By Cathy Burke From Newsmax

Pressure from outraged Newsmax TV viewers and others has forced the State Department to reverse course and grant a visa allowing an Iraqi nun into the United States to speak out about “Christian genocide” in the Middle East, author Johnnie Moore revealed Friday on “Newsmax Prime.”

In an interview with host J.D. Hayworth, Moore credited Newsmax TV viewers with helping to put enormous pressure on the Obama administration to allow Dominican Sister Diana Momeka to come to Washington to talk about the persecution of Christians in her war-torn nation.

“Newsmax made the first call to contact government officials, and I’m absolutely convinced that we wouldn’t have seen the response that we saw had Newsmax not stepped up. I’m incredibly grateful for what you did,” Moore said.

NewsmaxTV and Newsmax.com first revealed the story of Sister Diana last week after the State Department refused to grant the Catholic nun a visa to enter the US.

That set Newsmax viewers and readers into motion.

“We told you about Sister Diana, a Catholic nun in Iraq originally denied a visa by our State Department. In turn you reached out to your congressmen, senators — I understand some of you even called and emailed the White House,” Hayworth said in introducing Moore on Newsmax Prime.

Moore became one of the nun’s most vocal backers and worked to rally public opinion to pressure the State Department for a reversal.

“It worked — people raised their voices. They wrote their congressmen and senators, they put pressure on everybody, everywhere,” said Moore, author of “Defying ISIS: Preserving Christianity in the Place of Its Birth and in Your Own Backyard.”

“She has been approved…. It’s exhibit A of what happens when people in this country start raising their voices.”

Sister Diana, who’s worked among the internally displaced persons in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil since tens of thousands of Christians were forced to take refuge there last summer, was initially refused a visa because State Department officials found her lacking “ties that will compel you to return to your home country after your travel to the United States.”

“Because of people that watch this program and … others like them, there can be one unquestionable thing,” Moore said, and that is that the government heard “loud and clear that Americans care about this issue and Christian persecution will continue unless we keep doing this.”

“I commend everyone that raised their voices, and I beg and plead with them, don’t stop. We have to stop this Christian genocide,” he added.

Among those enraged by the State Department’s rejection was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who told Newsmax there should be a congressional investigation if there was not a reversal of the visa denial.

“This is an administration which never seems to find a good enough excuse to help Christians, but always finds an excuse to apologize for terrorists … I hope that as it gets attention that Secretary [of State John] Kerry will reverse it,” Gingrich told Newsmax. “If he doesn’t, Congress has to investigate, and the person who made this decision ought to be fired.”

Moore said the visa denial puzzled Sister Diana, too.

“When I met Sister Diana in Iraq late last year … she said, ‘I don’t understand you Americans.’ She said, ‘I’ve lived in America, I love America, but why are you so silent in the face of our genocide?'” Moore said.

Moore said Sister Diana will likely arrive in the United States “within the next 10 days” to meet with members of Congress and conduct interviews.

“She’ll be giving a first-hand account of what [the Islamic State] ISIS has done and what [she and others are] doing to take care of those who have been imperiled by it,” he said.

But Moore decried how long it took to persuade the State Department to rectify its initial decision.

“I remain incredibly frustrated that it took this much effort and we had to spend this much time and energy rallying thousands and thousands of people for something so simple and so sensible,” he said.

For more on this story and video go to:
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Johnnie-Moore-nun-granted-visa/2015/05/08/id/643594/#ixzz3ZemnIra0
IMAGE: sanityandsocialjustice.net
With malice toward nun

By Nina Shea From National Review

Sister Diana wants to tell Americans about ISIS persecution of Christians in Iraq, but the State Department won’t let her in.

Why is the United States barring a persecuted Iraqi Catholic nun — an internationally respected and leading representative of the Nineveh Christians who have been killed and deported by ISIS — from coming to Washington to testify about this catastrophe?

Earlier this week, we learned that every member of an Iraqi delegation of minority groups, including representatives of the Yazidi and Turkmen Shia religious communities, has been granted visas to come for official meetings in Washington — save one. The single delegate whose visitor visa was denied happens to be the group’s only Christian from Iraq.

Sister Diana Momeka of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena was informed on Tuesday by the U.S. consulate in Erbil that her non-immigrant-visa application has been rejected. The reason given in the denial letter, a copy of which I have obtained, is: ‘You were not able to demonstrate that your intended activities in the United States would be consistent with the classification of the visa.’

She told me in a phone conversation that, to her face, consular officer Christopher Patch told her she was denied because she is an “IDP” or Internally Displaced Person. “That really hurt,” she said. Essentially, the State Department was calling her a deceiver.

The State Department officials made the determination that the Catholic nun could be falsely asserting that she intends to visit Washington when secretly she could be intending to stay. That would constitute illegal immigration, and that, of course, is strictly forbidden. Once here, she could also be at risk for claiming political asylum, and the U.S. seems determined to deny ISIS’s Christian victims that status.

In reality, Sister Diana wanted to visit for one week in mid-May. She has meetings set up with the Senate and House foreign-relations committees, the State Department, USAID, and various NGOs. In support of her application, Sister Diana had multiple documents vouching for her and the temporary nature of her visit. She submitted a letter from her prioress, Sister Maria Hana. It attested that the nun has been gainfully employed since last February with the Babel College of Philosophy and Theology in Erbil, Kurdistan, and is contracted to teach there in the 2015–16 academic year.

She, along with the town’s 50,000 other, mostly Christian, residents, fled for their lives from ISIS during the second week of August. She also submitted an invitation from her sponsors, two highly respected Washington-area institutions, the Institute for Global Engagement and former congressman Frank Wolf’s (R., Va.) 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative. For good measure, she also had a letter of endorsement for her visit from Representative Anna Eshoo (D., Calif.).

The State Department wasn’t buying. It either thought that they were all in on a scheme by the nun or that Sister Diana was plotting to deceive her well-placed friends and supporters, as well as the U.S. government.

Until ISIS stormed into Qaraqosh last August, Sister Diana had a distinguished academic career and had been teaching an intensive course on spiritual direction at St. Ephrem Seminary, as well as English and peacemaking courses. She, along with the town’s 50,000 other, mostly Christian, residents, fled for their lives from ISIS during the second week of August. Since then, the 30-something religious woman has served as a spokesperson for this community, as well as for the over 100,000 other Christians driven into Kurdistan under the ISIS “convert or die” policy. Through this, she has become internationally known as a charismatic and articulate advocate for religious freedom and human rights. Mr. Wolf, who met her in Kurdistan a few months ago, explained, “We had hoped to facilitate her trip to the States so that she could speak with great candor, as is her custom, to policymakers. Perhaps just as significantly, we viewed her as a critical voice to awaken the church in the West to the suffering of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq.”

But in the eyes of the U.S. consulate, she is just another Christian IDP. (Last October a delegation of IDP Yazidis were given U.S. visas to come to Washington to speak.)

Adding insult to injury: In its 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, issued this week, the State Department pledged that “every overseas post and domestic bureau will seek opportunities to engage religious leaders,” as part of its pursuit of countering “violent extremism.” Opportunities to engage with everyone, that is, except Catholic nuns in Iraq — all of whom are now IDPs.

— Nina Shea is director of Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.

For more on this story go to: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417679/malice-toward-nun-nina-shea