The Michael Knowles Show - November 19, 2023


Christian Persecution & The Coming War ｜ Fr. Kiely


Episode Stats

Length

13 minutes

Words per Minute

162.93419

Word Count

2,139

Sentence Count

160

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

25


Summary

As we find ourselves at the brink of World War III, maybe even over the brink into WW III, I find myself in London, which tomorrow will be the site of a massive pro-Palestine protest. This after three weeks of so following the largest attack ever on the state of Israel, which killed over 1,000 people, some estimates up to 1,500 people. We also have the conflict in Ukraine and some other conflicts around the world, and other religious persecutions in international diplomacy as it falls apart. So, I decided to come to Canterbury Cathedral to meet with Fr. Benedict Keeley, who knows a thing or two about religious persecution.


Transcript

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00:00:32.600 As we find ourselves at the brink of World War III,
00:00:35.800 maybe even over the brink into World War III,
00:00:38.140 I find myself in London,
00:00:40.800 which tomorrow will be the site
00:00:42.400 of a massive pro-Palestine protest.
00:00:45.960 This after three weeks or so
00:00:48.860 following the largest attack ever
00:00:51.820 on the state of Israel,
00:00:52.840 which killed over 1,000 people,
00:00:55.840 some estimates up to 1,500 people,
00:00:58.980 the Israeli-Palestine conflict,
00:01:01.100 not the only potential outbreak of World War III.
00:01:03.540 We also, of course, have the conflict in Ukraine
00:01:06.320 and some other conflicts around the world
00:01:09.140 and some other religious persecutions
00:01:10.680 and some other hot spots
00:01:13.380 in international diplomacy as it falls apart.
00:01:15.740 So, I decided to come to Canterbury Cathedral
00:01:18.740 to meet with Fr. Benedict Keeley,
00:01:21.960 who knows a thing or two about religious persecution.
00:01:24.920 Fr. Keeley is the founder of Nazarene.org.
00:01:28.840 That is Nazarene with an S, not with a Z.
00:01:31.620 So, it's N-A-S-A-R-E-A-N.org.
00:01:35.500 Fr. Keeley, I believe you've been to Iraq
00:01:37.060 nine times to support persecuted Christians.
00:01:40.160 You have installed shrines to persecuted Christians
00:01:42.920 all around the world at a time
00:01:44.500 when people don't want to talk about persecuted Christians
00:01:46.920 or really much religious persecution whatsoever.
00:01:50.520 You're right, and thank you, Michael, for having me.
00:01:52.760 My ministry as a priest, Catholic priest,
00:01:54.940 is full-time speaking, writing,
00:01:57.780 advocacy for persecuted Christians,
00:02:00.100 but also we have a very small charity
00:02:02.400 which tries to keep Christians in their homelands
00:02:05.640 by many micro-financing small family businesses.
00:02:08.580 So, now in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt,
00:02:11.440 and soon, please God, in Armenia,
00:02:13.160 we give them a small amount of money,
00:02:15.080 they start a business, they stay in their own countries.
00:02:17.340 That's a very practical and positive thing
00:02:19.160 to deal with, yes, what you're talking about,
00:02:21.920 this massive crisis.
00:02:23.320 Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world.
00:02:26.220 It's not fashionable to say it,
00:02:28.440 but it is the most persecuted religion in the world,
00:02:32.160 persecuted more than in the first centuries of the church.
00:02:35.560 which seems to not be on the radar,
00:02:38.100 certainly not the radar of mainstream media.
00:02:40.360 That's why I'm so grateful to you,
00:02:42.160 and you raised, as you said in your introduction,
00:02:44.620 another place, which we'll talk about, I'm sure, Armenia.
00:02:47.620 But yes, it's to try and alert Christians,
00:02:50.600 first and foremost, to the fact that their brethren,
00:02:53.640 our brothers and sisters in Christ,
00:02:55.740 are being persecuted for their faith,
00:02:57.720 for being Christians, for no other reason.
00:02:59.980 The Israelis have experienced this grotesque attack
00:03:03.200 for being Jews, but we often say,
00:03:07.180 and it's a phrase from the Middle East,
00:03:09.060 first they come for the Saturday people,
00:03:11.040 then they come for the Sunday people.
00:03:13.200 In other words, that's a kind of a point of meeting
00:03:17.000 between Christians and Jews,
00:03:18.900 not a pleasant point of meeting,
00:03:20.320 but that's one of the reasons why we believe
00:03:22.680 that we should be with our Jewish brethren.
00:03:26.440 It's not a mercenary thing,
00:03:28.100 but we're sharing in the suffering.
00:03:30.880 So it's a very tough time.
00:03:32.020 I can't help but notice that the people
00:03:34.580 who attacked the state of Israel
00:03:36.380 are the same people who have run the Christians out of Iraq.
00:03:40.460 When I heard that you'd visited Iraq nine times,
00:03:43.360 I thought, has Father Keeley visited Iraq
00:03:45.880 more than the number of Christians
00:03:47.820 who are left in Iraq at this point?
00:03:49.620 Well, that's a very sad thing.
00:03:51.220 Yes, when the war, the invasion in 2003 happened,
00:03:55.160 there were a million and a half Christians in Iraq.
00:03:58.300 And again, for an American audience,
00:04:00.120 sometimes people say to me,
00:04:02.080 well, when did we bring the gospel to Iraq?
00:04:05.380 Sorry, it's the other way around.
00:04:06.980 Disciples of Jesus brought the gospel to Iraq
00:04:09.840 and they brought the gospel to us.
00:04:11.760 So ancient Christian communities.
00:04:14.220 But now from a million and a half in 2003,
00:04:18.400 now in 2023,
00:04:20.600 there's about 100,000 Christians left in Iraq.
00:04:23.860 They've been driven out.
00:04:24.720 First, of course, not just by ISIS,
00:04:27.040 by all the persecution that happened before.
00:04:29.120 We forget that persecution was going on with Al-Qaeda
00:04:31.760 and various other people.
00:04:33.900 And then economic problems.
00:04:36.300 They're second-class citizens.
00:04:38.460 The World Wildlife Fund has a list of danger areas for animals.
00:04:44.780 You know, it goes up and down.
00:04:47.360 And the Christians in Iraq would fit in the nearly extinct category
00:04:51.300 if they were animals, which is terrifying and frightening,
00:04:55.200 which is why I feel a real passion
00:04:56.780 that we Christians in the West
00:04:58.320 must do whatever we can for our persecuted brethren.
00:05:01.740 But, of course, in the mainstream liberal media,
00:05:04.860 you'll hear hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth
00:05:06.940 over the extinction of the Delta smelt in California,
00:05:10.260 but nary a mention of Christians
00:05:12.400 who are persecuted in the Middle East and elsewhere.
00:05:14.660 You know, I mean, we're talking about
00:05:16.460 the very real possibility of genocide today.
00:05:20.920 And there's a genocide that is currently happening,
00:05:23.280 and it's one that has recurred at times throughout history.
00:05:25.640 And that's in a conflict that very few people have heard of.
00:05:28.700 If you polled 1,000 people on the street and said,
00:05:32.080 what do you know about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?
00:05:36.060 I think most people would look at you like you had three heads.
00:05:38.540 But this is the persecution by Azerbaijan
00:05:41.300 of Armenian Christians.
00:05:44.000 Armenia, the oldest Christian country in the world,
00:05:46.560 and it's happening right now.
00:05:48.020 Well, I'm grateful to you again
00:05:49.580 because you raised this on your show recently.
00:05:51.540 It is. Nobody's talking about it.
00:05:53.360 Armenia, which is technically a European country.
00:05:56.040 It's in Europe.
00:05:57.140 But, yes, the oldest Christian country in the world, 301.
00:06:01.260 Before Constantine was baptized, they became Christians.
00:06:05.000 The Azerbaijanis, who are sort of a greater Turkey.
00:06:08.420 That's basically what it's about.
00:06:11.200 Seizing this land, this section,
00:06:13.080 and driving all the Christians out.
00:06:16.360 They've just driven out 120,000 Christians.
00:06:18.920 That is first and foremost ethnic cleansing.
00:06:21.380 But they were also, we mustn't ever forget,
00:06:24.140 Armenians were victims of the first ever official genocide
00:06:27.640 between 1915 and 1917,
00:06:30.860 when more than a million Armenians and Greek Orthodox
00:06:34.820 and Assyriac Christians were slaughtered by the Turks.
00:06:38.420 Hitler famously said when he was beginning his program
00:06:41.920 to persecute the Jews,
00:06:44.080 he said, who remembers the Armenians?
00:06:46.520 Because that genocide is still not even recognized by various countries.
00:06:50.120 So right now, yes, in Europe,
00:06:52.280 a Christian nation is experiencing that kind of persecution.
00:06:56.500 An amazing connection to, you mentioned the Hitler quote,
00:06:59.560 which is the genocidal political powers just think,
00:07:04.520 well, people will forget and will move on.
00:07:07.420 And who's going to talk about them if they're gone?
00:07:10.020 We hear the phrase never again, and it always happens again.
00:07:12.900 Never again Rwanda, never again here.
00:07:15.280 And it always happens.
00:07:16.620 And there are inquiries and chest beating afterwards.
00:07:19.800 But this is why the preservation of our Christian community,
00:07:23.400 especially in the Middle East,
00:07:24.480 I advocate for Christians all over the world.
00:07:26.520 For example, as well, the mainstream media doesn't talk about
00:07:29.880 the massive persecution of Christians in Africa.
00:07:32.840 In Nigeria alone, last year, more than 5,000 Christians were martyred,
00:07:38.220 men, women, and children.
00:07:40.000 Never even touches the mainstream media.
00:07:43.500 5,000 people in one year in Nigeria.
00:07:47.120 But this is exponential across Africa.
00:07:50.140 ISIS, we're told, has been defeated.
00:07:53.860 ISIS is just the name.
00:07:55.160 ISIS's baby, ISIS's cousin, they all exist.
00:07:58.340 They're exponentially growing across the world.
00:08:00.500 And this is Islamic jihadism, extreme Islam.
00:08:05.260 But not just extreme Islam.
00:08:07.260 A lot of this persecution is at least tacitly supported by,
00:08:10.420 I'm not saying all Muslims are bad, of course not.
00:08:12.720 But many, many Muslims,
00:08:14.340 I've heard recently reports from Israel-Palestine.
00:08:19.160 In Gaza, people have been saying to the Christians,
00:08:22.240 a very tiny Christian community in Gaza,
00:08:24.640 but people have been saying to them,
00:08:26.760 you're next.
00:08:27.600 We've been hearing this verbatim from people.
00:08:29.400 You're next.
00:08:30.300 So we're a struggling minority Christians.
00:08:34.540 People think Christianity's strong.
00:08:36.540 In that part of the world, it's very weak.
00:08:38.160 That is a little bit, I guess,
00:08:40.620 how I've been thinking of the Israel-Palestine conflict,
00:08:44.060 is not being an expert in, forget centuries,
00:08:48.520 millennia of this particular conflict.
00:08:50.980 I thought, all right, well,
00:08:52.300 if AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar
00:08:55.980 are on one side of an issue,
00:08:57.760 I guess I'm going to be on the other side of an issue.
00:09:00.100 But you put it very well.
00:09:01.360 They come for the Saturday people
00:09:02.900 before the Sunday people.
00:09:03.980 It's not as though Christians
00:09:05.560 had been flourishing in the Middle East
00:09:07.580 in recent years,
00:09:09.200 even 30, 40 years ago.
00:09:12.180 I think we have to pick a side.
00:09:13.940 And it's never an excuse for atrocities.
00:09:17.040 It's never an excuse for certain things.
00:09:19.160 No one says Israel is perfect by a long shot.
00:09:22.360 But at some point, you say,
00:09:23.920 are you on the side of people who chop babies up
00:09:27.040 and chop their heads off, which did happen,
00:09:29.560 or are you on the other side?
00:09:31.440 At that point, there's no sort of reciprocity.
00:09:33.460 There's no middle ground.
00:09:34.800 You have to pick a side.
00:09:36.380 But for the Christians, they also experience this.
00:09:39.180 This is the point.
00:09:40.560 People in Iraq say, well, we know what's happened.
00:09:44.140 ISIS did this.
00:09:46.540 ISIS did this to our own people
00:09:48.520 and are still doing it, of course, in Africa.
00:09:50.600 Just last year on the Feast of Pentecost,
00:09:53.260 in a diocese in Africa,
00:09:55.540 Islamists burst into the Pentecost Sunday Mass
00:09:58.000 and slaughtered more than shot,
00:10:00.880 more than 40 men, women, and children.
00:10:03.640 Bloody, bloody mess.
00:10:04.920 I saw the bishop spoke shortly afterwards.
00:10:08.460 And the bishop, curiously,
00:10:11.100 one of the we might call useful idiots,
00:10:14.600 again, the president of Ireland,
00:10:16.720 President Michael Higgins,
00:10:18.220 who's a rather small fellow,
00:10:20.120 about the size of a hobbit,
00:10:21.200 but without the intelligence of a hobbit.
00:10:22.820 President Higgins, after this atrocity,
00:10:27.160 actually, in his letter of condolence,
00:10:30.460 blamed global warming.
00:10:32.840 And the bishop of the diocese,
00:10:34.880 whose eyes were flaming,
00:10:36.960 said, my people were not killed
00:10:39.700 because of global warming.
00:10:41.520 They were killed because they were Christians, period.
00:10:44.140 Right.
00:10:44.780 If we don't care about that in the West,
00:10:46.720 especially if we claim the name of Christian,
00:10:49.520 then there's something wrong with us.
00:10:50.740 Right, yeah.
00:10:51.500 They're not killed by the sun monster, for one.
00:10:54.500 And they're not killed
00:10:55.400 by the broader impersonal forces.
00:10:57.680 You know, they're killed by racism
00:10:59.680 or intolerance or global warming or something.
00:11:02.020 No, it's quite personal, actually.
00:11:04.600 And ideas have consequences,
00:11:07.360 and ideas are enacted in time and space.
00:11:09.460 And we've got to confront that reality.
00:11:13.000 I love your point when you say
00:11:14.520 we have to pick a side
00:11:15.400 because our Lord is rather clear
00:11:18.180 about being lukewarm.
00:11:19.260 Well, and also another great personal friend of ours,
00:11:23.220 both a priest friend we both know,
00:11:25.600 once said famously,
00:11:27.000 when you're about to have your head cut off,
00:11:30.740 you don't worry too much about global warming
00:11:32.940 or air conditioning,
00:11:34.540 which I think is an appetite.
00:11:36.420 But yes, we have to pick a side.
00:11:37.860 And for a Christian,
00:11:39.060 if you're worthy of your name
00:11:40.920 and you don't care about your brethren suffering
00:11:43.200 in any part of the world,
00:11:44.400 you probably shouldn't use the name Christian.
00:11:47.680 But then the question comes,
00:11:49.480 well, what can we do?
00:11:50.600 There's a lot we can do.
00:11:52.220 A great deal.
00:11:53.080 Praying, which is not the last resort,
00:11:55.580 the first resort.
00:11:56.900 Aid.
00:11:57.920 And dealing with our legislators.
00:12:00.520 We have to pressurize our legislators.
00:12:02.440 Trade.
00:12:03.440 Trade is a perfect weapon.
00:12:05.500 You stop giving aid to countries
00:12:07.540 that persecute anyone.
00:12:09.040 Persecute the Uyghur Muslims,
00:12:10.640 or we've got China,
00:12:11.540 we know all about that.
00:12:13.200 Aid is, trade and aid is very powerful,
00:12:15.840 but it's hardly ever used.
00:12:17.380 Another great way to help
00:12:18.380 is to go to nazarean.org.
00:12:21.500 N-A-S-A-R-E-A-N.org.
00:12:25.620 Fr. Keeley, thank you for the heroic
00:12:27.560 and excellent work that you do.
00:12:29.180 Thank you, Michael.
00:12:29.400 And thank you for sitting down.
00:12:30.700 Thank you, Michael.
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