Nina Shea: 'Obliterating' Iraq's Christians

Christ's Conquest of the Ancient World by Nkimadams

Christian children have been tortured to death, reported the U.S. Catholic Bishops. Islamic fanatics broke into a Chaldean home near Mosul and killed a ten-year-old boy while shouting, "We've come to exterminate you. This is the end for you Christians!" ChaldoAssyrian workers have been murdered for "collaborating" with the United States. And Christian women have been hit hard; it was at Mosul University that some young Christian women were raped and killed for offending some Muslims by wearing jeans and having a picnic with male colleagues.

Thus far the rapid erosion of Iraqi Christianity and of religious pluralism generally has drawn little notice from President Obama. There are compelling moral and national security reasons for the administration to help these minorities. Not only do they tend to be educated and skilled modernizers, who can help Iraq, but their very presence in Iraq will promote peaceful coexistence more generally, which will help us all. As a Chaldean Bishop remarked: "This is very sad and very dangerous for the church, for Iraq and even for Muslim people, because it means the end of an old experience of living together."

In 2008, the charismatic Catholic Chaldean Archbishop Rahho was abducted while he prayed the Lenten Stations of the Cross at his church in Mosul and later was found dead. Other priests have been beheaded or otherwise assassinated. The list of victims includes lay people; Anglican Canon Andrew White, who leads a Baghdad ecumenical congregation, reports: "All of my leadership were originally taken and killed -- all dead."

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