NEWS STORY: Religious Leaders Continue to Condemn Church Bombings

c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Christian and Muslim leaders expressed concern that the targeted bombings of five Iraqi churches on Sunday (Aug. 1) may cause irreparable harm for Iraq’s struggling Christian minority. The string of attacks, which left 11 people dead and injured dozens more, was the first strike against Christian targets in Iraq, […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Christian and Muslim leaders expressed concern that the targeted bombings of five Iraqi churches on Sunday (Aug. 1) may cause irreparable harm for Iraq’s struggling Christian minority.

The string of attacks, which left 11 people dead and injured dozens more, was the first strike against Christian targets in Iraq, where Christians make up less than 5 percent of the population.


Iraqi religious leaders said the attacks in Baghdad and Mosul were intended to incite religious violence and drive out Christians, who have co-existed with the Muslim majority for almost 2,000 years.

“We can’t afford to lose any of them, to be quite honest with you,” Iraq’s National Security Adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told The New York Times. “Iraq will be a big, big loser. This blow is going to unite Iraqis.”

The car bombs detonated as worshippers assembled at Catholic, Armenian and Chaldean churches for evening Mass. Iraqi police said they defused two additional bombs that were also aimed at churches.

Prince Hassan bin Talal, moderator of the New York-based World Conference of Religions for Peace, called the militants “the lowest dregs of an irreligious power-crazed gang” who had committed an “obscene blasphemy against the spirit of Islam and the character of Iraq.” He vowed to protect the minority Christian population.

“The international Muslim community has always justly taken pride in our protection of religious minorities who lived and took shelter among us,” he said in a statement issued on Monday.

The victims were not only Christian, however _ at least five members of a neighboring Muslim family were killed, according to reports. Militants have attacked mosques in the past, but this was the first time they targeted churches.

The Vatican’s Islamic-Catholic Liaison Committee, led by Hamid Bin Ahmad Al-Rifaie of the International Forum for Dialogue, and Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, condemned the attacks.


“We condemn in particular the suicide attacks in areas in which are located places of worship, both against Muslims and against Christians gathered for worship,” the statement said. “Such acts of blind violence offend the sacred name of God and true religion.”

In the United States, the director of interreligious concerns for the United Methodist Church said the “senseless act” of targeting churches will do nothing to assure stability in the war-ravaged country.

“The direct attack upon people of faith in the holy sites does not in any way further any agenda other than the fostering of hatred and disunity,” said the Rev. Larry Pickens.

Muslim leaders were quick to denounce the bombings as a distortion of Islam.

“Whatever the context and whatever the circumstances, there is no justification whatsoever for attacking places of worship,” said Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. “It is repulsive and totally unacceptable.”

Iraqi Muslim leaders, both Shiite and Sunni, vowed to protect the Christian minority. The attacks were also condemned by Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel Shiite cleric whose forces have battled coalition troops.

“We confirm the necessity of respecting the right of Christians and other religious minorities and their right to live in their country, Iraq, in security and peace,” said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the revered leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.


_ Peggy Polk at the Vatican, and Robert Nowell in London, contributed to this report.

DEA/JL END ECKSTROM

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!