Parishioners at St Mary's Cathedral on Sunday were asked by Archbishop Antony Fisher OP to remember the dangerous plight of Christian populations in the Middle East, as the conflict that began three years ago remains an ongoing concern. Highlighting the situations in Syria and Iraq, Archbishop Fisher explained that the Islamic State movement, better known as ISIS or ISIL, is overseeing a process of "religious cleansing or genocide."
Sunday's solemn announcement, urging Australian Catholics to pray for "persecuted brothers and sisters", comes after President Barack Obama's September 10 White House statement, in which he affirmed that the United States "cannot allow" Christians and other religious minorities to be forced out of their "ancient homelands." President Obama referred to ISIL as a "cancer" on that occasion, while an Al Jazeera journalist was told this week by a former resident of Mosul that, after ISIL seized his hometown, residents were forced to convert to Islam within one day in the face of death—people fled instead.
Christianity has been present in Iraq for nearly 2,000 years and, according to historian and author Tom Holland, "The roots of Christianity in Iraq are as old as Christianity itself". Holland also recognizes the cleansing that Archbishop Fisher spoke of, and says that Christians are a "vanishing minority" now. According to Washington Post correspondent Daniel Williams, the ongoing exodus has seen the Christian population in Iraq diminish from one million to 300,000 in just over a decade.
Archbishop Fisher also acknowledged the other persecuted religious minorities in the Middle East identified by President Obama, and called upon mass-goers to consider the Mandeans, a Gnostic ethnoreligious minority living mainly in Iraq, and the Yazidis. Furthermore, the Archbishop shared his insight into the complexity of the issue, explaining to parishioners that the abandonment of the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers is an abandonment of vital religious tradition, as baptisms were undertaken at these locations for "millennia".
The vast majority of Iraqi Christians fled north, into the kingdom of Jordan, the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, and Syria. However, fighting between Islamic groups and government forces also broke out in Syria—the city of Mosul, the Biblical city of Nineveh, was host to the celebration of mass for two millennia before that. On Saturday, more than 5,000 Iraqi Christian refugees were present in churches and homes throughout Jordan, while Williams wrote of 120,000 refugees in Kurdistan in mid-September.
A collection for Middle East Christians occurred after Mass at St Mary's Cathedral on Sunday, while Christian refugees have informed the media that Iraq is now firmly in the past for them. One refugee said, "We wanted Iraq. Iraq doesn't want us", while another explained, "We just want to go somewhere where we can live in peace."