The Melkite Catholic Church to which Msgr. Jeanbart belongs are Byzantine Catholics who speak Arabic. Back in August his residence was plundered by Islamic terrorists.

Were these anti-Assad insurgents supplied with weapons and communications equipment by Western intelligence agencies conniving with the Saudi and Turkish secret services? If so, then that is symptomatic of the spiritual vacuum in Western intelligence that Islamic Jihadists are not slow in exploiting.

A naive, de-Christianised Western mindset assumes that activists in a Muslim country who oppose a dictatorship, whether Gaddafi's or Assad's, are pro-democracy. That simply does not follow. It is not very democratic to attack an elderly Christian minister in his home.

Unless and until Western governments, including their intelligence agencies, are able to appreciate the spiritual and moral difference between Islam and Christianity, then they are suckers for anti-democratic, anti-Christian Jihadist protest movements in Arab countries such as Syria.

One shudders to think what would happen to the Lord Jesus Christ's people in Aleppo if Syria became a hard-line Islamist theocracy.

Julian Mann is vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire, UK. He blogs as Cranmer's Curate