At the end of a Mass celebrated to mark the opening of a new academic year at the Catholic University of America, Washington’s Cardinal Donald Wuerl delivered a powerful condemnation of the horrendous persecution of Christians taking place in the world today and the worldwide silence that is accompanying it.
In these hard-hitting comments, filmed at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on August 28, Cardinal Wuerl told the students that this is a very different time in the history of the world because of the intense persecution of Christians and other religious groups taking place in countries such as Syria and Iraq.
“How is it possible that in human history atrocities occur?” the Cardinal asked. “They occur for two reasons – because there are people who commit them and because there are people who simply choose to remain silent.”
We cannot simply ignore the fact that there are “brothers and sisters of our faith and of other faiths in a part of the world where there is clearly an effort to eliminate them,” the Cardinal continued.
The displacement of men, women and children in Iraq and Syria “is the least of the things happening to them” and is something that “we really are not free to ignore.”
He said of himself: “I’m sharing these thoughts with you because I don’t want to have on my conscience that I was complicit in something as horrendous as this simply by being quiet.”
To a deathly silent audience, he directed the questions: “Where are the voices? Where are the voices of parliaments and congresses? Where are the voices of campuses? Where are the voices of community leaders? Where are the voices of talk-show hosts and radio programs? Where are the voices of the late-night news? Where are the voices of editorial columns? Where are the voices of op-ed pieces? Why a silence?”
Each one of us has “at least the power to raise our voice in solidarity with people distant from us, unknown to us, not a part of this campus, not a part of this family, not a part of this university, not a part of this nation, but they are a part of our human community.”
He concluded: “I raise this just as we leave today because I think it should rest on the consciences of each one of us. Atrocities happen because there are those who commit them, and because there are those who simply remain silent.”
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