My Dear friends,

Today as a terrible tragedy unfolds in Egypt where our Coptic brothers and sisters in Christ are being persecuted and killed just for loving Our Lord, Jesus, and the world stands by doing little.

This attack is just another of so many that have occurred and so little is said or done to stop them or to protect the Christians in Egypt and in other muslim countries. (I attach below a segment from my latest book ‘ The battle for lives and souls’, published 3 months ago ).

I encourage each one of you to take a stand for your faith and Our Lord. Do not remain silent any longer speak out against the wrongs that are being done to our family of Christ. I ask that each of you contact your head of government, your President, Prime Minister and those who are meant to represent you. Congressmen, Senators and Members of Parliament, insisting they do something to stop this. Below are some email addresses. I am sure if western countries threatened to stop giving aid or to stop trading with these countries things would change very quickly. But our leaders need to be led to do this they do not seem to have the stomach for it themselves without prompting from their electorates.

Are we going to sit idly by again and let the blood of those who love Christ be spilled? Are we so indifferent to the suffering of others who follow the one true God? I hope not.

Let us all pray and offer the Holy Mass for peace and freedom of religion in these troubled lands. Let demand that our governments do something and let us play our part by telling everyone of this great wrong and encourage them to act too.

Please email all you know with this so many can unite in prayer, in love and in action to support our suffering brothers and sisters in Christ

 

USA:  Contact the White House | The White House

www.whitehouse.gov/contact

 

England:

camerond@parliament.uk

 

Germany: Bundeskanzlerin | Contact

www.bundeskanzlerin.de/Webs/BK/En/Service/Contact/contact.html

 

Australia: Contact Your PM | Prime Minister of Australia

www.pm.gov.au/contact-your-pm

 

 

From ‘The battle for lives and souls’.

 

It is also time for Christians to say ‘Enough’ and start to demand firmly their rights but lovingly and without sin.

It is time for Christians to stand up and demand that Christian minorities in Muslim countries are given the same protections Muslim minorities in Christian countries and countries like Bosnia and the state of Kosovo receive.

In Saudi Arabia it is forbidden to have bibles, religious images and rosaries. If a Christian is caught wearing a cross any muslim can take it away. The person will be arrested, taken to prison and deported. There are cases in Saudi Arabia where converts to Christianity have been tortured and killed. It was reported in Zenit News about an Eritrean who converted to Christianity and spoke to others about Christ, who sits on death row because of this. Saudi Arabia is listed (Open Doors) as the 4th worst country where Christians are persecuted. Yet, many Christian leaders visit this country or deal with this country and remain silent about the terrible treatment of Christians there in case in doing so they might offend the Saudis whose oil, money, trade and strategic support seems more important than the rights and lives of Christians.

In the Ivory Coast recently an election was held and the muslim challenger won the election. Several countries in the west called for his opponent to step down and some western countries even gave limited military support. Yet, when a massacre of 800 Christians happened in a single day at the Catholic Mission of the Salesians, St. Teresa of the child Jesus in Duekoue, by the soldiers loyal to the muslim challenger, scant reporting and little protests were made.

Generally those who do stand up and speak out about the unjust treatment of Christians in the Muslim world are those of the churches which come under attack. In Iraq where the Christians suffer terribly and even a Catholic Archbishop, many priests and many Catholics have been murdered, very few Catholics in the west raise their voices in protest. As about 50% of Christians have been forced to leave their homeland of Iraq most Christians, most Catholics in the western world remain silent as this awful tragedy unfolds. I saw many Copts protesting around the world about the terrible attacks on them and their churches but how many Catholics stood with them? The Pope and the hierarchy spoke out but most Catholics did nothing and sat back in apathy instead of showing unity with their brothers and sisters of the Coptic Church. Catholics and Orthodox must stand together against this and all evil.

As Pope John Paul 2 explained the Eastern and Western parts of the Church are the two lungs of the Church and Pope Benedict the 16th reiterated this in 2007 with these words: “Thank you, Your Beatitude, for this gesture of esteem and brotherly friendship. In you, I greet the Pastor of an ancient and illustrious Church, a shining tessera of that bright mosaic, the East, which, to use a favourite phrase of the Servant of God John Paul II of venerable memory, constitutes one of the two lungs with which the Church breathes.”

 

May God bless you all,

 

Alan Ames