Priest says Egypt's Christians feel they could be martyrs at any time

IMAGE: CNS photo/Mohamed Abd El Ghany, Reuters

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CAIRO (CNS) — Christians in Egypt
“are getting to this idea that we could be a martyr at any moment,”
the spokesman for the nation’s Catholic bishops told Catholic News Service.

The spokesman, Father Rafic Greiche,
also lamented the number of children killed in an attack on a bus carrying
Coptic Orthodox Christians to St. Samuel Monastery in southern Egypt May 26.

At least 26 people, many of them
children, were killed when masked assailants attacked the bus. Dozens of others
were injured.

“It is too early to say who is
behind it, but certainly terrorists, and the security forces are now scanning
the area” to find the culprits, Tarek Attia, Interior Ministry official,
told Sky News Arabia, an Arabic-language television station, May 26.

He said three cars carrying the
masked gunmen had attacked the bus at roughly 10:30 a.m. in the southern
governorate of Minya, a traditional stronghold of Egypt’s Christian community,
which accounts for a tiny percent of the country’s mostly Sunni Muslim
population.

At the Vatican, Cardinal Pietro
Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, sent a message to Egyptian President
Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, expressing Pope Francis’ prayers and solidarity after
the “barbaric attack.”

“Mindful in a particular way of
those children who have lost their lives, His Holiness commends the souls of
the deceased to the mercy of the Almighty. He assures their grieving families
and all who have been injured of his ardent prayers, and he pledges his
continued intercession for peace and reconciliation throughout the nation,”
the telegram said.

The attack marked the latest in a
series of deadly attacks on Coptic Christians, whose church was founded by St.
Mark the Apostle in the first century, and whose community represents the
largest of the Middle East’s Christian minorities.

On April 9, two suicide bombers
attacked St. George’s Cathedral in Egypt’s northern city of Tanta and St.
Mark’s Cathedral in the coastal city of Alexandria. Those attacks killed and
maimed dozens in what was the deadliest attack against Christians in Egypt’s
recent history. A nationwide state of emergency has been in place since.

In a widely publicized visit to
Egypt soon after the April attacks, Pope Francis addressed the terrorist
violence carried out in the name of a fundamentalist reading of Islam. Pope
Francis frequently has said there are more Christians being martyred today than
during the persecutions of the church in the early centuries of Christianity.
And, using the term “ecumenism of blood,” he has noted how Christians
divided into churches and denominations are united in mourning for their
members killed not because they are Orthodox or Catholic, but simply because
they are Christian.

The pope paid tribute to the Coptic
Orthodox Church’s modern martyrs, praying before a memorial in Cairo marking
the place where 29 people were killed and 31 wounded in December by a suicide
bomber. He told Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II, “Your sufferings are
also our sufferings.”

After the May 26 attack, the Coptic Orthodox
Church released a statement saying, “We extend our condolences to all the
affected families and are suffering with the entire country due to this evil
and violence.”

“We hope for the necessary
procedures to prevent these kinds of attacks, which degrade the image of Egypt
and cause so much suffering to Egyptians,” the statement said.

Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim
Isaac Sedrak of Alexandria sent condolences to Pope Tawardros and “all
families of all the martyrs,” reported the Egyptian paper, Al Masry al
Youm.

Ashraf Sultan, Egyptian parliament
spokesman, told Sky News Arabia, “This is an attack on the entire society
and affects us all.”

And Egypt’s top authority on Islam,
Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar University, said that “such
attacks can never satisfy a Muslim or a Christian.” 

In Washington, Cardinal Daniel N. Di
Nardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, compared the May
attacks with previous attacks, noting that, again, children were murdered as
they traveled to church.

“Though our grief is
unbearable, our unity grows all the more strong. That unity is the way to
peace,” he said, sending prayers and condolences to the Egyptians.

Other church leaders around the
world also reacted. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem expressed the
condolences of churches in the Holy Land.

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of
Arlington, Virginia, offered prayers and said, “This attack reminds us
again of the horrific persecution of our Christian brothers and sisters in the
Middle East and their courageous witness to their faith.”

An Egyptian Interior Ministry
statement said unknown assailants driving three four-wheel-drive vehicles had
attacked by “randomly shooting” the bus carrying the Copts, and that
an official count of the final toll was underway.

Local media showed grainy images of
bloody bodies strewn on sandy ground, indicating many of the slain had fled the
bus trying to escape the assailants’ bullets.

Later, the media showed images of
the wounded being taken to hospitals and reported that el-Sissi was calling for
an emergency security meeting to address the attack. El-Sissi had instructed
authorities to take all necessary measures to attend to the injured and arrest
the assailants, the local media reported.

Asked about government assurances that
security in the country would be tightened, Father Greiche told CNS: “It
is now time for action, not just words.”

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