Christians in Iraq

Iraqi Christians carry coffins during a funeral service at a church in Baghdad last year.

We’ve heard plenty about the triumph of democracy in Iraq.

It’s interesting to compare the lot of Christians in Iraq before the invasion of the Coalition of the Willing.

This quote from an article by Archbishop Cranmer sums it up fairy neatly.

 Saddam was too preoccupied with persecuting the Kurds and Shi’as to bother much with the Christians, some of whom, like Tariq Aziz, rose to the highest offices of state under his regime. By the time of the 1991 Gulf War, they numbered about one million. By the time of 2003 invasion of Iraq, they had fallen to about 800,000. Now there are about 500,000 remaining. And they live each day as if it were their last, having seen their churches bombed, their congregations sprayed with bullets, and their priests brutally beheaded and dismembered. Christian boys are being crucified and girls are being raped.

I can’t vouch for his account, but the numbers, at least, are accurate.

The Catholic Leader has also been reporting on the conditions for Iraqi Catholics.

It’s interesting that we hear so little about this in the MSM.

I guess it doesn’t fit the narrative.