The bells of a church in Bartella rang out last week for the first time since 2014. That was the year ISIS captured the town which lies 13 miles to the east of Mosul in northern Iraq. When the black-clad fighters entered Bartella they tore down crosses, hung their flags from church walls and ordered the few remaining Christians to either convert, pay an extortionate tax or face “death by the sword”.
No one, sadly, will have heard the bells of Bartella in the streets of Mosul. Currently residents of Iraq’s second city can only hear the hellish din of war: missiles, mortars, suicide bombs and bullets. As Pope Francis put it in his Angelus address on Sunday, “Our souls are shaken by the brutal acts of violence that are being committed for too long against innocent citizens, whether Muslims or Christians.”
