Rome, Italy, Dec 17, 2010 / 12:40 pm
With Christmas fast approaching, Iraqi Christians are coming to the hard realization that there may be a day when there are no more Christians left in their homeland.
“Christians are being extinguished in Iraq, while Iraq remains Muslim,” said Father Georges Jahola, a Syro-Catholic priest from Mosul, Iraq currently studying in Rome.
Those who remain want to leave because they do not feel safe, he said. “They see that there is no longer a place for Christians in Iraq. Even for us as a Church, we cannot deny it.”
For the past five weeks, Fr. Jahola has spent many hours ministering to victims of the Oct. 31 terror attack on Baghdad's Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation. Some of those most badly wounded in the attack, which left 58 dead, were flown to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.