After escaping war, Chaldeans face moral risks in US, says bishop
ICC Note:
Newly arriving Iraqi Christians, like US Christians, face the struggle of how to deal with a decaying culture.
5/17/2012 Iraq (CNS)-Iraqi Catholics fleeing physical danger in their homeland often find themselves unprepared for the moral threats awaiting their families in the United States, said the head of Chaldean Catholics in the Western U.S.
Seeing a lack of respect for the unborn, altered definitions of marriage and a general disregard for Christian values means Chaldean Catholic families settling in the United States often find themselves in a world they are not at all accustomed to, Chaldean Bishop Sarhad Y. Jammo of the Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle of San Diego told Catholic News Service May 17.
The challenge for many parents is not so much the usual difficulties with the language or acclimating to a new culture, but rather being afraid of what their children may be exposed to every day in the media and many schools, he said.
“This is the irony, that is the dilemma,” he said. They escape from gunfire in Iraq trying to save their family so they go to the United States “and they find physical security, but then they face moral attack,” he said.
Because of a lack of moral grounding in the wider culture, families turn to the church for help as they struggle to maintain their Christian identity and live according to the Gospel, Bishop Jammo said.
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