FOUR PILLARS:
‘TALK TO US’:
LAW OF KARMA:
Couple to be honored at St. Patrick’s Seminary gala
Survivor: Like good shepherd, church must seek out abused
What goes around, comes around
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SCRIPTURE REFLECTION: Disciples in the storm
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Iraq: ‘As if hell has broken out and nobody cares’ like old news, yet things just get worse and worse here,” said Rev. White, who also directs the British-based charity, Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East. “It is as if hell has broken out here and nobody cares, that is, apart from you, our supporters, who never leave us and keep supporting us in every way,” he said. “The situation is so serious and it is very easy to feel forgotten,” he said. Iraq was thrown back into crisis in mid-June after thousands of armed members of the Islamic State moved from Syria through much of northern Iraq, killing both Muslims and Christians. On June 29, the Islamist militants proclaimed a “caliphate,” an Islamic state led by a religious leader, across the territories they had captured, including the city of Mosul, the ancient Christian heartland in Iraq. In late July, the Islamic State released a new video depicting the
DALE GAVLAK CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
AMMAN, Jordan – With the world’s attention focused on Gaza’s increasingly desperate situation, some in Iraq feel that brutal Islamist militants can do whatever they want and literally get away with murder. Serving in some of the worst violence in Iraq over the past decade, the Rev. Andrew White, an Anglican canon at St. George’s Church in Baghdad, said more than 1,500 people were killed in late July in the violence in Iraq perpetrated by Islamic State extremists. “The Islamic State simply said we can do anything now the world is just looking at Gaza,” Rev. White wrote of the precarious conditions faced by Iraq’s historic Christian community. In a newsletter dated July 30 and made available to Catholic News Service, he said the radical group now controls huge swaths of eastern Syria and northern and central Iraq. “In reality that is true. Iraq seems
(CNS PHOTO/JAMAL NASRALLAH, EPA)
SEE IRAQ, PAGE 14
Girls pray for Mideast peace during Mass at Our Lady of Nazareth Church, Amman, Jordan, July 30.
‘Great War’ brought Catholics into society’s mainstream MARK PATTISON CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
(CNS PHOTO/COURTESY AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER)
This 1918 poster is considered one of the most popular illustrations produced by the National Catholic War Council for its United War Works Campaign.
WASHINGTON – World War I was dubbed “the Great War” because of the near-global scale of the fighting. Some called it “the World War,” and many had thought it was “the war to end all wars.” But its status as World War I was cemented when World War II commenced just 21 years after it ended. It was 100 years ago, on July 28, 1914, that World War I began in earnest. The United States didn’t enter into the war until 1917, playing a decisive role in its outcome, but U.S. Catholics were watching and worrying long before the nation – what was for many of them their adopted homeland – entered the hostilities. Catholics accounted for about 16 percent of the U.S. population at the war’s outbreak. Their numbers and proportion had grown because of immigration from many of the European nations and territories engaged in the conflict.
“There was a lot of anti-Catholic feeling in the country before the war, based on the large amount of Catholic immigrants coming into the country,” said W. John Shepherd, an associate archivist at American Catholic Research Center at The Catholic University of America in Washington, where he has worked for the past 25 years. “I think the war was very important to Catholics to show themselves and the rest of the country – anybody who’s paying attention – that they could be devout Catholics and loyal patriots,” Shepherd said. There are as many stories in war as there are participants. One participant was Robert O’Connell, a Connecticut lad who was one of Gen. John Pershing’s doughboys after training at Washington Barracks – now Fort McNair – and shipping “over there.” Once in Europe, he asked his kin to write, “but don’t expect me to write much. Censor is nuisance.” In October 1917, O’Connell said, “Some of the boys must have expected to begin
killing Germans the week after they enlisted and are disgusted with the Army.” Combat came soon enough. In July 1918, he was wounded. O’Connell, after being examined, was told to walk to a cave to get fixed up. “Cave was almost two miles farther along. I’d have walked 20, I think, to get some relief from those shells,” he wrote. “When you get this, I’ll be back with the company again, but I’ll have had this rest, anyway, just for a little hole less than half an inch deep.” Another story – like O’Connell’s, found in Catholic University’s WWI archives – is that of Adm. William Benson, the highest-ranking Catholic in the armed forces during the war. Born a Methodist in Georgia, he joined his wife’s Catholic faith after marrying. Benson never saw any combat during his military career. He became chief of naval operations, a post created by Congress before U.S.
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INDEX On the Street . . . . . . . . .4 National . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . 18