Experiences from Iraq/1
R. wrote, “After the elections that took place this year, the situation in our country worsened, because until a few days ago a government had not been formed. Extremist groups of Isis Jihadists took advantage of this situation and began to advance in the North. Many families fled to take refuge in safer places. Some families of the Movement who live in more secure places took them into their homes. While the mass media transmit tragic news, we seek to bear witness with concrete acts of love and mercy towards all”. V. said, “Before the situation became worse, a friend and I were trying to think of a way to give courage and hope to the people of our city, many were emigrating. We talked to some city officials to ask to post encouraging phrases on the walls of the city, trying to highlight the positive, since only negative news were spreading. One day we helped a family of the Movement who had taken refuge in our city. They needed water. One of our neighbours, who we didn’t even know very well, gave us water intended for his own family since he saw the others needed it more. Other families asked us to find them a place to stay. We prayed that God would help us. We remembered a boarded up house that belongs to relations of ours who had emigrated abroad. We contacted them and immediately they gave us the go ahead.” The experience of V. refers to the days when people were uncertain about their future because just 20 Kms away, extremist groups had driven the Christians out of Mosul. Rana added, “Unfortunately, they then also attacked some small villages, mostly Christian. To save their lives, the people had to leave their homes in the middle of the night, leaving everything behind: goods, homes, jobs, clothes and documents … Many are now living in the north of the country with other families they don’t know or for the luckier ones, with relatives. But many are still sleeping in the open air, in the squares or in churches and schools. Or else two or three families may have to live together in a small house. Some survive on the aid coming from the NGOs or churches, just enough to get through the day. Their hopes of returning home are minimal and there is talk of not for at least a year or two. Many children play in the scorching sun with stones or empty water bottles! The summer here is very hot, with temperatures still reaching 45 degrees during the day and at night dropping to 25 degrees.” R. continued, “Practically all the young people we know have had to leave everything: their homes, schools, work … Some fled to Duhok, a city in the north of the country, where they were welcomed by a family of movement. They found themselves together, living in a situation similar to that of the early days of the Movement during the Second World War, where despite the fury of the bombs they continued to help everyone. Spontaneously, families and young people started to get together to pray the Rosary. Every day others join and now there are about sixty people who pray every day, each time in a different house. Some of the displaced families found refuge in the church, others in a school, and others in a building under construction. The majority are Christian and recently some Yazidic families arrived. The fundraising initiative of the young people of the movement throughout the world is giving us the opportunity to help them because they have nothing. In Dohok we were able to buy groceries, mattresses, sheets and fans.” V said, “Along with a friend we had already bought a lot of mattresses, but there still wasn’t enough so we went to another village to buy them. After explaining why we were buying them, the shop owner joined in our initiative and gave us the mattresses for nothing. So we were then able to buy other things” (to be continued) For those wishing to help the Christians of Iraq: IBAN JO09 ARAB 1110 0000 0011 1210 9985 98 Account: 0111 210998 0 598 Swiftcode: ARABJOAX100 Description: Help Christians in Iraq ARAB Bank – Amman branch Amman – Jordan
Two episodes highlight Philip’s efforts to live fraternity, as he himself describes: “When I was at Naval College I slept in a big room with 200 beds. We had to wake up early, and remain motionless while our Officer spoke. I knew that I could see and love Jesus in the many others who were far from their families and, as soon as we could move, I made my bed and sometimes the beds of some of the others and I said ‘Good morning!’ to all those I met in the corridors. One evening, when I was saying good night with a big smile to a friend, he said to me, ‘Philip you’re happy, and you can see it is because of God! I think I will come to Mass with you.’ For three years I had been trying to greet everyone and love each person and I experienced the truth of the sentence: where there is no love, put love, and you’ll find love. In fact, while I was in trouble in a final of a fencing tournament, my colleagues began to encourage me, cheering: ‘Good morning Philip! Good morning Philip! ‘And I won the tournament. ” Putting love where there is no love is also the secret that allowed him to overcome the inevitable difficulties of 
We are committed to do what we can to alleviate the suffering of these people, many of whom we know personally, first by praying for them but also raising funds to help meet their most urgent needs; opening our homes to them if necessary. We urge the international community to take action immediately to ensure that these communities being targeted in Iraq can return to their homes as soon as possible! We condemn every act of violence against any human being! We condemn the disproportionate production and sale of weapons of war, no matter the institution that finances them, as well as all those who put them in the hands of terrorist and subversive groups! We wish to underline, especially concerning the events in Iraq, that those who commit these abominable acts do not have a religion, and if they claim to have one, they do nothing but undermine it. In fact, the essence of religion is precisely the encounter between God, man and the entire creation. We are tired of seeing religion being exploited to create divisions in humanity and foment conflict. We are outraged with those – groups, persons or nations– who have plans and strategies for dividing and creating separate ghettos in places where people have been living side by side for hundreds of years. We are aware that dialogue between members of the Christian and Muslim communities is not always easy; but we wish to recall that for some time now noteworthy efforts are being made to calm misunderstandings in a spirit of mutual respect, knowing that the one God has raised different paths that converge in the same direction: mercy, love, compassion and all those virtues that he alone possesses in full. He has made us in his own image to live them with one another, and so we wish to follow his teachings in order to construct our societies on the basis of pluralism where the right to profess one’s faith without any restrictions is ensured for every citizen and community. Jordan has a long history of good relations between Christians and Muslims and and 
War is large-scale murder, clothed in the appearance of some sort of sacred cult, like the sacrifices of the firstborn that were made by the worshippers of Baal, and that was due to the terror it instilled, the rhetoric that clothed it, and the interests that were at the root of it. When humanity will have progressed spiritually, war will be catalogued alongside bloody rites, superstitions, witchcraft and savagery. War is for humanity, what illness is to health, or sin to the soul. It is massacre and destruction, it invades both body and the soul, both individuals and collectivities. Einstein suggested that man has a need to hate and destroy and war would satisfy this need. But this is not the case: most people, entire populations, do not manifest such a need. However, they repress them. Then reason and religion condemn them. Saint Thomas says that all things lust after peace. In fact, they all lust after life. Only the insane and incurables are able to desire death. And war is death. It is never the desire of the people; it is willed by minorities for whom physical violence is used to ensure economic advantages or, also, to satisfy deteriorated passions. Especially now, with the cost, the victims and the ruins war seems like nothing more than a useless massacre. “Massacre” and, what is even worse, “useless”. A victory over life, which is turning into a suicide for humanity. By saying that war is a “useless massacre”, Benedict XV has offered the most precise definition so far. That “uselessness” was reiterated by Pius XII in 1951: “All have expressed their horror at war, with the same energetic clarity, as well as their belief that it is not – now more than ever – the way to resolve conflict and bring justice. That can only be the result of free and fair agreement. That it could be a question of popular wars – in the sense that such wars corresponded to the consent and the will of the people – that could never be the case if not in the face of an injustice so flagrant and destructive of the essential goods of a population as to turn round the conscience of an entire nation” (To the entire diplomatic corp, January 1, 1951. Our translation.) Just as the plague is good for plaguing, hunger is good for starving, war is good for killing – even worse – for destroying the means of life. It’s a funerary industry, a factory for producing ruins. Only a fool could hope to derive benefit from a massacre, health from suicide, energy from pneumonia. Evil begets evil, as a palm produces palm dates. And reality demonstrates, also in this field, the practical inconsistency of that Machiavellian aphorism according to which “the end justifies the means”. The end might be justice, liberty, honour and bread: but the means produce so much destruction of bread, honour, liberty and justice, aside from human life, including that of women and children, the elderly and innocents of every sort, that this tragically cancels out the end that was originally intended. In essence, war isn’t good for anything outside of destroying lives and wealth. From: