of the Second World War; its constitution still insists that the president must be a Maronite and the Prime Minister must be Shi’ite.

Since 1948 one of the major issues in Lebanese politics has been the presence of Israel to the south. Lebanon sees itself as an Arab nation and is a member of the League of Arab States, even if it is the only member to contain such a high proportion of Christians, mostly of them descended from the pre-Islamic inhabitants of the Middle East. Although Lebanon joined the Arab attack on Israel that year it tried as far as possible to keep a low profile in the wars against Israel. However, the government has never been successful in limiting attacks on Israel first by the Palestine Liberation Organization (bearing in mind the large Palestinian population in southern Lebanon), and subsequently by the Iranian-funded Hizbollah organization. Following the Lebanese civil war that broke out in 1975 and lasted till 1990, Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, in support of Maronite allies, reaching the outskirts of Beirut, and later occupying a small strip of land across from its northern frontier until 2000. Syrian troops moved into the country – Syria never having recognized the independence of Lebanon – and were only dislodged in 2005.

All this has had a serious effect on the capital, Beirut, In its heyday it was one of the major business centres of the Middle East, and with wealth came a reputation for a hedonistic high life. Its hotels and clubs attracted hordes of visitors from more Puritan parts of the region. However, the destruction in civil war of parts of the city, followed by their rebuilding, followed by their renewed destruction, has helped destroy the economy as well. In 2022 it has been marked by steep inflation, power cuts, food shortages and – of course – renewed political crises. The political influence of Hizbollah seems to be impossible to break. One consolation, perhaps, is that the Bekaa valley still produces excellent wines including those of the prestigious Château Musar; but at the moment the economic and political future continues to look bleak. No longer the bridge between the Mediterranean and the Middle East, Lebanon risks becoming a failed state.

L'articolo The Bridge Between the Mediterranean and the Middle East proviene da InsideOver.

The savagery in Sialkot where a crazed Islamist mob accused a Sri Lankan factory manager Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana of blasphemy, beat him to a pulp (every single bone in his body was broken) and then burnt his dead body while clicking selfies with his burning body and screaming Islamist slogans has sent shock waves around the world. But it shouldn’t have. Because what happened in Sialkot is something that has been has happened many times in the past in the Land of the Pure. The only novelty of the Sialkot incident is that this is the first time a foreigner has been lynched and murdered by a fanatical Islamist mob. And now that a precedent has been established, other foreigners who are working in Pakistan are open game.

Diyawadana’s Christian faith made his killing so much more palatable for the mob because Christians in Pakistan have been facing the brunt of the attacks in the name of blasphemy. The outrage in social media and the condemnation of the incident by people like Prime Minister Imran Khan, Army Chief Qamar Bajwa, and a host of other politicians and officials really do not mean much. They are at best insincere and at worst disingenuous. People like Imran Khan and General Bajwa have assiduously promoted this fanaticism for political ends. Worse, they have kowtowed to the ideology and the clerics/activists who have weaponized the Blasphemy Laws to become a potent force in Pakistan’s politics. Just a few weeks back the entire state machinery lay prostrate before the Tehrik-e-Labbaik marchers, giving in to all their demands and writing off the murder of nearly a dozen police officers as collateral damage. To expect action, much less justice, from such actors is asking for water in the desert.

What happened in Sialkot has happened innumerable times in the past. Not long back a bank guard gunned down the bank manager after accusing the latter of blaspheming. It turns out the manager had only pulled up the guard for being tardy. A young college professor has been imprisoned for over 8 years because some students accused him of blasphemy. His lawyer, a noted human rights activist, was shot dead because he was defending an alleged blasphemer. A Christian couple was beaten up and in front of their children were burnt alive in a brick kiln. Just a few days back, a police station in Charsadda was burnt by a fanatical mob because some mentally challenged man was accused of burning some pages of Quran. A young Christian girl with Down’s Syndrome was accused of blasphemy by a cleric. An unlettered Christian boy in his pre-teens was similarly accused of blasphemy because he was burning some trash in which there were some pages with Quranic verses. A bright student of Abdul Wali Khan University was accused of blasphemy by his political rivals who were also his classmates and fellow university students. A mob of students dragged Mashal Khan and beat him to death. No inquiry, no arrest, no trial, straight execution. There are countless incidents where blasphemy is alleged to settle scores with rivals. That the Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan is a bad law is not the problem. There are many laws that are bad and liable to be misused. But no one has the courage to reform or amend the law. Not that this would make any difference because more than the law the problem is with the society which has been indoctrinated, fanaticized and radicalized to a point where a mere accusation of blasphemy is a virtual death sentence. The moment someone is accused of blasphemy, a lynch mob is ready to mete out instant punishment – death. If by chance, an accused escaped being lynched, he/she will spend many years in prison because courts are afraid to give bail, lawyers terrified to defend the accused. In prison, every day the life of the accused is in danger from his fellow inmates, many of whom think that murdering the person will win them and their family not only rewards in the afterlife but also an exalted status in this life. Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, is a prime example. Qadri has a shrine made in his honour while Taseer did not even get a decent burial because no cleric was ready to administer his funeral rites, and even his political colleagues were afraid to attend his funeral.

Diyawadana’s crime wasn’t that he committed any sacrilege; it was that he admonished some of the workers from not performing their duties and pulled up his attackers for sexual harassment of some women workers. That was enough to target him and the easiest thing was to whip up a mob by alleging blasphemy. The charge against Diyawadana was that he tore some posters of the extremist Tehrik-e-Labbaik-Imran Khan’s party’s Punjab President Ijaz Chaudhry paid obeisance before the TLP Chief Saad Rizvi after the latter was released from jail – in which the name of the Prophet was mentioned. On this basis, anyone who so much as throws a newspaper on the ground is liable to be accused of blasphemy because every newspaper invariably has Quranic verses on its mast head. This is how easy it is to target someone, anyone by levelling charges of blasphemy.

What happened to Diyawadana can easily happen to other expatriate workers. The most endangered are the Europeans and the Chinese. The latter are particularly vulnerable, in part because of the growing sentiment against the treatment meted out to Muslims in China, and in part because of the overbearing manner in which Chinese managers and engineers behave with Pakistanis working under them in CPEC projects. There are already reports of tensions between the mistreated Pakistani employees and the arrogant, haughty and intemperate Chinese. The Chinese managers don’t even need to insult the Prophet or the Quran; all that is needed is for one disaffected Pakistani worker to decide that he can become a hero of Islam by accusing his Chinese boss of blasphemy. The same could happen with an American, or a Frenchman, British, German or any other Westerner, including people working in the IMF. The thing is that Pakistani media and politicians have been inciting hatred against Westerners, especially the IMF in recent weeks. The French have been particularly targeted for the aggressive secularism in that country which has banned any outward symbol of religiosity, including the Burka.

The hand-wringing by top politicians and officials over the Sialkot savagery is hardly convincing. For some years now, the hybrid regime of Army Chief Qamar Bajwa and Prime Minister Imran Khan has embarked on a project to mainstream the fanatics. But by normalizing and legitimizing the fanatics, what has happened is that the mainstream has been fanaticized and radicalized. The rise of the TLP which has been assisted and facilitated by the Pakistani state, has contributed significantly to making the weaponization of like blasphemy and finality of Prophethood a new normal. The bluster of people in government and the military doesn’t hide the fact that they have been watering the plant of Islamic radicalism and extremism. The new curriculum introduced in schools has undue focus on Islamizing the Muslims by drilling in all kinds of Islamism into the heads of young kids. Imran Khan himself has been a flag bearer of Islamism and giving moral lectures from every available stage. For his tottering regime, Islam is the last refuge.

Quite clearly, the heavy dose of Islamism injected into the society has now infected the society. Don’t go by what the fringe English-speaking folk are saying on social media. Go by what is being said by the masses tweeting in Urdu. Go also by the equivocalness in condemnation – “yes, it was a terrible thing to happen, but…..”. This ‘but’ is nothing but the advocacy, apologism, explanation, justification of the barbaric killing of Diyawadana. It is a thinly disguised attempt to downplay the enormity of the incident. What is more, it is a cue to divert and deflect attention from the crime committed in the name of religion and shift the blame to some bizarre conspiracy theory. After the brutal and barbaric killing of Diyawadana, the repercussions are going to be not merely political and societal, but also diplomatic and economic.

Any prospective investor is going to be chary of betting on Pakistan. Imran Khan’s pipe dream of promoting Pakistan as a tourist destination has gone up in the flames that consumed Diyawadana’s lifeless, broken and brutalised body. Diplomatically, Pakistan’s already terrible image has been further tarnished. The international community is well aware of how Imran Khan has been riding on the back of fanatics to come into power, how he has been pandering to them, how the extremists have given immunity from any action by the state. It is clear that Pakistan is incapable of reforming and stepping back from the Islamist path it embarked right from its creation. For nearly three quarters of a century, the world gave Pakistan a free pass and looked the other way. No more. The world needs to use all the economic, political and diplomatic leverages to make Pakistan step back from the brink. This will not be possible without holding out the threat of punitive action until Pakistan brings the culprits to book and starts to walk back on the issue of blasphemy.

L'articolo Blasphemy, barbarism & the burnt brand Pakistan proviene da InsideOver.

Reportage / Religion 22.03.2021

The Church and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Read the original version The Pope’s bold visit to Iraq prompts recollections of my attempts, over the years, to encourage European Christians to play a larger role in the effort to break the political deadlock of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and…

Abraham B. Yehoshua

The Israeli-Palestinian question is one of the longest and most stubborn conflicts since the First World War, despite the many attempts by powerful forces to resolve it. The numerous reasons for the impasse are beyond the scope of this article, but I do want to note that as opposed to territorial conflicts elsewhere, this one involves the entire territory and not just a part of it. In addition to the maximalist territorialism of both sides, underlying the Jewish-Palestinian conflict is the dangerous obstacle of the Old City of Jerusalem. The breathtaking plateau of the Al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock, considered the third most important religious site in the Muslim world, is built upon the ruins of the Jewish Temple that was destroyed in the year 70 AD.  

The Pope’s visit to Iraq is also significant in that it reminds the wider world that the Arab world is not homogenously Muslim, but includes Arab believers in Christianity.  In the past, if to a lesser degree today, Palestinian intellectuals and other elites were often adherents of Christianity.  Some Palestinian Christians were actively opposed to Zionism, while others, mainly members of the Palestinian communist party, recognized the legitimacy of the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947 that granted the Jews the right to establish a state in part of Palestine, because the Soviet Union had supported the plan. Christianity was born in the land of Israel.  Evidence of its origins in Judaism is apparent not only in the New Testament, but in the presence, throughout this land of my birth, the core of my identity as an Israeli (my family has lived here for six generations), of churches that have always been a source of pride for me and people like me. These Christian sites underscore the cultural, artistic and spiritual pluralism of this small territory that is home to Jews from all over the world.  Moreover, some of the Palestinians living among and beside us are distant descendants of Jews who refused to go into exile after the destruction of the Second Temple and the loss of Jewish independence, and in order to remain loyal to the homeland, they converted to Christianity and later also to Islam.

Christians, especially European Catholics, have a role to play in bringing peace between Israelis and Palestinians, not least regarding the sensitive subject of the holy places in Jerusalem.  The Catholics, responsible in the past for much of the injustice and persecution suffered by European Jews, should take the lead as partners and peacemakers in the creation of a Holy Basin for three faiths, as a means of facilitating Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.

L'articolo The Church and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict proviene da InsideOver.

Qaraqosh (Iraq) The Christians of Qaraqosh, persecuted by Isis, have been thronging the streets for hours, waiting to greet Francis, the first pilgrim pope to visit Iraq. Olive branches, photos of Bergoglio and Vatican flags create the setting for a great, unforgettable day of celebration.

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L'articolo Christians Celebrate Pope Francis proviene da InsideOver.

This report was produced thanks to a contribution from Aid to The Church in Need 

Qaraqosh (Iraq) The Christians of Qaraqosh, persecuted by Isis, have been thronging the streets for hours, waiting to greet Francis, the first pilgrim pope to visit Iraq. Olive branches, photos of Bergoglio and Vatican flags create the setting for a great, unforgettable day of celebration. The Christians are colourful. The first we meet are heavily bearded Lebanese monks in grey robes and cowls, walking barefoot to the cathedral. A young mother has brought her little son dressed as the Pope. Some Rambo figures of the special security forces dressed in black and armed to their teeth have even put the flags of Iraq and the Pope on their bulletproof vests. A young priest and nun dancing wildly and singing at the top of their voices organise a choreography, shrieking the refrains in Italian at the crowd. A patrol of nuns is posted on a roof, including Patrizia, the only Italian in Iraq, who runs a kindergarten in Qaraqosh.

Jubilation greets the Pope’s arrival as the helicopter appears over Mosul. The crowd goes wild when they catch a glimpse of the Holy Father waving. Everyone wants to take selfies, but security is strict and Christians are satisfied with the photos with his image printed on a flyer. Before the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, half burned down by Isis, the Pontiff blesses the entrance door that opens onto a part of the church that is still blackened.

“I encourage you: do not forget who you are and where you come from! Do not forget the bonds that hold you together, your roots!” the Pope begins before the altar still blackened by fire. Bergoglio urged Christians to remember that “forgiveness is needed on the part of those who survived the terrorist attacks. Please do not to grow discouraged. We need the ability to forgive, but also the courage not to give up.” As a memento the Pope received two stoles bearing the symbols of the crosses destroyed by Isis and he returns to Iraq a sacred book that miraculously escaped the Caliphate’s advance, having been taken to safety in Italy.

The Pope’s dedication as the guest of honour of the cathedral is moving: “From this destroyed and rebuilt church, a symbol of hope for Qaraqosh and all of Iraq, I invoke from God, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the gift of peace…”

A few hours earlier, Francis was in Mosul, the former capital of the Caliphate, amid the shocking scenario of destruction of the Square of the Four Churches that was turned into a Taliban court and a terrible jail by Isis. Eventually the allied coalition against terrorism bombed it and razed it to the ground. “How cruel it is that this country, the cradle of civilisation, was struck by such an inhuman storm in which ancient places of worship were destroyed and thousands of people, Muslims, Christians, Yazidis – were killed,” Bergoglio declared before the rubble as he prayed for all the victims of the war.

The last stage of the historic three-day trip to Iraq is the mass at the stadium in Erbil, Kurdistan before a crowd of 10,000 people. When Francis arrives aboard the popemobile and drives around the stadium, the Christians are in raptures. Young and old run after the Holy Father as if he were a rock star. At the altar he shows many signs of old age, limping visibly, but the service is moving and Bergoglio avows that this journey “will remain forever in my heart”. In his homily he launches the message of resistance. “Today, I can see at first hand that the Church in Iraq is alive, that Christ is alive and at work in this, his holy and faithful people.”

L'articolo “The Church in Iraq is Alive”. Christians Celebrate The Pilgrim Pope proviene da InsideOver.

Reportage / Religion 12.03.2021

Among The Christians of Iraq

In Qaraqosh before ISIS there were 50,000 Christians. Twenty thousand fled the fury of the Islamic State

Fausto Biloslavo

The burly engineer has the task of repairing the statue, which comes from the proud Christian village of Karemlash. Here the Caliphate’s cutthroats defaced the symbols of the “infidels”, even breaking open tombs to plunder anything of value. “I am a Christian and I am convinced that we must not leave the Middle East, the land of our fathers,” stresses Kadifa in a sad voice, the tone of one who still feels persecuted today.

On the footbridge at the entrance to the village of Karemlash, north of Mosul, the yellow and white Vatican flags fly together with those of Iraq. Two large photos of Pope Francis rise above the street bearing the word “welcome”. Christians in arms of the Nineveh Protection Units guard the small town and patrol the entrances. With weapons, camouflage jackets and special corps equipment, the some 500-600 men were trained by the Americans and answer to Baghdad in the chain of command.

Father Paolo guides us through the rubble of Karemlash, recently liberated from Islamic State. The church is as good as new, but the bell tower still bears the marks of the explosions and the cross is bent in half. “We decided to leave it like this to bear witness and not forget what the Christian community has suffered,” the priest explains in perfect Italian.

The tolling of the bell which has remained intact calls the faithful to prayer. Inside the church a nun plays the organ, accompanying the choir of young Christian girls wearing a light white lace veil over her head. This is the same choir that will sing for the Pope amid the rubble of Mosul.

Qaraqosh is the heart of Christianity in the Nineveh Plains. The church of the Immaculate Conception is over a thousand years old. Outside, a photo of Pope Francis rises above the arches devastated by the bullets fired by terrorists, who used the square as a shooting range. The church is packed with worshipers for the first Sunday mass at 7 a.m. The ancient vaults, the clouds of incense, the priest wearing the robes of the past, the marks made by bursts of machine-gun fire, the portraits of Jesus and the saints, all remind us of the faith of the Christians in the catacombs. The faithful elder who can barely stand upright, the brave women telling their beads, the children with lighted candles at the side of the altar and the ringing “amen” that echoes when the faithful make the sign of the cross all heighten the sense of expectancy for the Pope’s visit.

50,000 Christians lived in Qaraqosh before ISIS. Some 20,000 fled mainly to Lebanon and Jordan to try to reach Europe or the United States. Of the others, 90% have returned and are rebuilding their destroyed or looted homes, but there is no work and their safety is always uncertain. 45.53% of the Christians have returned to the Nineveh Plains. The pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need has invested almost 50 million euros, particularly in rebuilding their homes. Occupation by the Caliphate destroyed or damaged 369 churches and 14,035 Christian homes in the Nineveh Plains alone.

And when he crosses the threshold he will find himself faced with a kind of “museum”, tangible proof of the persecution of Christians. A blow from a scimitar split the head of a statue of St. Joseph in two. Father Ammar almost weeps over a little headless baby Jesus beheaded by Isis. The Islamic cutthroats scarred sacred portraits, burned books of the Christian faith, and vented their fury on an ancient wooden cross, breaking it in two. Over 120,000 Christians fled within a few days, in August 2014, in the face of the terrible advance of the black flags of ISIS.

Today the new threat casti g its shadow over the Christian presence is that of the Shabak, the Shiite ethnic group of the Nineveh Plains. They are seeking to expand by buying or conquering lands with the support of the militias. On the main street of the Christian town of Bartella, a photo of the Iranian Pasdaran general, Qassim Suleimani killed in January last year by an American drone in Baghdad, is posted on every lamp post.

L'articolo Among The Christians of Iraq proviene da InsideOver.