“Signs of Hope” or Signs of Apostasy? Middle East Christianity Under Conciliar Compromise
The EWTN News article dated December 31, 2025 presents a naturalistic analysis of Middle Eastern Christians’ situation, focusing on state-sanctioned interfaith initiatives while omitting the supernatural mission of the Church. It describes governmental measures like Egypt’s “Christmas grants” and Jordan’s Baptism Route pilgrimages as “positive policies,” celebrates the Vatican’s canonization of Bishop Ignatius Maloyan, and quotes the “pope’s” Beirut message urging “new attitudes” beyond “religious divisions.” This narrative reduces the Church’s divine mission to sociological survival tactics, exemplifying the conciliar sect’s abandonment of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation).
State Collaboration as Substitute for Evangelization
The article praises Egypt’s legalization of 160 churches and Jordan’s tourism ministry establishing Christmas sites, framing these as victories while ignoring their implicit surrender to Islamic hegemony. Quas Primas (Pius XI, 1925) condemns such attitude: “Rulers of states… must not only govern their peoples but lead them to eternal happiness.” Instead of demanding conversion of Muslim rulers to Christ the King, the conciliar hierarchy celebrates their tolerance as sufficient—a betrayal of the Church’s mandate to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
When describing Syria’s “cooperation between state and Church,” the article omits that President al-Sharaa leads a regime persecuting Catholics while the post-conciliar “bishops” engage in servile dialogue with persecutors. This violates Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864), which condemned the idea that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55). True Catholic shepherds would demand Syria’s conversion, not beg for security patrols outside churches.
Naturalized Faith: Emigration Over Martyrdom
The piece laments Christian emigration from Iraq (90% population loss) and Bethlehem (“entire families leaving”) while ignoring the theological crisis fueling this exodus. By promoting religious indifferentism—as seen in the “pope’s” Beirut speech urging “moving beyond religious divisions”—the conciliar sect has robbed Middle Eastern Catholics of the raison d’être for remaining: to witness Christ’s kingship amid Islamic darkness.
St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907) condemned the modernist error that “truth changes with man” (Proposition 58). Yet the article celebrates Ur’s “Church of Abraham” hosting interfaith prayers—a sacrilegious act equating Catholic liturgy with pagan worship. When Lebanese Christians face “political and economic realities,” authentic pastors would preach redemptive suffering, not tacitly endorse fleeing persecution. The silence on forming militant Catholic resistance mirrors the conciliar betrayal of Cristero-era Mexicans.
Canonization as Propaganda Tool
The canonization of Bishop Maloyan—murdered by Ottoman Muslims in 1915—is weaponized to imply Middle Eastern Christians should accept dhimmi status rather than demand Islamic conversion. This distorts martyrdom’s true meaning: “The martyr is a witness to Christ… not a victim of intercommunal strife” (Pius XII, 1954). By omitting Maloyan’s call for Muslims to repent, the conciliar sect reduces sainthood to ethnic sentimentality, severing it from Catholic triumphalism.
Theological Vacuum of “Hope”
Nowhere does the article mention grace, sacraments, or the Four Last Things—the pillars of Catholic resilience. Instead, “hope” is redefined as coexistence with Islam, exemplified by Jordan’s interfaith stamps and Egypt’s Holy Family Trail marketed to tourists. This horizontalism echoes the condemned proposition that “the Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics” (Lamentabili Sane, Proposition 63).
True hope springs from the Social Reign of Christ the King, not “parliamentary debates over Christian quotas” in Iraq or Lebanon’s “role in the world” per the “pope’s” Beirut speech. As Quas Primas teaches: “Nations will be happy when both citizens and governments submit to the empire of Christ.” The article’s “hopeful” narrative—silent on Islam’s theological errors—proves the conciliar sect has become what Pius IX denounced: “the enemy of the progress of theological sciences” (Syllabus, Error 57).
Source:
Christians in the Middle East in 2025: Signs of hope and the struggle to remain (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 31.12.2025