The Vatican said Sunday that the international community is ignoring the plight of Christians in the West Asia, and that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq and political instability in Lebanon have forced thousands to flee the region.
A working paper released during Pope Benedict XVI’s pilgrimage to Cyprus to prepare for a crisis summit of Middle East bishops in Rome in October also cites the “extremist current” unleashed by the rise of “political Islam” as a threat to Christians. In his final mass in Cyprus on Sunday, Pope Benedict said he was praying that the October meeting will focus the attention of the international community “on the plight of those Christians in the West Asia who suffer for their beliefs.” He appealed for an “urgent and concerted international effort to resolve the ongoing tensions in the West Asia, especially in the Holy Land, before such conflicts lead to greater bloodshed.” The Vatican considers mostly Greek Orthodox Cyprus as a bridge between Europe and the West Asia and invited bishops to come to the Mediterranean island to receive the working paper to counter the exodus of thousands of Christians in recent years because of war and harsh economic conditions.
A group of around 100 Orthodox Christian demonstrators staged a peaceful protest against Benedict’s visit outside the Nicosia sports stadium where the pope presided over Mass, holding aloft banners calling the pope “a heretic.”
“We don’t accept the pope’s visit here,” Telemachos Telemachou, 51, said. “The pope shouldn’t have come ... We have nothing against Benedict as an individual, but with the heresy.”
—AP