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Lajolo said anti-Christian feeling existed where political agendas of Western countries were believed to be driven by Christianity
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ROME,
December 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Anti-Christian
sentiments are running high in Muslim countries and other parts of the
world because of the US-led so-called war on terrorism, the Vatican
warned.
“It
should be recognized that the war against terrorism, even though
necessary, had as one of its side-effects the spread of
'Christianophobia' in vast areas of the globe,” Vatican’s Foreign
Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told a US-organized conference on
religious freedom at Rome's Gregorian University Friday, December 4.
He
was the latest Vatican official to decry what the Church fears will be
a difficult future in regions where Christians are in the minority,
Reuters news agency reported.
The
Vatican strongly opposed and frequently criticized the US-led invasion
of Iraq under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
Pope
John Paul II said US President George W. Bush assumed a “grave
responsibility before God” in invading the oil-rich
country.
“Christian-Driven”
Lajolo,
the Vatican's second-ranking diplomat, said anti-Christian sentiments
existed where political agendas of Western countries were believed to
be driven by Christianity.
He
said this was why the Vatican had insisted that “Christianophobia be
condemned together with Islamophobia and anti-Semitism” in recent UN
human rights documents.
Following
the terrorist 9/11 attacks, President Bush made a real gaffe by
describing his war on terrorism was a “crusade.”
Accused
by observers of “Christianizing” his administration, he was quoted
as saying in a recent book that God
had chosen him to lead the nation.
Observers
believe that anti-Islam rants by top US officials and figures helped
entrench the notion that the US administration was acting in the name
of religion.
In
October 2003, William Boykin, the then new deputy undersecretary of
Defense for intelligence, described Muslims’ God as “an
idol .”
He
even said America’s “spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we
come against them in the name of Jesus.”
Conversion
Archbishop
Lajolo further admitted that the perceived dislike of Christians was
taking place because “their institutions and their activities are
seen as attempts to win converts or interfere in local cultures.”
The
New York Times revealed
Monday, November 1, that South Korean missionaries are now taking the
lead in aggressively evangelizing
Muslims in Arab countries.
Only
days into the US-led invasion in March 2003, two leading evangelical
Christian missionary organizations were readying teams on the
Iraqi-Jordanian borders to provide Iraqis with “physical
and spiritual needs .”
British
reports revealed
in December 2003 that US missionaries, mainly evangelicals, were
pouring into the predominantly Muslim Iraq, under the cover of
humanitarian aid.
The
US military confirmed that four
US missionaries had been killed in a drive-by shooting
in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
