Papa Francis- Poleni, asanteni

  

A family of Iraqis displaced by the Islamic State who have taken shelter at a Syriac Catholic shrine in Erbil.

Vatican City, Dec 6, 2014 

In a video message delivered to the displaced Iraqi Christians on Saturday, Pope Francis decried the suffering experienced by those persecuted for their faith, while expressing his gratitude for their witness.

“I thank you for the witness you give,” he said Dec. 6. “There is great suffering in your witness. Thank you!”

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon brought the video message to Erbil, where tens of thousands of Christians displaced from Mosul and the Nineveh plains have taken refuge after having been driven from their homes by the Islamic State. 

Nearly 2 million people have been internally displaced since the militant Sunni Islamist group began its offensive throughout northern Iraq this summer.

The archbishop, along with 100 faithful from Lyon, arrived in Erbil Dec. 5 for a two-day visit.

“I think of the tears, the sorrows of the mothers with their children, of the elderly and the displaced, of the the wounded,” who are victims “of every kind of violence,” the Pope said.

Pope Francis repeated his concern expressed during his recent visit to Turkey for those who “still suffer, inhuman violence due to their ethnic religious identity” at the hands of extremist and fundamentalist groups.

Christians and Yazidis, among others, “are forcibly expelled from their houses, have had to abandon everything to save their own lives and not renounce the faith.”

As religious leaders, Pope Francis stressed, “we have the obligation to condemn all violations against dignity and human rights!”