Religion

A4 Antelope Valley Press, Saturday, February 27, 2021

Iraq’s struggling Christians eye boost from pope visit

By MARIAM FAM
Associated Press
Nasser Banyameen speaks about his home-
town of Qaraqosh in the historical heartland of
Iraqi Christianity with nostalgia. Before Islamic
State group fighters swept through the Nineveh
Plains in northern Iraq. Before the militants
shattered his sense of peace. Before panicked
relatives and neighbors fled, some never to re-
turn.
Iraq’s Christian communities in the area were
dealt a severe blow when they were scattered by
the IS onslaught in 2014, further shrinking the
country’s already dwindling Christian popula-
tion. Many hope their struggle to endure will
get a boost from a historic visit by Pope Francis
planned in March.
Among the places on his itinerary is Qa-
raqosh, where this week Vatican and Iraqi flags
fluttered from light poles, some adorned with
the pope’s image.
Francis’ visit, his first foreign trip since the
Coronavirus pandemic and the first ever by a
pope to Iraq, is a sign that “You’re not alone,”
said Monsignor Segundo Tejado Muñoz, the
undersecretary of the Vatican’s development of-
fice. “There’s someone who is thinking of you,
who is with you. And these signs are so import-
ant. So important.”
The IS juggernaut and the long war to drive
the militants out left ransacked homes and
charred or pulverized buildings around the
north. But the biggest loss perhaps has been
the people. Traditionally Christian towns across
the Nineveh Plains virtually emptied out and,
by some of the widely varying estimates, fewer
than half of the Christians who fled have re-
turned.
The Vatican and the pope have frequently
insisted on the need to preserve Iraq’s ancient
Christian communities and create the security,
economic and social conditions for those who
have left to return.
To do that, the Vatican for years has helped
coordinate a network of Catholic non-govern-
mental organizations providing help in the field
in Iraq and other countries, including in educa-
tion, health care and reconstruction. The aid is
non-denominational — Muslims are helped as
well as Christians — and the overall hope is that
the delicate interfaith balance can be preserved
and strengthened. The pope’s March 5-8 visit
will also have a strong interfaith component.
“People want to look for a better future for
their families, so you can’t stop them if they
have the intention of going somewhere else,”
Iraqi Christians place a cross Monday on a church in Qaraqosh, Iraq. Iraq’s Christians are hop-
ing that a historic visit by Pope Francis in March will help boost their community’s struggle to
survive.
Tejado said. “But at least we try to create the
conditions they might return.”
That could be difficult.
Many Christians who fled the IS advance
have either stayed in Iraq’s Kurdistan region or
started new lives abroad. While those who have
returned have been rebuilding fractured but vi-
brant communities with resolve, some still feel
vulnerable and eye better lives elsewhere.
Banyameen returned in 2019 from the Kurd-
ish region to his house in Qaraqosh, also known
as Bakhdida. But many family members who
fled like him ended up in Australia and Ger-
many. IS sleeper cells still carry out attacks in
parts of Iraq, so he worries about the specter
of a militant resurgence, the future of his three
children and Iraq’s economic and security woes.
“The homeland is the family, not the house
... I feel very homesick,” he said. “When some-
thing is broken, it doesn’t go back to the way it
used to be.”
Their home has been repaired, but the sight
of empty or damaged ones on their street re-
minds his wife, Ban Saeed, of the IS reign of
terror. After she gave birth to the couple’s third
child in December, she wondered if it would
have been better for their daughter to have been
born abroad.
“If we left, I am sure their future would be
better abroad, not like here,” she said. “There
would be safety and I wouldn’t be scared for
them when they come and go.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In nearby Bartella, Sargon Issa said he felt
the town’s spirit dim with so many familiar faces
gone.
“Walking down a street, I used to salute so
many people, friends and neighbors. Now,
there’s hardly any of that,” said Issa. “Life is not
like before. There’s no flavor to it. ... Even those
Christians who have returned to Bartella say
they want to leave to find stability.”
He, too, would like to leave if he could; his
mother tells him she wants to die in Iraq.
“I try to change her mind and tell her, ‘Let’s
travel and live without worry or fear ... some-
where where we wouldn’t be driven out of our
homes,’” he said. “She tells me we should stay,
and that God is with us.”
The numerical decline and waning clout
of Iraqi Christians started before the Islamic
State’s persecution of religious minorities like
theirs. Christians were among groups targeted
by militants amid the breakdown in security
after the 2003 US-led invasion that overthrew
Saddam Hussein.
The Chaldean Catholic Patriarch, Cardinal
Louis Raphael Sako, estimated that 1 million
Christians have left Iraq since 2003 and about
500,000 remained. But there are no official fig-
ures, and estimates vary: Some put the number
left at fewer than 250,000.
Without faith the government can provide
security from potential violence, legal protec-
tions and economic opportunities, many Chris-
tians are wary of returning.
William Warda, co-founder of Hammurabi
Human Rights Organization in Baghdad, said
the Christian presence is under threat. “To this
day, they don’t feel safe and secure ... because
the state is weak, and the rule of law is weak.”
Some Christians lament broken trust with
some Muslims in neighboring villages who they
believe sympathized with IS or helped pillage
their homes. They are also wary of the ascen-
sion of largely Shiite militias and fearful of what
they say are unfavorable demographic changes
in some traditionally Christian areas.
Etched in the minds of many are the memo-
ries of the flight to escape IS, the indignities of
displacement and the scenes of devastation that
awaited those who returned, including burnt
out churches and desecrated tombs.
As he left under cover of darkness shortly be-
fore the militants entered his town of Karamlis
in 2014, the Rev. Thabet Habeb felt pain for all
that he was leaving behind. He took little be-
sides some manuscripts, including a Bible.
“It was as if we had been expelled forever
from the lands of our grandfathers.”
More than two years would pass before
Habeb could set foot in the town. The smell
of smoke from burnt out structures still hung
in the air. In November 2016, he held prayers
at the St. Adday church, the sound of broken
glass crunching beneath the feet of worshippers
stunned by the damage around them. Decapi-
tated statues of Jesus and Virgin Mary stood in
the scarred church that day; one woman wept
bitterly.
Much reconstruction has taken place since.
But so far, only about 345 of about 820 Chris-
tian families in pre-2014 Karamlis have re-
turned, Habeb said.
“We need to restore our numbers to sup-
port the Christian presence and identity in the
town,” he said.
Those who did come back make sure an an-
cient heritage and a way of life endure.
At St. Paul’s House for Church Services in
Qaraqosh, religious paintings and musical in-
struments were burned and a statue of Jesus
hurled to the ground, said the Rev. Duraid Bar-
ber, the former manager.
But the house’s activities, which include reli-
gious classes and teaching the Syriac language,
have been revived and even expanded.
“We decided to return and serve this wound-
ed and pained country to the last drop of our
blood,” he said. “As Christians, we believe that
we are like the salt that adds flavor to food.”

Southern Baptists kick out two

RELIGION BULLETIN BOARD

churches over LGBTQ inclusion
By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer
The Southern Baptist Con-
vention’s executive committee
voted Tuesday to oust four of
its churches, two over policies
deemed to be too inclusive of
LGBTQ people and two more
for employing pastors convict-
ed of sex offenses.
The actions were an-
nounced at a meeting marked
by warnings from two top lead-
ers that the SBC, the largest
Protestant denomination in the
United States, was damaging
itself with divisions over sever-
al critical issues including race.
“We should mourn when
closet racists and neo-Confed-
erates feel more at home in
our churches than do many of
our people of color,” said the
SBC’s president, J.D. Greear,
in his opening speech.
The two churches expelled
for LGBTQ inclusion were
St. Matthews Baptist Church
in Louisville, Kentucky, and
Towne View Baptist Church,
in Kennesaw, Georgia.
Towne View’s pastor, the
Rev. Jim Conrad, told The
Associated Press last week
that he would not appeal the
ouster and plans to affiliate his
have been to say, ‘We’re prob-
ably not ready for this,’ but I
couldn’t do that,” said Conrad,
pastor there since 1994.
St. Matthews Baptist was
among more than 12 churches
that lost their affiliation with
the Kentucky Baptist Con-
vention in 2018 because they
made financial contributions
to the Cooperative Baptist Fel-
lowship, which had recently
lifted a ban on hiring LGBTQ
employees.
In a statement Tuesday, St.
Matthews said the SBC’s de-
cision to oust it was based on
its LGBTQ-inclusive mem-
bership policy — which as-
serts that “a belief in Jesus as
personal Savior is the sole cri-
terion for membership in our
Church.”
“Nothing in the Southern
Baptist Convention’s decision
LEONA VALLEY
changes St. Matthews Baptist
Church’s deep commitment to
carrying out what God calls us
to do in our worship and spir-
itual growth,” the church said.
SBC officials said West Side
Baptist Church in Sharpsville,
Pennsylvania, was ousted be-
cause it “knowingly employs
as pastor a registered sex of-
fender,” while Antioch Baptist
Church in Sevierville, Tennes-
see, has a pastor who was con-
victed of statutory rape.
Baptist Press, the SBC’s offi-
cial news agency, identified the
Antioch Baptist pastor as John
Randy Leming Jr., and said he
had pleaded guilty in 1998 to
two counts of statutory rape
for oral sex with a 16-year-
old congregant when he pas-
tored at nearby Shiloh Baptist
Church in Sevier County in
1994.
Calvary Chapel
Calvary Chapel Antelope Valley
Service Sunday, 8:30 & 10:30 AM
Volunteers sought for
40 Days for Life Campaign
Volunteers are needed to join other
Christians and pro-life advocates to
participate in Antelope Valley 40 Days for
Life – 40 days of prayer and fasting for an
end to abortion through March 28.
Individuals also are invited to stand and
peacefully pray during a 40-day vigil in the
public right-of-way outside of FPA Women’s
Health Clinic, 43845 10th St. West Suite 1E,
Lancaster, or Planned Parenthood, 533 East
Palmdale Blvd, Suite 533-A1, Palmdale.
For details or to volunteer to help, call
661-524-6763 or email AV40DFL@
outlook.com
Volunteers needed for
visits to AV Hospital
LANCASTER — Antelope Valley Hos­
pit­
al is looking for volunteer chaplains
to address patients’ spiritual needs or to
serve through intercessory prayer Monday
through Friday.
The hospital welcomes volunteers who
dem­onstrate a genuine interest in pro­vi­ding
spiritual support for their neigh­bors in an
interfaith healthcare setting.
Christian Science
First Church of Christ, Scientist
Service Sun, 10:30 AM, Wed, 7 PM
Anyone who is interested in becoming
a volunteer chaplain can contact Dennis
Mortimer, director of volunteer resources,
at dennis.mortimer@avhospital.org or 661-
949-5102.
o
The Antelope Valley Press welcomes
contributions to its Religion Bulletin Board.
Announcements are published as a public service;
items are run as space allows and priority is given to
entries that have not yet run in the newspaper.
Entries are limited to special events, as opposed to
routine services and meetings in the church.
Written press releases are required, including the
name of the church or organization; the time, date
and place of the event; cost, if any; and a telephone
number, email address and/or web address the public
can contact for details.
Send press releases to Religion Editor, Antelope
Valley Press, P.O. Box 4050, Palmdale, CA
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For answers to questions about submissions, call
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Full Gospel Jewish (Traditional)
Antelope Valley Christian Center Chabad Center
Service Sunday, 10:00 AM Clergy Rabbi Yehudah Lazar

church, at least temporarily, Sunday Clergy

Wednesday, 7:00 PM
Pastor Mike Morris
Sunday School 10:30 AM
Child Care Available
Tuesday, 10:00 AM
Wednesday, 7:30 PM
Address 42741 45th St. West, Ste. E
Quartz Hill
with The Cooperative Baptist 9 a.m. & 11 a.m.
Address Lancaster Presbyterian Reading Clergy Pastor Tom Pickens Jr. Phone 943.9369
1661 W. Lancaster Blvd. • Lancaster Room Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat, 10 AM–1 PM, Address 304 W. Lancaster Blvd. • Lancaster
Fellowship, which lets churches
set their own LGBTQ policies.
9306 Leona Ave. Phone
Website
942.0404
www.calvarychapelav.org
Address
Phone
44802 Fern Ave. • Lancaster
661.942.9926
Phone
Website
661.949.7200
www.avccusa.org United Methodist
Towne View began admit- Watch the Website www.christianscienceav.org
Palmdale United Methodist Church
Livestream of our Christian Jewish (Reform)
ting LGBTQ worshippers as Foursquare Beth-Knesset Bamidbar
Service Live Streaming’s on Facebook &
YouTube every Sunday at 9am
members in October 2019 Services at WCFAV.org Westside Christian Fellowship Service Fri. 7:30 pm Clergy Rev. James White,
The Highlands Christian Fellowship
after a same-sex couple with 661-270-0353
Service
Clergy
Sunday, 9:00 AM & 11:00 AM
Pastor Shane Idleman Service Sunday, 8 AM, 10 AM, 12 PM
Saturday morning, call for dates Rev. Jon Gentry
Phone 947.3103
Clergy Rabbi Alan Henkin
three adopted children asked
4213404
Address 9306 Leona Ave. • Leona Valley Sun., Servicio en Español, 10 AM & 12 PM Address 1611 E. Ave. J • Lancaster Website www.PUMChurch.com
661.270.0353 Wednesday, 7:00 PM
Conrad if they could attend, a TO ADVERTISE HERE Phone
Website WCFAV.org Clergy Founding/Lead Pastor Ken Hart
Phone 942.4415
Website www.bkbav.org
decision he defends as the right Contact Michelle Reynolds
661.441.6389
Address
Phone
39625 20th St. West • Palmdale
661.273.1000
Facebook Congregation Beth Knesset Bamidbar SUBSCRIBE TODAY!
thing to do. mreynolds@avpress.com Website www.thehighlands.church
661.273.0081 • www.avpress.com
“The alternative would