Two Franciscan friars are the only remaining clergy in Idlib, Syria, and the details of their lives ministering in one of the last bastions of jihadist rule in the country, including the daily threat of being killed, tortured or attacked are revealed by Catholic aid group.

Father Firas Lutfi, Custodian of the Province of Saint Paul for the Franciscans of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN ) that the friars were staying to help Christians suffering extreme persecution.

“Their suffering started a decade ago. When the war in Syria started raging in different areas of the country, militant groups took control of that region and proclaimed it an Islamic state,” said Lutfi.

He has first hand experience of the Syrian conflict having lived in Aleppo during the war which has raged for nearly 10 years.

“They confiscated the properties of the Christians, enforced the Islamic Shari’a on all the non-Muslims, took their rights to move freely in their own villages, forced the women to wear the veil.

“They destroyed and prevented any apparent Christian symbols, like the crosses above the churches and the graveyards,” said Lufti who is a member of the Jersulalem-based Custody of the Holy Land.

Father Hanna Jallouf, 67, and Father Luai Bsharat, 40, are the friars serving 300 Christian families in the villages of Knayeh and Yacoubieh in Idlib province, close to Turkey’s border with western Syria in Idlib province.

The region is still controlled by international jihadist groups, including an offshoot of Daesh, which is also known as ISIS.

PERESECUTED BY EXTREMISTS

Lutfi said: “Those extremists have often persecuted, attacked, beaten, tortured and even murdered some of our brothers and sisters.

“Most notably, Father Francois Murad who was beheaded in 2013, and recently, a lady teacher was raped and violently killed in Yacoubieh.

“The Christians in these regions face absolute persecution, fear, violence, danger, death, terrorism and hiding their faith and opinion.”

Lutfi noted, “The presence of the Franciscans is a sign of hope in the midst of the darkness and hopelessness.”

He added: “Despite the daily difficulties and the unbearable miseries, Father Luai Bsharat and Father Hanna Jallouf have stayed there because they believe in serving and trying to protect the remaining Christians, and they believe that this region should not be forsaken…”

Lufti emphasized that the friars and Christian families believe their presence in the area is of paramount importance.

He said: “Both the laity and the friars there strongly believe that they are, with their presence, contributing in strengthening the Church so that [the Church] can continue living through Her people during these atrocities.”

On June 9 Lufti told Rome Reports, “Before the war, the number of Christians [in Syria] was 2 million, or 8 percent of the entire population. Now, I don’t have an idea.

“We don’t have an exact statistic of how many Christians there are now. I assure you, maybe more than half of the entire Christian population left the country, unfortunately.”

The Report of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic in early October gave an indication of what civilians in Idlib face.

“In its recent report on Idlib Governorate and western Aleppo, covering the period between November 2019 and June 2020, the Commission documented 52 emblematic attacks by all parties that led to civilian casualties and/or damage to civilian infrastructure,” said the report.

“These battles were marked by war crimes, including launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in death or injury to civilians.

“Continuing previously established patterns, the Commission also documented attacks against medical facilities, schools and markets, which deprived scores of civilians of access to health care, education and food.

The battles displaced nearly one million people and the commission found that progovernment forces may have perpetrated the crimes against humanity of forcible transfer, murder and other inhumane acts92 during the offensives on Ma’arrat al-Nu’man (second half of December 2019), Ariha (29 January 2020), Atarib (between 10 and 14 February 2020) and Darat Izzah (17 February 2020)

“When civilians fled, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham pillaged their homes. In restive areas under its control, members of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham also committed the war crimes of murder; of passing sentences and carrying out executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court; and of cruel treatment, ill-treatment and torture,” said the report

Taiwan has highlighted concern for religious freedom and human rights following the Oct. 22 announcement of the renewal of the Vatican-China provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops.

The Catholic publication Crux reported that Taiwan insists the deal is not diplomatic and voicing hope it will better conditions for religious communities in the mainland.

The Vatican said on Oct 22 it had extended its controversial agreement with China over the appointment of bishops for another two years, CNN reported.

Details of the agreement have never been made public and it has been criticized by some Catholic officials as well as by U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

The Vatican was quoted by CNN as saying that the deal “is of great ecclesial and pastoral value” and said it “intends to pursue an open and constructive dialogue for the benefit of the life of the Catholic Church and the good of Chinese people.”

Officially, there are about 6 million Catholics in China.

Prior to 2018, Beijing had long insisted on having the final say on all bishop appointments in mainland China, while the Holy See maintained that only the Pope has such authority.

The announcement renewed for another two years an historic accord reached in 2018 that end a decades-old power struggle over the right to appoint bishops in China, despite concerns over religious liberty and human rights in the country, The New York Times reported.

The agreement calls for China to formally recognize the Pope’s authority within the Catholic Church and his final say over the country’s bishops.

The Vatican in turn recognized the legitimacy of bishops previously appointed by the Chinese government and excommunicated by the church.

Taiwan has a population of almost 24 million people and Christians account for only about 4 percent of the island nation’s population, but the country allows Christianity to be practiced freely.

In an Oct. 22 statement issued after the announcement of the deal’s renewal, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has kept a consistent position on the accord, and voiced hope that “it can help improve the worsening situation of religious freedom in the [People’s Republic of China].”

The ministry argued that religious freedom and human rights “have continued to deteriorate in China.”

It pointed to government measures in China aimed at “suppressing believers who resist being controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)” and which force bishops to join the CCP-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

“This so called ‘sinicization of religion‘ in the People’s Republic of China has become ‘nationalization of religion,’ even characterized by extensive CCP indoctrination,” the statement said, insisting that since China’s Communist Party dictates what happens on important matters, Catholics in the country “are facing serious challenges to their faith and conscience.”

China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province which it has pledged to retake, by force if necessary.

Taiwan’s leaders say, however, it is clearly much more than a province, arguing that it is a sovereign state.

“My main objection to the agreement is we don’t know what it is,” the American cardinal Raymond Burke, the de facto leader of critics of Pope Francis inside the church, said in a brief interview before greeting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at an event organized by the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican last month, the Times reported.

In September, Pompeo angered some of the Vatican’s top officials, including those negotiating with the Chinese, by publicly calling on the church to break off talks with China to preserve its moral standing.

The fact that he chose a conservative Christian magazine critical of Pope Francis  to air his grievances did not engender much sympathy among the church’s leaders.