Iraqi Patriarch: Trump's 'fast-track' offer to Christian refugees is a trap
President Donald Trump's proposal to 'fast track' Christian refugees, while the doors are closed to citizens of seven countries with a Muslim majority, is "a trap for Christians in the Middle East," an Iraqi Catholic leader said today.
Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, Primate of the Eastern Catholic Church, said these "discriminating choices" would just encourage anti-Christian propaganda. "Any reception policy that discriminates against persecuted and suffering people on religious grounds ultimately harms the native Christians of the East, because, among other things, it will "create and feed tensions with our Muslim fellow citizens." Christians will be seen as 'foreign bodies', groups supported and defended by Western powers.
"Those who seek help do not need to be divided according to religious labels. And we do not want privileges. This is what the Gospel teaches, and what Pope Francis pointed out (and demonstrated) when he welcomed several refugee families to Rome - both Christians and Muslims - without distinction, who had fled from the Middle East.
Source: Fides