Posted on 03/13/2008 5:56:58 AM PDT by NYer
A Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped last month in northern Iraq has been found dead, the information service of the Italian Catholic Church said Thursday.
The body of Paulos Faraj Rahho, the archbishop of Mosul, was found near the northern city, the Church said, quoting the auxiliary archbishop of Baghdad, Shlemon Warduni.
"We recovered his body near Mosul," Warduni said, according to the Church's news agency SIR. "The kidnappers had buried him."
Rahho was kidnapped on February 29 in Mosul after a deadly shootout in which three of his companions were killed.
Iraqi forces in Mosul had fanned out to search for Rahho, whose abduction was branded as "atrocious" by Pope Benedict XVI.
Rahho was the latest in a long line of Chaldean clerics to be abducted in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003. Two priests were kidnapped in the city in October, and last June a priest and three deacons were attacked in front of their church.
Iraq's Christians, with the Chaldean sect by far the largest community, were said to number as many as 800,000 before the 2003 invasion.
Associated with the "Crusader" invaders and regarded as well-off, they are now victims of sectarian cleansing, killings and kidnappings at the hands of both Sunni and Shiite Islamists, as well as criminal gangs.
We must pray for the soul of Christ’s servant and martyr, Archbishop Rahho, please remember him in your thoughts.
We must also continue to pray for his murderers and all those who persecute others and the Church, as Christ himself said in the Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 5: 43-48).
“In World War II, we destroyed Fascism and Emperor-Worshiping Feudalism. Remember? We didn’t replace a regime and then leave the disease in place.”
We breathlessly await your plan for ridding the world of more than 1 billion Muslims spread out through nearly every country around the globe.
In regard to the Jews of Iran. There were about 100,000 at the time the Islamic radicals took over. I believe the number of Jews in Iran now is about 25,000.
They arrived in Persia some 500 years before the birth of Christ.
“Deport them from Western countries and don’t pretend Islam and the West will ever co-exist.”
Deporting American citizens because of their religion (including two congressmen)? Gonna have to rewrite the the Bill of Rights, I guess. Good luck with that one.
Now I await your plan for walling off every Muslim country to keep all Muslims inside.
We also get translated news from various Iraqi print media so that we can follow what they're saying and they've given this pretty objective coverage."
It's the stuff like that, that one will not find much anywhere, but from folks like you.
You are a treasure.
Islamo-fascism is on the move. It is taking the lives of people throughout the world. (Meantime, as we speak; our Demrats on holding up National Security so as to serve the 'greater good' of our enemy-appeasing Left.)
Respect for minorities is implicit in the Constitution.
No, I confess I know nothing about the Copts, except for the fact that their culture has existed in an "Islamic" country for the past 1300 years or so. Your implication that Islam systematically annihalates any people that don't submit to Allah appears to be refuted by the mere existence of minority faiths in Islamic regions.
Minority groups in every culture have extreme disadvantages. Even in the most enlightened western democracies minority rights are often ignored and abused. We need not look very far to recognize that reality.
It has been a long time since I have read about Cordoba, Spain in the 12th and 13th centuries, but it has been often used as a model to make the case for toleration. In its prime, Cordoba was at the apex of civilization, the seat of high culture and scientific progress. The fact that it was governed by caliphs is the exception to your rule, but probably not the only one.
Isn't there a Jew that has a seat in the assembly of the Islamic Republic of Iran? It would be interesting to learn how Jews are actually treated there and what religious freedoms they actually enjoy, because an actual Islamic theocracy might be a good place to learn how a stable Islamic government would really treat its minorities.
Prayers for the archbishop and may the Lord Jesus give him rest.
I assume a statement condemning his murder will be forthcoming from CAIR...but you’ll excuse me if I don’t hold my breath waiting for it.
What I'm saying is that just because people are born into Islam doesn't necessarily mean they are followers.
I can't speak for wacko-extremist countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, but Iraq has been relatively secular for decades and as a result, there are a lot of "non-practicing" Muslims. Most of them believe in God, but many have disdained some of the tenets and do not go to the mosques. It is not unusual to meet Iraqis who enjoy alcoholic beverages and some even eat pork. (I know a few who simply cannot resist bacon.) You can buy pork at many of the butcher shops in Baghdad.
One of the struggles over the past few years has been the desire of Iran's puppets to impose Islamic rule in Iraq, but the people are resisting and are now gaining traction on that.
Christians, Sunnis and Shiites lived alongside each other here for years without any trouble. The trouble started when Iran's mullahs and their puppets like Moqtada al Sadr started stirring things up.
MARTYR....PRAYERS!!
Amen.
I remember seeing an interview with a young Kuwaiti man prior to the invasion. Asked his opinion about toppling Saddam, he replied how an open border with Iraq would give him access to booze and Saddam's casinos. Not the expected reply about what a threat and how evil Saddam is. Most folks in the world aren't particularly religious or even political. That is the real categorical imperative that we have to be aware of in our dealings with other cultures.
Did you ever hear of the Hero of the Spanish Reconquista named 'El Cid'? Are you aware that he spent most of his adult life fighting FOR Moorish rulers and AGAINST Christian rulers? Without going into the politics of 13th century Spain, if the Moors had been as tyrannical as you imply either he would not have fought for them or he wouldn't be the greatest hero of Medieval Spain.
It's too frightening for most people to face, but Jesus had harsh words for the lukewarm. With God, it's all or nothing.
God save the Christians in Iraq.
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