What Are You Doing to Help Christians in Iraq?

Orlando, Fla. — Recent American college graduates are teaching in Iraq. (I witnessed Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil make a pitch to a northern-Virginia mother of teenagers, saying that Iraq would be an ideal summer option for one of her children.) This comes out of an exchange between the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Erbil and the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. One young man even had his whole family go to Iraq and check it out for safety (and out of curiosity). Just the other day, a Nigerian seminarian was burned alive as his rectory was attacked. This kind of thing is a common occurrence in Nigeria. Christianity in Iraq, on the other hand, is in a different place, on the other side of the ISIS genocide that drove most of the Christians from Mosul to Erbil, near Kurdistan. When it comes to the persecuted Church, Iraq, though a work in progress, is a hopeful story — one that Americans surely have a duty to support.

“Here we are: ISIS is defeated, Christ is victorious,” Archbishop Warda tells me. “The Church is back again. Mass is back again. Christians are in their nine villages today with so many  pastoral activities and catechism. This is real. This is real life. This is not something we read about hope.”

Warda, who established the relationship with Franciscan University, says it has been a game-changer in how young Iraqis understand Americans. At first, many of his people thought the young Americans coming to them must have been desperate for jobs. But as they got to know them, they saw real faith in God, talent, and generosity. The young people are coming because “they want to serve the needs of the Church, they show the beauty and kindness of American Catholics.” This is not the image Iraqis get of people from the United States from the media and cultural exports.

And, of course, they have other reasons to distrust Americans.

During the genocide, Warda, with the help of the Knights of Columbus and Aid to the Church in Need, was able to establish a Catholic university and a hospital, among other things, for the people who wound up on his doorstep as refugees from ISIS. He was able to help Christians see a future in Iraq: jobs, education for children. Warda credits good priests such as tThabet Habib Yousif Al Mekko for doing the difficult work of “accompanying his people through that long, painful road.” And, he added, “he cared for them in a way like we always have said, like a father and a mother.”

(Both Warda and Thabet were in Orlando for the Knights of Columbus convention this summer.)

This is no small thing. In 2014, Iraqi Christians understandably were tempted to think, “This is the end,” Warda remembers. “There is no future for them in Iraq.” Stephen Rasche, author of The Disappearing People: The Tragic Fate of Christians in the Middle East and a founding officer of the Catholic University of Erbil, was with Bishop Thabet when he was still a parish priest returning to his church in Karamless, seeing the destruction that ISIS had wrought — including a beheaded statue of Mary, the Mother of God, with her hands severed. There was also German graffiti on the wall that read: “Oh you slaves of the cross, there is no place for you in the land of Islam. Either get out of here or we will kill you.”

That statue was partially restored and blessed by Pope Francis when he visited Iraq in March 2021.

(Thabet was made bishop of Alqosh in northern Iraq in the fall of 2021.)

I’m always impressed by the fact that Christians in Iraq didn’t try to hide their faith when ISIS moved in. They could have pretended. Thabet says that would have been impossible:

Our language is Christian language. Our customs, our culture is Christian. We cannot separate our identity from Christ. If we do, we will die. When ISIS came in, they showed themselves powerful, taking over so many villages and cities and saying to our people: Choose Islam or taxation or find the sword. The Christians said: We choose Christ and they left everything and came with nothing but Christ.

And while they are now past the genocide. Iraqi Christians still face challenges. Bishop Thabet emphasizes the second-class-citizen status that Christians have as a minority in a country not at all immune from corruption. And the everyday challenges they have — such as electricity bills:

Perhaps you might say that is my problem. Fair enough. But the people are middle class or below and have limited means to contribute. To keep a Christian community in Iraq, we need the electricity to keep the buildings open for Mass and the catechism programs, the pastoral programs, the formational programs.

When we are wrapping up, I ask Bishop Thabet what he would like Americans to know about his people. He says, simply: “That there are Christians in Iraq.” This is a continuing problem: Christians in the United States don’t even realize that Christians have been in Iraq since the beginning of Christianity. That’s not a big ask. And it’s been a consistent one: Recognize that they exist. They know we didn’t take that into consideration when we uprooted their lives to take out Saddam Hussein. They don’t blame us. They just ask that we remember them, however we do — with prayer, or financial support, or talents, or just basic facts.

Nigerian Christians need our support, too. “The international community” is not interested in facts about their situation; they prefer to blame climate change for blatant attacks on Christians. But Nigerians are likely decades away from Americans seeing a future in Nigeria to invest in. Iraqi Christians have palpable hope on their side. And the West has a chance to play a part in helping them ensure a future for Christianity in Iraq, something that is of benefit to all, as the Christians there serve all who come.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.