Christian leaders in the Middle East have condemned as “divisive” moves by US President Donald Trump to prioritise Christian refugees while barring others from entry to America.
Responding to the president’s executive order against seven Muslim-majority nations and his signalling of preferential treatment of Christian refugees, Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo in Syria said any measures to help those affected by conflict or humanitarian disaster in the Middle East “must be fair and must be applied equally to all, without discrimination”.
Communities
Speaking on behalf of those Christian communities still remaining, the prelate added: “We ask to be helped not to emigrate, but to have peace in our countries, in order to continue our life and our witness in the land where we were born.”
Bishop Audo’s criticism of the US move was added to by Iraq’s Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako who described the differing treatment of people as “a trap for Christians in the Middle East”.
He warned that Mr Trump’s actions would result in Christians being seen as “foreign bodies” supported and defended by Western powers.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that an Iraqi prelate’s planned visit to New York has been scuppered by the US president’s executive order. Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil was due to fly into the United States at the invitation of Republican Congressman Chris Smith in order to discuss persecution against his community with Cardinal Timothy Dolan.