12.09.2014
Walk to Church in Solidarity with Displace Christians in Iraq and Syria
An initiative of solidarity has been launched to support the displaced Christians and minority communities of Iraq and Syria. Walk to Church invites Irish Christians of all traditions to walk to church on Sunday September 21, the UN Day of Peace.
The initiative was started by Fr Robert McCabe, a priest of the Diocese of Meath, who describes the Walk to Church project as a means of enabling Irish families and communities to express prayerful solidarity with families of Iraq and Syria who have been targeted, terrorised and banished from their homes because of their Christian identity.
Fr McCabe hopes that the Walk to Churchon Sunday September 21 will help Irish families to consider the trauma of their fellow Christians and their neighbours of other faiths who have fled their homes and towns in recent months.
He describes some of the recent ISIS video footage as “either too barbaric or insufficiently descriptive of the upheaval faced by families fleeing genocide.” Fr McCabe believes that the prayer “Deliver us Lord, we pray, from every evil and graciously grant peace in our days” has grown in resonance for the Christian people who are now living in refugee camps or struggling in temporary accommodation in a different parish.
Fr McCabe invites clergy to speak about the Walk to Church initiative on Sunday September 14 and to encourage their congregations to walk all or part of the journey to Church on the following Sunday September 21.
Posters have been prepared for the initiative by the agency, Aid to the Church in Need for parish notice–boards (http://acnireland.org/index.php/home/the-crisis/walk-to-church-poster).