Loving and serving God and His Creation — even during genocide.
Loving and serving God and His Creation — even during genocide
‘I t’s amazing to see people living the Christian faith — and especially when they don’t have to.” That’s what Chaldean Paul Thabet Habib Yousif Al Mekko of Alqosh, in Iraq, said to me during an interview two years ago this summer. A soft-spoken man, he knew why he and his people were following Christ. They were given an ultimatum by ISIS: convert or die. So they left their homes for wherever Christ took them. Bishop Thabet was instrumental in leading his people to a future with Christ, in a church rebuilt.
Just short of 50 years old, Bishop Thabet has now died, after a long respiratory illness that had been slowly wearing him down. He has been buried near his friend Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni, who was martyred by Islamic extremists on the Sunday after Pentecost in 2007. It would be appropriate to consider them both icons of freedom.
I spoke with Bishop Thabet at the 2023 Knights of Columbus convention, and the Chaldean bishop was there in gratitude for the global Catholic fraternal organization’s help in rebuilding the Catholic community in Karamlesh after the ISIS-perpetrated genocide in Iraq. It’s the least American Christians could have done for their brothers and sisters in Iraq. We did, after all, have something to do with the interventions that made their lives worse, contributing to the political instability that made possible the Islamic fascism and terrorism that sought to eliminate Christianity in the region.
What wowed him was our desire to love and serve God, even when our faith might sometimes be a bit of a mishmash in our minds, hearts, and practice. Thabet was a priest who poured himself out to his people. For him, that’s just what you do. Sitting with him in a hotel back room, I knew he was prepared in some spiritual way to be martyred. It made sense to him to be ready to give all when called to live in a land where Christianity is a necessary leaven, even if not always a welcome one.
When Pope Francis went to Iraq in March 2021 — something that he was strongly advised against doing — he blessed a statue of Mary, the Mother of God, which had been destroyed by ISIS. It was put back together with the wounds of war reflected in its appearance, her hands hanging on by wires. When ISIS cleared the area, Thabet was the first priest to go into some of the churches that had been desecrated. The people who were on that mission with him — such as Stephen Rasche, director of the Institute for Catholic Humanitarian Service at the Franciscan University and former official of the Catholic Archdiocese of Erbil — couldn’t help but express the depths of darkness and sacrilege they encountered there.
The eternal question is: Why does God allow suffering? If you spoke to someone like Thabet, you’d see why. Because only then are we blessed to see the miracles of grace. It’s similar — and related — to God’s giving us free will and allowing us to sin. We pray at Easter: O, happy fault! Happy fault? O, because it makes it possible for us to receive God’s mercy — we know we need His mercy!
When I asked Thabet to download his experiential wisdom to us relatively spoiled people, he probably thought I was being silly. But he humored me. His words and demeanor radiated authenticity. He said that what the experience of genocide did was make clear to him that a Christian’s identity is in Christ and nothing else. So, you “fix your eyes on Christ. On His suffering. On His Resurrection.” A successor to the apostles, as all bishops are, he faced entirely new challenges on top of the violent political upheavals. He said, “We can do it with Christ. We can rebuild. We can face new problems. With Christ. That’s got to be your vision.”
Thabet wanted me — us — to understand something fundamental. He may have prayed in Aramaic and Arabic, and his English might have been sketchy, but we spoke the same language: Christianity.
Pope Francis often talked about how the beatitudes are the identity cards of Christians. Bishop Thabet, by every testimony I’ve heard over the years, lived the beatitudes. If I were asked what should be inscribed on his tombstone, I might have suggested: Here are the earthly remains of a Christian. At a time when Christians do all kinds of non-Christian things, it is good to be reminded that the Christian life is still possible. Thanks be to God for Bishop Thabet, who reminded us.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.