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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - A Syrian archbishop has said that American policies have contributed to the growth of the Islamic State, while recent Russian air attacks have forced the Islamic forces to retreat.
Archbishop Jacques Hindo of Hassake-Nisibis said that American air strikes have been mostly cosmetic, with no real impact on the Islamic State. “Moscow’s intervention has been positive,” he reported.
The archbishop, who lives close to the front of the fighting in Syria, said that American air strikes have taken a toll on the Syrian government, but not the Islamic forces in Syria. “It’s not about being for or against the government, but people never believed in America’s attacks,” he said.
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CWN - As the Synod of Bishops began its October 9 session, Pope Francis called for “intense prayer, full of faith, to the Lord” for peace in the Middle East.
Stating his “profound concern” about the escalation of violence in Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, the Pontiff appealed to the international community to make use of teh “means of international law, of diplomacy, to resolve the conflicts.”
Pope Francis also called for prayers for peace in Africa and other areas of conflict.
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CWN - The Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, welcomed Russian military intervention in Syria, according to an Agence France-Presse report.
Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart said that the airstrikes have helped bring about a “renewal of confidence” among Syrian Christians and that President Vladimir Putin, though seeking Russia’s national interest, also “serves the Christians’ cause.”
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CWN - The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has appealed for calm in the Holy Land.
“Heavily concerned with the more recent wave of violence which blows over Israel and Palestine, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem condemns the bloody incidents of these last days and the frightening escalation which they are likely to bring about,” the patriarchate said in an October 7 statement.
“The seriousness of the situation calls for all parties involved, Israeli and Palestinians, to show evidence of courage and to go back to the table of negotiations, which should run on solid and fair grounds, according to parameters of resolutions prescribed by UN,” the statement continued.
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CWN - Christians in the Middle East have been “forgotten, betrayed by Western countries,” the Syrian Catholic Patriarch of Antioch charged during a Vatican briefing on October 8.
Patriarch Ignace Youssif III Younan, speaking to reporters at the Synod of Bishops, said that the suffering of Christians in the Middle East—especially in Syria and Iraq—is “indescribable.” He said that the topic should not be neglected in the Synod discussions on family life, because it is the overwhelming concern of Christian families in the region.
The Syrian Patriarch, who is based in Lebanon, said that Church leaders in the Middle East are “exploring all means of raising our cry of alarm to the world’s powers.” He said that Church is doing its best to protect families from an ongoing tragedy “to which the West has been indifferent.”
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CWN - The head of the Syriac Catholic Church decried the United States’ foreign policy toward Syria.
“Regarding the American administration vis-à-vis the situation in Syria since the beginning, it was wrong in its approach to that situation in Syria," said Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Yonan.
“Since the beginning, they wanted to just change the government because they were telling people, the media, that this guy, Bashar al-Assad, was a dictator, so he has to go to liberate the people of the country and to bring democracy,” he continued. “This ... was a wrong reading of the situation. You can’t export Western democracy into countries where you don’t have separation of Church and state, where you have what we call the hegemony of religion.”