Rome, Italy,  (CNA/EWTN News).- Western military aid to Syrian rebels could prove disastrous for the country, according to the Damascus-based head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.

“It is time now to have some accord,” Patriarch Gregorios III told CNA on March 15, “and not to arm the opposition, not to attack the regime.”

There is a window of opportunity, he said, to “call both sides” to negotiate and prevent a civil war. But if this opportunity passes, “it will be more difficult because the opposition will be united, maybe more armed, and then more blood. Then it is finished.”

“In order to avoid this very, very sorrowful, very dark end, let us go the way of concord, of dialogue.”

The Eastern Catholic leader spoke to CNA shortly after he met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, to discuss the Church’s prospects in the midst of a conflict that is drawing worldwide attention.

That same day, the Patriarch confirmed that Pope Benedict would be visiting Lebanon from Sept. 14-16, with the possibility of a stop in Syria “if the situation improves.”

Syrian Christians and other religious minorities are concerned about what the future may hold, if the regime of President Bashar al-Assad collapses. The worst-case scenario is a power struggle between different Muslim groups, as has occurred in Iraq.

But Patriarch Gregorios believes there are alternatives to a sudden regime change that could plunge the country into chaos. He is also convinced that the Church can help the cause of peace in the “shaken Arab world” at large.

— Carl Anderson is CEO of the Knights of Columbus

he topic of religious liberty has been in the headlines a great deal recently, and in two weeks it will be on the big screen as well.

Years in the making, the film For Greater Glory tells the story, which has been all but forgotten, of the Mexican government’s persecution of the Catholic Church. It is a story of exiled bishops, murdered priests, and eventually a civil war: a war fought over religious freedom.

Americans of all faiths should watch this film. And they should thank God that they live in the United States, in a country ruled by law, where our differences are decided in courtrooms and with ballots rather than bullets.

Threats to religious freedom everywhere have certain similarities. A government attempts to take away from its people a fundamental right. It attempts to redefine how its people can think. In Mexico in the late Teens and Twenties, enforcement of the laws was violent, and violence begot more violence, and soon the entire country was engulfed in a civil war.

Nearly nine decades later, in the United States, a country that functions under the rule of law, we will protect our rights very differently. When people of faith in the United States respond to government intrusion into our First Amendment right of the free exercise of religion, we do so with civility, and with the knowledge that courts and elections have power to effect change.

For Greater Glory is a stark reminder that not every country has the stability, meaningful enfranchisement, and legal recourse that we enjoy here in the United States.

Mexico in the early 20th century was a turbulent place. Governments and revolutions came and went — violently and frequently. But the Catholic faith, to which the overwhelming majority of Mexicans adhered, held the country together.

Then in 1924 the Mexican government moved to suppress that faith. With the election of Plutarco Eliás Calles as president, it began to enforce anti-Catholic provisions of the 1917 constitution that had mostly been in abeyance until then. One of the government’s first assaults on religious liberty was its attempt to control who could serve as clergy. Foreign priests were expelled — or killed. Clergy were required to register with the government, which reserved the right to determine who counted as a priest.

Next came the move to ban religion from public view. Citizens were told they could “worship” freely, but privately. Priests who wore clerical attire outside their churches or rectories faced large fines. A priest who criticized the government could be jailed for five years, and priests were arrested or killed just for serving their flocks. Catholic organizations, with the blessing of their bishops, started resisting — peacefully at first, but then with arms when they were attacked. The violence snowballed, and soon Mexico was in the grip of a civil war.