Where we pray for peace
The home of St. Francis welcomes a ceaseless stream of pilgrims and tourists to the “City of Peace.” Since the great meeting of world religions convoked here by St. John Paul II in 1986 to pray for peace, it has also been associated with inter-religious encounter and fraternity.
It is an evocative place to come after some days in Rome that were devoted in part to a high- profile conference on the persecution of Christians. Christians today are the most persecuted religious group in the world, and not a day goes by without a Christian somewhere in the world killed precisely for professing that faith. More than three- quarters of all acts of religious discrimination in the world disadvantage Christians.
The martyrdom of Christians in the last hundred years has been utterly unseen in history. The last century brought more Christian martyrs than in all the 19 centuries which preceded it. The majority of those martyrdoms came at the hands of the communists, history’s great specialists in mass killing and religious persecution. Today, the killers of Christians are varied, but in largest number and barbarity, the spillers of blood are the selfproclaimed Islamic jihadists.
The conference — Under Caesar’s Sword ( http://ucs. nd. edu/) — featured the reports of some 14 of the world’s leading scholars on different regions, part of a multi- year research project to document the degree to which Christians suffer the world over. Of course, not only Christians suffer persecution, but there is a pressing need to draw attention to it, because too many are determined not to notice — both in the world and in the church, it is sad to say.
Yet what was most compelling was not the sanguinary statistics detailing persecution, but the testimonies of those who are living under it. We heard two Catholic patriarchs, Ignatius Yousef III Younan of the Syriac Church and Raphael Sako of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, speak about living with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The shepherds of those flocks being ravaged by Islamist wolves, while grateful for humanitarian aid and the reception of refugees, demand that the powerful of the world come to the rescue of the scattered and vulnerable Christians of the Middle East. A genocide is underway, whether Washington or Ottawa or Brussels wants to clas- sify it as such, and precious little is being done to stop it.
Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, has seen his churches burned, his people killed by Boko Haram. He preached powerfully about the biblical wisdom that persecution is “a promised part of the life of discipleship,” and must be an occasion for forgiveness and reconciliation, not revenge. Words quietly spoken, but possessing thunderous power from the lips of a man who has often buried the broken, brutalized bodies of his faithful.
“I have chosen this town of Assisi as the place for our Day of Prayer for Peace because of the particular significance of the holy man venerated here — St. Francis — known and revered by so many throughout the world as a symbol of peace, reconciliation and brotherhood,” said St. John Paul in 1986, welcoming leaders of all world religions. “Inspired by his example, his meekness and humility, let us dispose our hearts for prayer in true internal silence. Let us make this day an anticipation of a peaceful world.”
That was nearly 30 years ago, when the dominant fear was that the Cold War might turn hot. Less attention was given then to St. Francis’ 13thcentury encounter with the sultan of Egypt during the time of the Crusades. Francis asked to speak with him, and the sultan received him, having repeated encounters so that he might hear what the poor man of Assisi might have
The martyrdom of Christians in the last hundred years has been utterly unseen in history
to say. That is held up as a model today of respectful encounter and dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
In Assisi, that model still appeals and gives rise to prayer. But even if there were another St. Francis, where is the sultan from whom he might enjoy a hospitable reception? Two need to decide on a dialogue. Only one is necessary to effect a martyrdom. If another Assisi prayer meeting were held today, the violent jihadists might consider it a convenient convocation for a massacre of infidels, likely beginning with those fellow Muslims brave enough to participate.
In Assisi, one prays the prayer of St. Francis. It struck me that, stated in reverse, it is the program of those who kill Christians yesterday, today and tomorrow: … make me an instrument of your submission; where there is love, let me sow hatred; where there is pardon, injury; where there is hope, despair; where there is light, darkness; and where there is joy, sadness; and it is in killing that we expect to be born to eternal life.
To that, whether in Assisi or elsewhere, we cannot say Amen.