NEW HAVEN --A Catholic archbishop from Syria officiated a mass in New Haven Monday, but he was not in Connecticut for a celebration.
“They have destroyed the whole city,” Archbishop Jean Clement Jeanbart, of Aleppo, Syria, said about the ISIS terrorists who have taken control of roughly 20 percent of Syria's largest city.
Terrorists aim to wipe out Christianity throughout the Middle East, he said.
“When I think about all that it (Aleppo) was and all that it is now, you may be sure that I cry in my heart,” said Jeanbart.
The New Haven-based chapter of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization, is helping to create awareness of what was confirmed by Secretary of State John Kerry to be the genocide of Christians, who are being kidnapped, killed and sold into slavery.
“We've raised about $10.5 million,” said Carl Anderson, CEO of the Knights of Columbus. The money is going towards advertising the Middle Eastern Christians' plight.
Last month, the Knights of Columbus began airing a new TV commercial nationwide, highlighting the ongoing needs faced by Christian victims of genocide in the Middle East, following the State Department’s recent designation that Christian and other religious minorities face genocide at the hands of ISIS.
The commercial points out that persecution and displacement have not abated and the victims remain in dire need of assistance. It quotes Secretary Kerry’s March 17 declaration that a genocide is taking place, and that ISIS is “killing Christians because they are Christians.”
The House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution in March labeling the ISIS atrocities against Christian groups in Syria and Iraq "genocide," a term the State Department had been reluctant to use about the attacks and mass murders by the terror group.
In 2015, more than 1,000 Christians in Syria were killed by terrorists, simply because of their faith.
“The attacks continue,” says the commercial’s narrator. “Christians are still being kidnapped, killed and sold into slavery. Relief efforts are sorely needed – your help is sorely needed.”
The Knights’ commercial concludes with an appeal by Father Douglas Bazi, who heads the Mar Elia refugee center in Kurdistan, and who was himself kidnapped and tortured by terrorists in Iraq.
“Genocide is an easy word compared to what’s happened to my people,” Bazi says in the commercial. “Help my people and save my people.”
In Pakistan, an Easter bombing left 60 Christians dead. In his Syrian city of Aleppo, the Jeanbart said he felt blessed that there was a cease fire during the Easter season.
“For example, I celebrated the Sunday of Palms and there were around 3,000 present at this celebration,” he said proudly.
But Anderson isn't quite ready to celebrate.
“Are we willing to allow these communities which go back to the time of Christ and the time of the Apostle Paul to become extinguished?” asked Anderson.
Anderson emphasizes that this Christian genocide is not the result of a struggle between the Christian faith and Islam.
“It is a struggle between humanity and the enemies of humanity,” he said. “So, we can't make this a secondary issue.”
Additional information is available here. To contribute to relief efforts, which focus on creating a pipeline of money and resources to local agencies within a diocese, click here to learn about the Knights of Columbus fund raising.