www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Interview on EWTN

Friends,

I will be interviewed this evening on the News Nightly program of Brian Patrick on EWTN here in Washington. It will be broadcast at 6 and 9 pm local time, EST. They want me to comment on the murder of the Coptic Orthodox Christians over the weekend in Libya. Does anyone have any comments that I could pass along to the worldwide audience? It needs to be very short – I will only have 2-3 minutes of airtime.

Jack

Difficult questions:

Why is it that there are not protests in the Muslim community to condemn this atrocity? And similar protests in the Muslim community to condemn the other killings by ISIS and similar groups?

Some have said that the problem is not Islamic extremism but rather poverty and lack of opportunity. Yet we do not see similar violence in the Christian and other religious communities. [Christ condemned such violence and said to turn the other cheek. In the OT we don't see a command to go forth and kill those who will not convert - we only see violence allowed in self-defense.]

America and the West have an obligation to protect those who are suffering at the hands of radical Islam.

I'd also thank Egypt President El-Sisi for beginning to condemn violence against Christians and for calling for reform within Islam.

Jack, would it be presumptuous to ask the local Latin Churches to personally make relationships with the local Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox Churches and ESPECIALLY Eastern Catholic Churches - mainly found in these areas of conflict? Many times having a personal relationship with the people who are hurting makes helping that much more immediate, as opposed to an abstract idea of people one doesn't know.

From the grassroots, can St. XY Latin Church reach out to the local Syrian Orthodox (and/or Melkite, Chaldean, Coptic, Armenian) Church, show solidarity with regular joint Evening or Morning prayer in the Syrian (Melkite, Chaldean, Coptic, Armenian) Tradition, followed by an evening of fellowship and dialogue about the suffering of the Syriac (Melkite, Chaldean, Coptic, Armenian) Church in the ME?

Can we let the people speak for themselves and give them a louder voice, instead of lecturing them e.g. Ted Cruz

If you missed the broadcast last evening, here's the link for my interview on EWTN from their YouTube archive. My part starts at about 13:00 and goes almost 4 minutes.



Jack

Excellent, Jack! (I feel that to call you by your first name is perhaps a tad disrespectful . . .).

We have a Father Figol here - any relation at all?

Alex

Thanks, Alex. And I prefer Jack, so don't worry about it.

I don't know about a close relation to Fr Figol. My grandfather come over in the late 1890's from northeast Slovakia (Rusyn territory) and settled in western PA in one of the coal mine towns. I have connected with a distant cousin, Jan Figel, who is head of the Christian Democratic Party of Slovakia, and was the Commissioner for Slovakia when they first entered the European Union.

So we spell the name the same. But since it is somewhat unique, Figol and Figel are pretty close. So maybe ...