Your home is now my home.

[Ummon]

http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=81032

Date: 2005-12-02

Pakistani Christians Forced From Homes

Used as Shelters for Earthquake Victims

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, DEC. 2, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Christians are being expelled from their homes in Pakistan to make room for victims of the earthquake that hit Kashmir and the northwestern region of the country in early October.

Reports from Catholic leaders spearheading the relief work following the earthquake say that hundreds or even thousands of people near Joharabad, close to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, are being made homeless, with no prospect of alternative accommodation being found.

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi said he feared that the incident of forced ejections he had uncovered was just one of many taking place across the region.

The bishop continued: "In one district near Joharabad, all the people are being thrown out -- all of them are Christians. We are the most vulnerable people, we are very poor and we are easy targets."

He said the ejections were all the more insulting to the Christian community because the government had plenty of land of its own on which to house the displaced Kashmiri people.

But, according to the bishop, the authorities preferred housing the refugees in Christian homes because it would save them the costly and time-consuming task of erecting shelters on alternative sites.

Intervention

Bishop Lobo said he was planning to intervene before the government started "picking" on other Christian communities.

He added that he was drawing up a team of legal experts to challenge the decision in the courts: "If we need to, we will try to get hold of a senior minister."

Catholics in Pakistan are widely expected to interpret the incident in the Joharabad area as a slap in the face after the Church mounted a huge relief operation to help the victims of the quake, and specifically set out to help people regardless of their religious and social background.

With key funding from Catholic organizations worldwide, Bishop Lobo himself provided vital aid including food, blankets and tents.

He also sent a team of expert volunteers to trace youngsters and other vulnerable people most at risk as the winter approaches and temperatures drop to as low as 5 degrees Farenheit (-15 degrees Celsius).

Bishop Lobo said the forced ejections were symptomatic of a culture of disrespect and abuse suffered by Christians across Pakistan.

[ODST]

Not good.

But can you give me a link that's not from a Christian web-site?

Not heard it from Reuters or anyone else

[Ummon]

The Catholic Church does not, as a rule of thumb, spread falsehoods. Infact, if news come from Catholic sites, they're generally very accountable. It's because the hierarchy doesn't want to lose credibility.

Furthermore remember that Catholic authorities are generally very pro-Islamic.

Here too, catholic site as well: http://www.catholic.org/internationa...y.php?id=17815

Any further link will be appreciated.

By the way, there are changes in Vatican line as well:

Italian bps. warn Catholics not to marry Muslims
12/2/2005

OME (CNA/press reports) – Italian bishops Nov. 30 warned against Catholics marrying Muslims, citing cultural differences and fears that children born to mixed marriages would shun Christianity.

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The Times of London reported on Dec. 1, that Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian Bishops Conference and papal vicar of Rome, said, “In addition to the problems that any couple encounters when forming a family, Catholic and Muslims have to reckon with the difficulties that inevitable arise from deep cultural differences.”

Cardinal Ruini noted cultural differences over issues such as the role of women and the education of children made such partnerships very difficult.

The Times reported that church officials said that there were 200,000 mixed marriages in Italy.

“Because of the experience of recent years, we would advise against, or least discourage, mixed marriages,” the bishops stated according to a Catholic News Agency Dec. 2 report, saying that such unions are “inherently fragile,” that mixed couples tend to disagree about “the religious education of their children” and that couples often have opposing views regarding “the role of women” and the very meaning of marriage.

“In addition to difficulties of each couple, Catholics and Muslims who wish to form a family encounter problems related to profound differences of a religious and cultural nature,” the bishops warned.

The statement calls for priests who celebrate such unions to seriously question engaged couples about religion, their knowledge of each other’s culture and the type of religious education they wish to provide their children.

In Italy mixed marriages have increased from 8,600 in 1992 to 19,000 in 2005, and are up about 10 percent this year alone.

[danzig]

Cant find a link of the story from any non christian or a unbiased site but given the recent history of violence against Christians in Pakistan wouldnt come as a huge shock (http://washingtontimes.com/world/200...413-5203r.htm).

[Shadows]

I'm just wondering why every damn thing in the world has to included religion. So maybe Christians are getting ejected, are they complainging? Isn't one of their beliefs to open your arms and homes to those in need? Help those less fortunate is another one i think. I'm pretty sure the victims of the earthquake are less fortunate, right now they dont even know where their town is.

[danzig]

I'm just wondering why every damn thing in the world has to included religion. So maybe Christians are getting ejected, are they complainging? Isn't one of their beliefs to open your arms and homes to those in need? Help those less fortunate is another one i think. I'm pretty sure the victims of the earthquake are less fortunate, right now they dont even know where their town is.

Crack user? Only possible explaination I can think of for your post. Since the article (if its true) is in fact Catholic Bishop complaining that they are being thrown out and the fact you evidently equate christian belief of helping your neighbor = its ok to throw me out of my house so Im homeless. Quite a large amount of aid from Christian organization has been sent to Pakistan to help with the quake victims so if the article is even remotely true the thanks they get for it is to get kicked out of their houses.

[Tom Paine]

all the people are being thrown out

They're all being thrown out and they're all Christians... related? Maybe, but maybe not. These people have been in poor conditions for weeks now, and construction of sturdy and viable shelter takes time that they do not have.

[TIGERCAT]

Is this a shock? Just another example of persecution
of Christians in Muslim lands.

http://www.christianpersecution.info...tion-asia.html
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=10242
http://www.lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan10.html

[John I Tzimisces]

They're all being thrown out and they're all Christians... related? Maybe, but maybe not. These people have been in poor conditions for weeks now, and construction of sturdy and viable shelter takes time that they do not have.

Copts have been persecuted for centuries in Muslim lands, along with Armenians (primarily in the past 200 years). I'm not particularly surprised. Muslims are just as guilty for persecuting Christians as the Catholics and Orthodox are of persecuting them. Hardly the halo-bearing angels that the PC world oft likes to portray them.

[Ummon]

Copts have been persecuted for centuries in Muslim lands, along with Armenians (primarily in the past 200 years). I'm not particularly surprised. Muslims are just as guilty for persecuting Christians as the Catholics and Orthodox are of persecuting them. Hardly the halo-bearing angels that the PC world oft likes to portray them.

I have no knowledge of current-day persecution of muslims, at all.

On the contrary, I think the west needs to start rethinking its approach to Islam into a strict policy of repression of proselitism.

[Kanaric]

With a lot of groups is more an ethnic persecution than tied with religion. This muslim thing is really only something very recent, and many things are taken out of context.

Look at the Turks, they persecuted Armenians, Kurds, Arabs..... but they treated the Jews VERY well. You can't say they "persecuted christians", saying that is just one of the many "half-truths" that result from modern politiking.

However on the other hand, yes the muslims persecute just as much as christians did. All the Abrahamic religions are fans of religious persecution, its in the nature of everything that has come out of the middle east. However you have to realize its more due to CULTURE than anything else. I've never heard of this kind of persecution going on in Morroco, for example. Hell, even in Turkey! (NOT OTTOMAN EMPIRE)

[Scar Face]

WTH that solves nothing where are the questions spose to go. Oh I know put them in black people houses. Where are they suppose to go now? Die!??!

[Carach]

lol.....just shows how the pathetic countries in the east are.

if we did that in england, kicking out muslims, etc etc there would be international uproar.

hope some people tell the pakistani leadership where to go...

[Tom Paine]

Its becauswe we're meant to be better that there'd be uproar; its like there was no uproar when Mugabe destroyed the slums with fire and bulldozers, and shot slum dwellers recently; there was very little publicity.

[Carach]

the situation in zimbabwe is one of the saddest things around at the moment unfortunately :/ as in the lack of action taken to stop him, and whats been going on there recently

[Tom Paine]

So basically what you are saying is you want to reverse the lack of persecution?

[Ummon]

Muslims tax Christians, I don't see why Christians shouldn't tax muslims... A mere example.

[Tom Paine]

So the answer would be yes then. Interesting perspective, that... especially when we hold ourselves as a) superior to them and b) have separation of church and state.

[Ummon]

That's less than what was done in the past with the Japanese, and less of what Islam prescribes for infidels, but most of all, nothing compared to what non-muslims must suffer in Islamic countries. Plus it has one interesting positive effect: it disencourages the spreading of a dangerous ideology. :wink:

Superiority, as much as freedom, in some rare circumstances, is to be reduced, if it isn't affordable. The alternative is a police state: one I wouldn't like, and which would end with a disaster in any case.

Finally, I don't believe in asimmetrical relationships: I cannot protect a group while the same group oppresses people somewhere else. If they want respect, it is time they deserve it.

[Tom Paine]

Except that reducing prosyltism means a police state otherwise its unenforcable!