Major conference on persecution of Christians concludes in Rome

December 23, 2015

Two Eastern Catholic patriarchs and victims of persecution in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere were among the speakers at “Under Caesar’s Sword,” a major conference on anti-Christian persecution that concluded recently in Rome.

The Center for Civil and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame and the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University co-sponsored the conference.

“Middle Eastern Christians have been forgotten, abandoned, even betrayed by the Western countries,” said Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Yonan, the head of the Syriac Catholic Church. “The whole Middle East, without exception, is presently engulfed by a nightmare that seems to have no end and that undermines the very existence of minorities, particularly of Christians, in lands known to be the cradle of our faith and early Christian communities.”

“There are a strikingly diverse array of countries and regimes where persecution takes place,” stated Daniel Philpott of the University of Notre Dame. “It’s not all Islam or even close to it. There are regnant Communist regimes like China, Vietnam, and North Korea. There are surprising countries like India, which is pluralist and peaceful in the popular imagination. There are democracies and semi-democracies like Pakistan, Indonesia, India, and Nigeria.”

“What struck me the most — and what was most painful to hear — were the expressions of disappointment over the relative silence on the part of those in Western democracies who are in a position to do so much more to help,” Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard University told National Review. “As one speaker put it, the silence is so deafening as to amount to complicity.”

She added:

The strategies developed by our Catholic immigrant ancestors in the US are now actually obstacles to a robust defense of religious freedom at home and are probably contributing to our silence about persecution abroad.

I call these strategies the turtle and chameleon strategies. The turtles kept their faith inside their shells; the chameleons adapted to fit into the new environment. In material terms, that worked pretty well for our parents and grandparents as they tried to make their way in the new world.

But for many, what began as a coping strategy became a way of life — and not the way of life to which we are called as Christians. What happened to salt, light, and leaven?

 

---

For all current news, visit our News home page.

---

 
Further information:

• Under Caesar’s Sword (University of Notre Dame)
• In Solidarity With Persecuted Christians: From a Conference in Rome (Arc of the Universe)
• Getting Beyond Turtle and Chameleon Christians (National Review)
• See and Name the Genocide (National Review)
• Christian leaders call for unity in response to persecution (Crux)
• Coptic Bishop Addresses International Conference on Christian Response to Persecution (AINA)
• The beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians was 'just the beginning' (CNA)
• Has much changed since India’s 2008 massacre of Christians? (CNA)
• Iraqi prelate seeks international commitment to freeze assets of Islamic State, commit ground troops (CWN, 12/11)