Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, another Sunday has come and gone without mass being said in Mosul. There is no doubt about it; religious cleansing is continuing to occur in Iraq. The churches have been seized and some turned into mosques. Every trace of Christianity is being eradicated in Iraq. The Christians' property has been seized, looted, and given to others. Canon Andrew White, the vicar of the only Anglican church in Baghdad, Iraq, recently stated, ``Things are so desperate, our people are disappearing. We have had our people massacred, their heads chopped off. Are we seeing the end of Christianity? We are committed,'' he said, ``come what may, we will keep going to the end, but it looks as though the end could be near.'' Vicar White, continuing, said, ``The Christians are in grave danger. They are literally living in the desert and on the street. They have nowhere to go.'' The question remains: What should the world be doing to help the Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq? The administration has taken a small step, although it needs to do much more. The President of the United States needs to speak out on this issue. This morning, after a 9-month vacancy, the White House announced the nomination of Rabbi David Saperstein to be the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Rabbi Saperstein is well-respected on these matters and has been engaged on this issue for a long time. I welcome this nomination.…”