Shea on Persecution of Christians

Re “Oppression of Christians Is Ignored,” Commentary, March 17:

Nina Shea’s factual observations regarding inadequate recognition, on the part of America’s policy- and opinion-makers and the media, concerning the ongoing persecution of Christians, are right on target. Apparently there are those in government who view the separation of church and state as a concept that includes Christians relinquishing their right to be heard as American citizens. Why else would such a barrage of legitimate requests for the U.S. government to speak out against the persecution of Christians continue to be ignored?

We all abhor the historic accounts of Roman emperors and others who tolerated, even ordered, the wholesale imprisonment and slaughter of early Christians. Yet somehow we tend to turn our heads the other way while the same thing continues in so many parts of the world today. As a nation “under God,” how can we keep silent?

JIM ROBERTS, Exec. Dir.

New City Parish

Los Angeles

In her column, Shea is right to be concerned with the human right to religious freedom, an aspect of freedom of conscience. She is also right when she notes that some people “may have trouble thinking of Christians as the victims of persecution rather than the persecutors,” because in some places (e.g., former Yugoslavia), Christians are still among the persecutors.

Because Shea’s is a thinly veiled plea of special concern just for Christian victims of religious persecution, it would be dangerous and unwise for American foreign policy to reflect her views. Shea needs to restate her concerns in the language of the United Nations’ Declaration of Universal Human Rights so that we will not be tempted to value the lives and rights of Christians more than other of our fellow human beings.

GORDON A. BABST

Pomona

Shea displays some moral shortsightedness when she complains that the “cultural elite” has deliberately ignored the despicable persecution of Christians in some parts of the world. As the institution that was at least complicitous in such horrors as the Dark Ages, the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Holocaust, there should be a recognition of historical continuity.

Also her assertion that the cultural elite has the “U.S. government in tow” suggests code words learned from the likes of the late Father Coughlin, whose weekly radio vituperations were considered inspirational by Adolf Hitler.

LEN TOROBIN

Los Angeles