Syria: Bishop Mourad Gives His Point of View on the Situation

Bishop Yacoub Mourad
Bishop Jacques Mourad is the Syrian Catholic archbishop of the city of Homs in Syria. A former monk of the Deir Mar Musa community, he was kidnapped by the jihadists of the Islamic State in 2015 and held for months, which may have sharpened his vision of things in contemporary Syria.
What Bishop Mourad sees and hears about the new suffering in Syria does not correspond to the dominant media representation, especially in the West. This indicates that the "regime change" is taking hold, with new Islamist leaders seeking international accreditation.
No mention is made, for example, of the widespread violence and fear that have once again marked the days of a large part of the Syrian people. A violence - Jacques Mourad recognizes - which "seems to be a trap into which all those who gain power here fall.” People are disappearing, and prisons are filling up.
Torture is inflicted in public on those accused of collusion with the previous regime. There are also “several cases of young Christians threatened and tortured in the street, in front of everyone, to sow terror and force them to renounce their faith and become Muslims.” These crimes take place far from Damascus, where journalists are concentrated.
The archbishop explains, “I welcome people. I try to encourage, console, ask for patience, look for solutions. During the Christmas period,” he adds, “I toured our 12 parishes. There were wonderful meetings with different groups. But when the violence increases, our words and our appeals for patience fail to convince them.”
“The old regime,” explains Bishop Mourad, “presented itself as the one that defended Christians. Today, many priests are pessimistic about the future. Since the new violence, some say: ‘You see, it’s true what Bashar al Assad said.’ The result is that many Christians see no other solution than to emigrate.”
In the churches, everything seems to continue as before: masses, processions, prayers, and charitable works. Ahmad Sharaa, or Abu Muhammad Jolani, the leader of the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham and self-proclaimed “interim” president of Syria, expressed that Christians who expatriated during and after the civil war must return to Syria.
The violence suffered by young Christians took the form of attacks on people. “But,” reports Jacques Mourad, “when the requisition of weapons began, it was the Christian and Alawite soldiers who were disarmed. No one took the weapons away from the Sunnis. And the reality is that there is no government.” There are simply different armed groups.
“Some are fanatics, others are not. Each has its power and imposes its law in the territories it controls. And they have a lot of weapons, now that they have also taken those of the old regime.” Jacques Mourad says he does not know how things can continue.
Since last April, the archbishop has become responsible for catechism for all of Syria. “I thought that the thing to do, the most important thing, was to start again with the children. We can only start again with the children and young people, after the war has somehow swept everything away. And, with them, to start again with the essential, the primordial things.”
The regional committees have been reconstituted to work together to train catechists. The same goes for the liturgies and the resumption of pilgrimages to Mar Musa and to all the other monasteries in an effort "to revive the memories again, in this situation of poverty and suffering, which remains very serious."
(Source : Agence Fides – FSSPX.Actualités)
Illustration : Jen Joest