Mother Agnes Mariam de La Croix is a Syrian nun who is visiting the United States presently to deny Assad has gassed his own people in Ghouta on August 21. Her objective and credible critics are questioning almost every word she utters as well as her motives; this besides the fact that the UN, the US and many EU Intelligence services to include the French have already confirmed through satellite photos and by other means, that Assad was the perpetrator of the gas attack. No one has been able to show that any rebel forces have access to CW’s let alone use them against their own people. If Mother Agnes has any concrete proof other than her lying, she needs to step forward with that proof or stay quiet.
Now that the UN has condemned Assad for crimes against humanity, Mother Agnes becomes so important for Assad to question the veracity of the UN’s claims. There is one problem though: She has been caught lying so many times, it is an embarrassment to the Catholic faith and to the Vatican in our humble opinion. Has she not violated the Ninth Commandment already?
The Syrian Christian communities, in general, have supported the Assad regime in spite of the tyranny and the oppression Assad exploits to enrich himself and his family, and which has been ignored mostly on their part for over 43 years. The Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches, both strong in Syria, have come to believe that the Assad alternative is a monster who will destroy their communities, as have the Islamists in Egypt demonstrated. However, since Syria is not Egypt, this theory is questionable at best.
In our opinion, Assad, with Hezbollah’s help, killed Rafik Hariri because he represented an Arab Sunni leader who is embracing of all religions equally and who has shown a keen ability to protect Christians and the minorities in Lebanon without looking weak or un-Islamic. Hariri demolished the Assad drumbeat of who is his alternative, which would have rallied the minorities against his tyrannical rule.
However, for the Christian communities to stand by Assad, often silently or by bearing arms, is one thing that many Muslims, like myself, may disagree with but can understand, and for a Catholic nun to be touring the US on a propaganda campaign to wash Assad’s sins is quite another. Assad is a mass murderer who deserves the guillotine and when a Catholic nun attempts to spare his life, she is in fact denying justice to the 9 million Syrians who find themselves displaced or refugees, to the over 126,000 Syrians killed because of Assad, and to the 426 children Assad gassed in Ghouta. What is so motherly about Mother Agnes when she excuses a killer of 11,000 Syrian children so far?
The Marist Brothers in Champville, just outside Beirut, have given many Syrians the best education possible. Part of it was to understand the compassionate and benevolent Catholic faith we, as Muslims, have been so welcomed in its bosom and have come to appreciate deeply. The Bible tells us “that there should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. (1 Corinthians 12:25-26)”.
Assad is dismembering Syria and Catholicism has an opportunity to lead by example instead of letting Mother Agnes divide us by playing the role of a king’s jester. The Vatican should excommunicate Mother Agnes to stop encouraging Assad from committing further atrocities while hiding behind the Church.
When Mother Agnes tours the US wearing her catholic dress, she is representing the Vatican, not just herself. Regardless of how other Christians perceive her tour, as Muslims who have an affinity for the Catholic faith, we urge the Vatican to excommunicate Mother Agnes. Not only a mass murderer is using her, and indirectly the Vatican, to wash him clean, she is also impregnating Muslim extremists with ideas that would command more violence against the Catholic Church without any benefits. The one she is assisting is not even a Catholic, nor is he a human being worthy of our humanity.
The last thing we all want is for the Islamists to target the compassionate Catholic Christians any further. Already, Jabhat al-Nusra has kidnapped nuns in Maaloula to exchange them for 1,000 Syrian women Assad has jailed.
By denouncing and dismissing Mother Agnes, the Vatican would be sending a signal that it will not tolerate that its faith becomes a tool in the hands of a mass murderer who is using the whole faith to clean himself from his crimes against humanity. Eventually, Mother Agnes would appear before the International Court at The Hague to embarrass the Vatican and His Holiness may need to nip it at the bud today to spare the Church, ever so graceful and kind, any further embarrassment.
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