Christians under attack

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tal, humanitarian and religious organizations worldwide recognize this latest attack on Iraqi Christians as tantamount to genocide.

I call on Sen. Richard Durbin, Sen. Mark Kirk, the Illinois congressional delegation and President Obama to act now to stop the figurative – and literal – bleeding of Iraq’s Christian and other minority populations.

There are three steps the U.S. government can take now:

• Accept the recommendation of the U.S.

Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that Iraq be designated a “country of particular concern” because of its systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of the religious freedom of Iraq’s religious and ethnic minorities.

• Pressure Iraq’s newly formed government to increase the security and religious freedom of all its minority populations by proactively heightening security at Christian and other minority religious sites.

• As quickly as possible, create a comprehensive policy to protect the religious, political and economic rights of Iraq’s minorities. In the words of three-year-old Adam, who was slaughtered in the attack in the Baghdad church after watching his own parents die: “Enough, enough, enough!” End the violence against the Iraqi people now.

Sr. Kathlyn Mulcahy, OP is a member of the leadership team of the Dominican Sisters of Springfield.