The decline of Christianity in the lands where Christ walked is not a new crisis. There has been a slow drain for decades. But the exodus intensified at the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003 and has hit overdrive since the Arab Spring in 2010. Where 100 years ago Christians comprised 20 per cent of the Middle East population, today they might constitute four per cent.

Popular revolutions to topple repressive regimes have had the unforeseen effect of giving flame to anti-Christian resentment that has smouldered in the region for generations. As a result of relentless persecution, Christians have been fleeing by the thousands to find safer and better lives for their families. A tipping point towards the virtual extinction of Christianity in the region will come soon — if it hasn’t been reached already — unless a way is found to end the discrimination and persecution, often violent, faced daily by Christians in large, predominantly Muslim countries such as Egypt, Iraq and Syria.

That looming scenario — a Holy Land without Christians — provided the backdrop as Pope Francis declared solidarity with Middle East Christians at a meeting with the region’s religious leaders Nov. 21 at the Vatican.

“At times, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and other areas of the Holy Land flow with tears,” Francis said. He acknowledged the dangers constantly faced by these believers and sympathized with their fear, suffering and desire to resettle their families in safe lands. Yet, he added, “we cannot resign ourselves to thinking of a Middle East without Christians who, for 2,000 years, have professed the name of Jesus.”

But a Holy Land virtually without Christians is exactly what is coming unless Western governments pay more than lip service to the crisis. The Arab Spring was supposed to bring human rights and democracy. Instead it has unleashed religious intolerance that, although not exclusive to Christians, is driving Christians from ancestral lands occupied for two millennia.

After the Pope met with the patriarch of Jerusalem and the patriarchs of the Coptic, Syrian, Melkite, Maronite, Chaldean and Armenian Churches, Francis declared that he “will not be at peace” as long as persecution continues to force Christians in the Holy Land to become religious refugees.

But unfortunately this is not a problem the Pope can solve alone. He can prod and persuade but a real solution requires intervention from sympathetic world leaders.

But so far those leaders have responded as if they wish the problem would just go away. Much like the Christians in the Holy Land.