Translating a World on the Edge

Are we aware of what’s going on in our world—right now? In Iraq? In Israel and the Gaza Strip? in Syria? On our own border? Where is America’s leadership, and where is the voice of her citizens?

On Sunday, Pope Francis expressed outrage at the violence aimed at religious minorities in Iraq, where fleeing children have died of thirst, and said his emissary to the region would leave Monday. In a strongly worded message during his traditional Sunday blessing, Francis said the news from Iraq “leaves us in disbelief.” He cited “the thousands of people, including Christians, who have been brutally forced from their homes, children who have died from thirst during the escape and women who have been seized.”

The Pope urged the international community to find a political solution “to stop these crimes.” Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the Vatican’s ambassador in Baghdad during the Iraqi war, will travel to Iraq to show solidarity with Christians, among those targeted by Islamic State militants for elimination.

Elimination? These are human beings made in the image and likeness of God.

We may all ask, “What can we do?”

First of all, we have to be aware of what’s going on—right now. We have to sit up and take notice that there is a huge problem with the Islamic State threatening not only  Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East,  but also threatening us— Americans. Because if we ignore it, if we’re too concerned with our everyday lives to make ourselves aware, and if we let that germ of hatred go on as it is now, then its evil–yes, unadulterated evil–will eventually take us down, too.