US bishops urged to defend human rights, religious freedom by Syriac Catholic Patriarch

Patriarch Ignatius Youssef III Younan from the Syriac Catholic Church of Antioch said living conditions in Syria and Iraq have gone from "bad to worse," and he urged U.S. bishops to fight for human rights and religious freedom in Syria.

The patriarch described how ISIS has uprooted many believers from their hometowns and are now forced to stay in refugee camps in Lebanon, Kurdistan and Jordan.

"They are all gone, uprooted from their ancestral lands, by the Daesh invasion," the patriarch told National Catholic Register, using the Arabic synonym for ISIS.

In 2014 alone, 150,000 Christians fled from Mosul and the Nineveh Plain, places where majority of the Christians resided.

He said he would visit them in the refugee camps, where he would find them waiting to be sent back home. The people's morale appeared to be "way down," he said.

The patriarch also thanked U.S. bishops for sending humanitarian aid, but reminded them that it's not what the people need. He urged the bishops to defend human rights and the practice of religious freedom.

"I keep telling the U.S. bishops, 'I thank you for your humanitarian aid, but it is not really what we need,'" he said. "We need them to stand up for the values of the Founding Fathers, defending human rights, religious freedom and the truth, while talking to those countries where Muslims make the majority."

Without mincing words, the patriarch said Western governments "still instigate the prolongation of an absurd war in Syria out of geopolitical opportunism."

He urged the Catholic Church to speak out against the "lying, hypocrisy and manipulation of public opinion" that is happening in Western countries, which were apparently hiding the true conditions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

"We need Catholics to stand up — no more silent majority; since you live in a democratic country, you have to tell the truth," he said, adding that they should expose the truth first to the Church, then to the media.

Youssef is one of five patriarchs in Antioch. Two more are from the Catholic Church, while the other two are from the Orthodox Church.

Earlier this month, Youssef met with Orthodox Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II to talk about the condition of Christians in the Middle East, particularly in Syria and Iraq.

The meeting was also hoped to strengthen the ties between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in the midst of great persecution.