The heads of the EU diplomacy remain silent about the persecutions of Christians
Lidia Dudkiewicz
The Foreign Ministers of the EU countries, who met in Brussels on 31 January 2011, were to make an appeal condemning the persecutions of Christians, responding to the call of the European Parliament directed to the governments of the European countries and appealing to stop attacks against Christians in the Middle East and Africa. However, the heads of the diplomacy gathered in Brussels, could not agree on some kind of appeal despite the fact that the European Parliament (20 January 2011) and the Council of Europe (27 January 2011) paved the way by accepting a resolution explicitly condemning attacks against Christians. The project of the EU declaration does not say anything about Christians. It says about respect for religious minorities’ rights in the world, i.e. only about intolerance and religious discrimination, attacks against denominational groups and EU values, including respect for religious freedom. It turns out that it was Great Britain and Holland and even Ireland that opposed a concrete reference to Christians in the text of the resolution. They were not mentioned as an especially persecuted group. But actually the victims of attacks are 200 million Christians every year and 170,000 Christians lose their lives for their convictions and faith. Even facing these bloody statistics Europe does not react firmly. The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) expressed regrets that the ministers of foreign affairs of 27 EU countries had rejected a joint statement concerning the persecutions of Christians. On 2 February the Commission issued a communiqué in which we read, ‘this diplomatic wavering is all the more incomprehensible as innocent lives are being cut short in atrocious attacks against Christians and other minorities all over the world.’ Konrad Szymanski, a MEP representing the Law and Justice Party, recognized the omission of the word ‘Christians’, i.e. silencing the religious adherence of the victims of persecutions in the project of the resolution of the EU ministers of foreign affairs, as a self-censorship. Elmar Brok and Mario Mauro, European People’s Party MEPs, are appealing to the EU governments to change the text of the document and accept a text that will deal with problems the Christian communities in different parts of the worlds are facing now. Therefore, in the name of strangely understood political correctness Europe, whose civilisation is based on Christians values, has no courage to defend Christians who are being murdered despite of the alarming statistics, showing that in the world one Christian dies a martyr’s death every three minutes.
"Niedziela" 7/2011