The Pontiff has repeatedly asked for vigils and fasting for peace in Syria. Today, 30 September, during a meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, with the Catholicos and Patriarch Ilia II, he is asking us once again to invoke God to grant peace to the peoples of Syria and Iraq.
Yesterday, at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome, it was the turn of the Nuncio Zenari to recall the trials endured by the Syrians because of broken truces, difficulties in organizing humanitarian aid and the drama that creates for the local Church "an exodus and the haemorrhaging of Christians (...). The church as a building can be reconstructed but the church as a community is irreparably destroyed: once they leave, the Christians will be welcomed by other churches, but for the churches of apostolic origin, these Christians are lost."
"When elephants fight it is the grass that remains crushed" is the bitter comment of Fr Pierre Jabloyan, a Salesian of Aleppo. He was born in the city which has become a symbol of the war. Now he directs the activities of the oratory and he is not resigned to seeing his country being devastated, with the complacency of many foreign interests. Along with his confreres and dozens of leaders he keeps the activities of the oratory going, bringing some joy every day to many young people, but they live every day in uncertainty and fear.
Tomorrow 1 October, Fr Simon Zakerian, a Salesian from Damascus, will be in Salerno, Italy. Through his testimony he hopes to bring people outside the country some real knowledge of what is going in Syria and to collect aid for the people.
