Whither goest thou, Egypt? The two attacks on St. Bishoy monastery by armed soldiers would suggest that the military rule in Egypt is not a benign one for Christians. Shooting at monks trying to build a fence so that they can be protected from lawlessness. Barbarity! It reminds me of a line at the beginning of Lawrence of Arabia: “So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people — greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.”
(AINA) — For the second time in as many days, Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century old St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natroun, 110 kilometers from Cairo. Live ammunition was fired, wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. Several sources confirmed the army’s use of RPG ammunition. Four people have been arrested including three monks and a Coptic lawyer who was at the monastery investigating yesterday’s army attack.
Monk Aksios Ava Bishoy told activist Nader Shoukry of Freecopts the armed forces stormed the main entrance gate to the monastery in the morning using five tanks, armored vehicles and a bulldozer to demolish the fence built by the monastery last month to protect themselves and the monastery from the lawlessness which prevailed in Egypt during the January 25 Uprising.
We must pray for all the baptized in the Middle East — for their safety, and for their conversion to Catholic unity. (These poor Copts are schismatics.) As the region is in convulsions caused by revolution and civil war, it will certainly be the baptized that will suffer most, as they have in Iraq all these years.
