These few monks, begging to save some of the monastery's relics from its long and varied history, were told to leave in the clothes they wore and allowed to take nothing else with them according to witnesses.
The monastery of Mar Behnam is a few miles from Mosul, which last week received the ISIS ultimatum for its Christian residents to flee, pay tribute, or die by sundown Saturday. It is reported that this Sunday was the first since Christians first resided in the town, near the start of the Christian story, that there was no Christian congregation in Mosul. Perhaps this is not true yet, perhaps a family was left which dared to pray together. Many times has the passing of Christianity been proclaimed; and yet there is resurrection.
The UN is accusing IS (as ISIS is now being called) of war crimes. Nearly 6,000 Iraqis have been slaughtered by them this year.
And yet - where is the West?
Where is our outrage?
If a Mosque were destroyed, if a Hindu Temple were desecrated, if the holy place of another religion that bore hundreds of years of culture and faith and human and spiritual value, we would look at it in horror and cry for justice.
Entire Christian communities are being destroyed, and their churches, many of them far older than anything we have here in our own country, are being ransacked and desecrated, and where is the West?
I ask not for bullets and bombs and reprisals but for justice and peace and hope and homes and strength to stand up for those who are treated as less than human by bullies who shout faith when they abuse that cry.
We who bear the name of Christian stand shoulder to shoulder with those who today have no home, no belongings, no past, no future. We are family. We will cry with you and cry out for you. We will make our voices heard so that your voices may be heard.
Where is the West?
We are here; we are with you; you are not alone.
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