The Federal Government of Canada is quoted in CBC reports that it will focus on "mothers, children and families" as it welcomes 25,000 refugees from Syria.
The reports continue, paradoxically, that single men will not be included but the LGBT 'community' will be given priority as well (single men?) -- no mention, however, of the severely persecuted Christians of Syria and the Middle East generally.
The following report on Pope Francis' statements about refugees appeared in the Catholic Herald some weeks ago before the Canadian election. Little seems to have changed.
“Do something to put a stop to the violence and oppression,” Pope Francis asked the international community after calling attention once again to the fate of persecuted Christians, especially in the Middle East.
Pope Francis told thousands of people in St Peter’s Square [in September] that, the previous evening in Lebanon,martyred Syriac Bishop Flavien-Michel Malke was beatified.
“In the context of a tremendous persecution of Christians, he was an untiring defender of the rights of his people, exhorting all of them to remain firm in their faith,” the Pope said.
“Today as well, in the Middle East and other parts of the world, Christians are persecuted,” the Pope said. “May the beatification of this bishop and martyr fill them with consolation, courage and hope.”
Departing from his prepared text, Pope Francis told people in the square, “There are more martyrs (today) than there were in the first centuries” of Christianity.
He prayed that the beatification would “also be a stimulus for legislators and those who govern so that religious freedom would be guaranteed everywhere. And I ask the international community to do something to put a stop to the violence and oppression.”
The beatification liturgy for Bishop Malke was celebrated in Harissa, Lebanon, on August 29, the 100th anniversary of his death. Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan presided at the liturgy; Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes was present.
In his homily, Patriarch Younan pointed out that the Catholic Church commemorates the beheading of St John the Baptist. Referring to the 1915 Armenian genocide and what is happening today, especially in Syria and Iraq, the patriarch asked, “Why?”
“The secret of suffering one does not understand. It accepts the spirit of Christ,” the patriarch said.
Last summer thousands of Christians in Mosul and the Ninevah Plain in Iraq, including nearly 40,000 Syriac Catholics, were driven out by ISIS militants. The militants have posted multiple videos of beheadings.
Patriarch Younan denounced the passivity of world powers “that boast defending freedoms and abandon to their fate the people” who took the risk of staying in their homelands.
He stressed that not only Syriac Catholics are under threat, but all the Christians of the East — Chaldean, Assyrians, Maronites, Melkites, Armenians and that “when the persecution is not physical it is moral.”
“Where is the conscience of the world?” he asked.
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