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“Camp Virgin Mary.” Displaced Iraqis get Chapel in Baghdad

by on Dec 15, 2015 in Featured, Those in Need
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By Oliver Maksan

Father Luis Montes hears confession in the back of the new chapel in Baghdad’s ‘Camp Virgin Mary’; ACN photo

BAGHDAD—Father Luis Montes is glad and he has reason to be: “We have just consecrated a new chapel. It was high time that our refugees got their own small church. This gives them back a piece of the home they have lost. And the people can now go to Mass without risking their lives,” the Argentine missionary said

For five years now, the missionary, a priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, has been living in Baghdad, one of the most dangerous places on earth. “There were 128 bomb attacks in Baghdad in October alone,” he told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, adding: “It’s hardly surprising that the people are afraid of leaving their homes to go to Mass.” Father Montes is in charge of a camp housing 135 displaced Iraqi Christian families. He said: “Because of the danger it was important that the Church came to them in the camp.”

Most of the residents of the camp—which is named after the Virgin Mary—are Syriac Catholics. They fled northern Iraq when the city of Qaraqosh was overrun by ISIS in the late summer of 2014. The majority of these faithful are bent on leaving Iraq for the West. “None of them still harbor hope that they will be able to return to their hometowns. After all, there are no signs of liberation. And furthermore, the people have lost their faith in Iraq and in the Arab world general,” Father Montes explained.

The process of obtaining a visa for a Western country has only gotten harder in the wake of the Nov. 13, 2015 terror attacks in Paris. The people are living in limbo. Said Father Montes: “The people are suffering. Not all have found work here. In particular the fathers of the families feel useless. However, when I look at our people, I am still looking into happier faces than those in the West. They still have their faith in God. This supports them and fills them with confidence.”

Father Montes refers to the new chapel as “our little container church.” There will be a vigil liturgy according to the Syriac Catholic Church every Saturday night. The priest continued: “I only saw thankful faces at the consecration. It shows them that they have not been forgotten, that benefactors in the West are thinking of them.

“Every sign of solidarity is worth a great deal to them in their situation. And we are all one in the Mystical Body of Christ. What we do for each other becomes a blessing for all.

“The small church is helping the people here. The benefactors, however, and all believers are blessed by the suffering of these confessors of the Christian faith. They are the true treasure of the Church—one we have to take care of.”

A grant from Aid to the Church in Need helped fund the new chapel in ‘Camp Virgin Mary.’


Directly under the Holy Father, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action. Founded in 1947 by Father Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity,” the organization is now at work in over 145 countries throughout the world. The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 43 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide. For more information contact Michael Varenne at michael@churchinneed.org or call 718-609-0939 or fax718-609-0938. Aid to the Church in Need, 725 Leonard Street, PO Box 220384, Brooklyn, NY 11222-0384. www.churchinneed.org