Middle East is greatest crisis since World War II, cardinal says
September 15, 2014
Addressing a meeting of Catholic charitable agencies involved with the Middle East, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga said that the conflicts in that region have produced “the greatest crisis the world has faced since the Second World War.”
The Honduran cardinal, who is the president of the Caritas International consortium of Catholic aid agencies, said that the group’s first priority should be providing help for the victims of violence. “The challenge is staggering,” he observed.
Cardinal Maradiago reported that 13 million people in Syria are now in “desperate need,” with 3 million of them living as refugees in other countries. Meanwhile tens of thousands of people face extinction in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands are confronted with the devastation of Gaza.
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Posted by: Defender -
Sep. 16, 2014 11:24 AM ET USA
Of course, the cardinal does not mention (militant) Islam at all, but does mention Israel's blockade of Gaza as inhuman. Come to expect this one-sidedness out of Vatican.
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Posted by: jg23753479 -
Sep. 15, 2014 8:37 PM ET USA
This puts the crisis in heady company. It outranks the Cuban Missile crisis (that risked a full-blown nuclear exchange) along with the Berlin blockade of '48 and the Hungarian uprising of '56 (that both risked a big power military confrontation in central Europe)? The collapse of Nationalist China? The Korean War? I suspect the cardinal was using a dash of historical exaggeration here.
