“It is an understandable policy which nevertheless has no chance of success. Because whether we like it or not, the Syrian regime has no future.”
This is according to the Custodian of the Holy Land, Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa who spoke to the Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need about the decision of some Syrian Church leaders - including the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Gregory III Laham – to preserve the status quo by continuing to support Assad.
“Syria is going through a civil war, even if we do not refer to it as such - he continued – and Christians are stuck between a rock and hard place, between the government which has always supported them and the opposition.”
The fears of faithful that the Country will turn into a new Iraq are strong and completely understandable. But the Franciscan explained that the Syrian mentality is different to the Iraqi mentality, because of the wider ethnic and religious variety.”
Meanwhile, Christians have left Homs.
This is the only thing provincial ministers of the Friars Minor e certain of, since it “is practically impossible to get reliable and objective news from Syria.”
Fr. Pizzaballa is against any external intervention and believes that Syria’s position in the heart of the Middle East makes the possibility of international military action improbable.
“It is not like Libya. This time an intervention would impact the entire Middle Eastern region.”
Western Countries do need to act but not just by exercising political and diplomatic pressure, as “we saw what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.”