Christian Persecution & The Coming War | Fr. Kiely
Join Michael Knowles in a profoundly moving and eye-opening episode titled 'Persecuted Christians and the Church,' featuring his special guest, Fr. Kiely. In this important discussion, they delve into the rarely discussed but critical issue of Christian persecution around the world, shedding light on the challenges and threats faced by believers and the global church.
Fr. Kiely brings to the table his deep insights and firsthand experiences, providing an in-depth look into the lives of Christians who live under constant threat for their faith. Together, they explore the historical context, current situations, and what the future holds for religious freedom globally.
🔔 This is more than just a conversation; it's a call to awareness and action. Subscribe now to be part of this vital discussion. Share your thoughts and show your support for persecuted Christians in the comments below. Let's bring this issue to the forefront and stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in faith.
#MichaelKnowles #PersecutedChristians #FrKiely #ChurchPersecution #ReligiousFreedom #GlobalChurch #FaithUnderFire #ChristianityToday #StandWithThePersecuted #ReligiousRights #FaithAndCourage #TheDailyWire #ChristianSolidarity #GlobalFaith #ReligiousPersecution
As we find ourselves at the brink of World War III, maybe even over the brink into World War III, I find myself in London, which tomorrow will be the site of a massive pro-Palestine protest.
This after three weeks or so following the largest attack ever on the state of Israel, which killed over 1,000 people, some estimates up to 1,500 people.
The Israeli-Palestine conflict, not the only potential outbreak of World War III.
We also, of course, have the conflict in Ukraine and some other conflicts around the world and some other religious persecutions and some other hot spots in international diplomacy as it falls apart.
So I decided to come to Canterbury Cathedral to meet with Father Benedict Keely, who knows a thing or two about religious persecution, Father Keeley is the founder of Nazarean.org.
That is Nazarean with an S, not with a Z. So it's N-A-S-A-R-E-A-N.org.
Father Keeley, I believe you've been to Iraq Nine times to support persecuted Christians.
You have installed shrines to persecuted Christians all around the world at a time when people don't want to talk about persecuted Christians or really much religious persecution whatsoever.
You're right, and thank you, Michael, for having me.
My ministry as a priest, Catholic priest, is full-time speaking, writing, advocacy for persecuted Christians, but also we have a very small charity which tries to keep Christians in their homelands by mini-micro-financing small family businesses.
So now in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, and soon, please God, in Armenia, we give them a small amount of money They start a business, they stay in their own countries.
That's a very practical and positive thing to deal with.
Yes, what you're talking about, this massive crisis.
Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world.
It's not fashionable to say it, but it is the most persecuted religion in the world.
Persecuted more than in the first centuries of the church.
Seems to not be on the radar, certainly not the radar of mainstream media.
That's why I'm so grateful to you.
And you've raised, as you said in your introduction, another place which we'll talk about, I'm sure, Armenia.
But yes, it's to try and alert Christians first and foremost to the fact that their brethren, our brothers and sisters in Christ, are being persecuted for their faith, for being Christians, for no other reason.
The Israelis have experienced this grotesque attack for being Jews, but We often say, and it's a phrase from the Middle East, first they come for the Saturday people, then they come for the Sunday people.
In other words, that's a kind of a point of meeting between Christians and Jews, not a pleasant point of meeting, but that's one of the reasons why we believe that we should be with our Jewish brethren.
It's not a mercenary thing, but we're sharing in the suffering.
So it's a very tough time.
I can't help but notice that the people who attacked the State of Israel are the same people who have run the Christians out of Iraq.
When I heard that you'd visited Iraq nine times, I thought, has Father Keeley visited Iraq more than the number of Christians who are left in Iraq at this point?
Well, that's a very sad thing.
Yes, when the war, the invasion in 2003 happened, there were a million and a half Christians in Iraq.
And again, for an American audience, sometimes people say to me, well, when did we bring the gospel to Iraq?
I'm sorry, it's the other way around.
Disciples of Jesus brought the Gospel to Iraq and they brought the Gospel to us.
So ancient Christian communities.
But now from a million and a half in 2003, now in 2023, there's about 100,000 Christians left in Iraq.
They've been driven out.
Now in 2023, there's about 100,000 Christians left in Iraq.
They've been driven out first, of course, not just by ISIS, by all the persecution that happened before, We forget that persecution was going on with Al-Qaeda and various other people.
And then economic problems, they're second-class citizens.
The World Wildlife Fund has a list of danger areas for animals, you know, that goes up and down.
And the Christians in Iraq would fit in the nearly extinct category if they were animals, which is Terrifying and frightening, which is why I feel a real passion that we Christians in the West must do whatever we can for our persecuted brethren.
But, of course, in the mainstream liberal media, you'll hear hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over the extinction of the Delta smelt in California, but nary a mention of Christians who are persecuted in the Middle East and elsewhere.
You know, I mean, we're talking about the very real possibility of genocide today.
And there's a genocide that is currently happening, and it's one that has recurred at times throughout history, and that's in a conflict that very few people have heard of.
If you polled a thousand people on the street and said, what do you know about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?
I think most people would look at you like you had three heads.
But this is the persecution by Azerbaijan of Armenian Christians.
Armenia, the oldest Christian country in the world, and it's happening right now.
Well, I'm grateful to you again, because you raise this on your show recently.
It is.
Nobody's talking about it.
Armenia, which is technically a European country.
It's in Europe.
But yes, the oldest Christian country in the world.
301.
Before Constantine was baptized, they became Christians.
The Azerbaijanis, who are sort of a greater Turkey.
That's basically what it's about.
Seizing this land, this section, and driving all the Christians out.
They've just driven out 120,000 Christians.
That is first and foremost ethnic cleansing.
But they were also, we mustn't ever forget, Armenians were victims of the first ever official genocide between 1915 and 1917, when more than a million Armenians and Greek Orthodox and Assyriac Christians were slaughtered by the Turks.
Hitler famously said, when he was beginning his program to persecute the Jews, he said, who remembers the Armenians?
Because that genocide is still not even recognized by various countries.
So right now, yes, in Europe, a Christian nation is experiencing that kind of persecution.
An amazing connection to, you mentioned the Hitler quote, which is the genocidal political powers just think, well, people will forget, and we'll move on, and who's going to talk about them if they're gone?
We hear the phrase, never again, and it always happens again.
Never again Rwanda, never again here.
And it always happens.
And there are inquiries and chest beating afterwards.
But this is why the preservation of our Christian community, especially in the Middle East, I advocate for Christians all over the world.
For example, as well, the mainstream media doesn't talk about the massive persecution of Christians in Africa.
In Nigeria alone, last year, more than 5,000 Christians were martyred.
Men, women, and children.
It never even touches the mainstream media.
5,000 people in one year in Nigeria.
But this is exponential.
Across Africa, ISIS.
ISIS we're told has been defeated.
ISIS is just a name.
ISIS's baby.
ISIS's cousin.
They all exist.
They're exponentially growing across the world.
And this is Islamic.
Jihadism, extreme Islam, but not just extreme Islam.
A lot of this persecution is at least tacitly supported by, I'm not saying all Muslims are bad, of course not, but many, many Muslims, I've heard recently reports from Israel, Palestine, in Gaza, people have been saying to the Christians, a very tiny Christian community in Gaza, but people have been saying to them, You're next.
We've been hearing this verbatim from people.
You're next.
So, we're a struggling minority, Christians.
People think Christianity is strong.
In that part of the world, it's very weak.
That is a little bit, I guess, how I've been thinking of the Israel-Palestine conflict, is not being an expert in Forget centuries, millennia of this particular conflict.
I thought, all right, well, if AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are on one side of an issue, I guess I'm going to be on the other side of an issue.
But you put it very well.
They come for the Saturday people before the Sunday people.
It's not as though Christians had been flourishing in the Middle East in recent years, even 30, 40 years ago.
I think we have to pick a side.
And it's never an excuse for atrocities.
It's never an excuse for certain things.
No one says Israel is perfect by a long shot.
But at some point, you say, are you on the side of people who chop babies up and chop their heads off?
Which did happen.
Or are you on the other side?
At that point, there's no sort of reciprocity.
There's no middle ground.
You have to pick a side.
But for the Christians, they also experience this.
This is the point.
People in Iraq say, well, we know what's happened.
Daesh, ISIS did this.
ISIS did this to our own people, and are still doing it, of course, in Africa.
Just last year on the Feast of Pentecost, in a diocese in Africa, Islamists burst into the Pentecost Sunday Mass.
And slaughtered, more than shot, more than 40 men, women and children.
Bloody, bloody mess.
I saw the Bishop, he spoke shortly afterwards, and the Bishop, curiously one of the, we might call, useful idiots again, the President of Ireland, President Michael Higgins, who's a rather small fellow, about the size of a hobbit, but without the intelligence of a hobbit, President Higgins, after this atrocity, actually, in his letter of condolence, blamed global warming.
And the bishop of the diocese, whose eyes were flaming, said, my people were not killed because of global warming.
They were killed because they were Christians, period.
Right.
If we don't care about that in the West, especially if we claim the name of Christian, Then there's something wrong with us.
Right.
Yeah.
They're not killed by the sun monster, for one.
And they're not killed by the broader impersonal forces that, you know, they're killed by racism or intolerance or global warming or something.
No.
It's quite personal, actually.
And ideas have consequences, and ideas are enacted in time and space, and we've got to confront that reality.
I love your point when you say we have to pick a side, because our Lord is rather clear about being lukewarm.
Well, and also another great personal friend of ours, both a priest friend, we both know, once said famously, when you're about to have your head cut off, you don't worry too much about global warming or air conditioning, which I think is an apposite.
But yes, we have to pick a side.
And for a Christian, if you're worthy of your name and you don't care about your brethren suffering in any part of the world, You probably shouldn't use the name Christian.
But then the question comes, well, what can we do?
There's a lot we can do.
A great deal of praying, which is not the last resort, the first resort.
Aid.
And dealing with our legislators.
We have to pressurize our legislators.
Trade.
Trade is a perfect weapon.
You stop giving aid to countries that persecute.
Persecute anyone.
Persecute the Uyghur Muslims, or we've got China, we know all about that.
Trade and aid is very powerful, but it's hardly ever used.
Another great way to help is to go to nazarean.org.
N-A-S-A-R-E-A-N.org.
Father Keeley, thank you for the heroic and excellent work that you do.
