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Chaldean archbishop kidnapped in Iraq found dead: church
Yahoo News ^ | March 13, 2008

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.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Culture/Society; Philosophy; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: archbishop; catholic; chaldean; iraq; iraqichristians; kidnapping; mosul
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To: Allegra
Are you over there right now? How big a deal was this in the Iraqi press?

MSM here ignored it.

41 posted on 03/13/2008 6:52:46 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: Allegra
"(they tell me "we don't want to be another Iran") and even the ones who practice (in the minority) don't follow the hatred doctrine. Those extremists are in the minority, but get the most attention because of their heinous actions.

There is no other 'doctrine". Islam is Islam. There is only one Koran and one Mohammad. Except for some minor differences between the sects, some different haddith and suras (and they kill each other over them) Islams main message is exactly the same to all Muslims when it comes to Jews, Christians and other "infidels".

42 posted on 03/13/2008 6:56:46 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Nathan Zachary

Agreed, but with respect I think your point would be clearer if you eschewed the strange phrase “Mohammedan crusades”.

They’re not sewing crosses onto their tunics after all. We should just call their actions “Jihad”, which is what they call them.


43 posted on 03/13/2008 6:57:59 AM PDT by agere_contra
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To: Allegra
"(they tell me "we don't want to be another Iran") and even the ones who practice (in the minority) don't follow the hatred doctrine. Those extremists are in the minority, but get the most attention because of their heinous actions.

There is no other 'doctrine". Islam is Islam. There is only one Koran and one Mohammad. Except for some minor differences between the sects, some different haddith and suras (and they kill each other over them) Islams main message is exactly the same to all Muslims when it comes to Jews, Christians and other "infidels".

44 posted on 03/13/2008 6:58:16 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: NYer

So sad to hear this. May his soul and the souls of the three others murdered rest in peace.


45 posted on 03/13/2008 7:02:11 AM PDT by tob2 (Recovering Democrat)
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To: Allegra
Are you over there right now? How big a deal was this in the Iraqi press?

MSM here ignored it.

46 posted on 03/13/2008 7:03:20 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: Nathan Zachary; farmer18th
I call it as I see it. I report; you decide.

But I really don't know as much as y'all do...I don't watch the news very much.

47 posted on 03/13/2008 7:04:11 AM PDT by Allegra (Posting without being logged on since 2001)
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To: ArrogantBustard
Are you over there right now?

Yep.

How big a deal was this in the Iraqi press?

I asked one of our interpreters that just now. He said they've been following the story all along and they have reported his death.

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.

48 posted on 03/13/2008 7:06:47 AM PDT by Allegra (Posting without being logged on since 2001)
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To: NYer

My his soul and the souls of the faithful departed, through the Mercy of God, rest in peace.


49 posted on 03/13/2008 7:07:06 AM PDT by Judith Anne (I have no idea what to put here. Not a clue.)
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To: farmer18th
"Does anyone have a really sensitive decibel meter for measuring the sound of the Iraqi Muslim Moderate community on this?"

Hah. Probably not. I'd like "moderate" Muslims worldwide to grow a collective pair and present a united front in condemning this atrocity. That's probably too much to expect from a group that thinks of their big guns as replacement penises.

50 posted on 03/13/2008 7:08:26 AM PDT by cake_crumb (I will criticize Obama as much and as often as I want.)
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To: conservonator; gracesdad; farmer18th

I think farmer18th identified one of the problems, which is that the current Iraqi constitution - approved by us - enshrines Islam (and sharia). This means that while the great majority of Iraqis probably do not want an Islamic state ala Iran, the nutbags who do want such a state feel that their hopes are alive because the current Iraqi constitution does not discourage it. This, I think, is one of the reasons the two Islamic factions are still slugging it out, and one of the reasons Christians are being aggressively targeted by both of these groups.

We would have been much better off (and so would the Iraqis) if we had insisted on a secular, religiously neutral constitution. There’s a toleration clause in the Iraqi constitution, but since the document starts off by declaring the primacy of Islam, that’s pretty meaningless.


51 posted on 03/13/2008 7:08:27 AM PDT by livius
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Comment #52 Removed by Moderator

To: agere_contra
You can call their murderous plundering "Jihad", but it is a crusade just the same. The word isn't exclusive. and what's with the 'sewing on crosses' dig about? You should know that the "christian crusades" as they are so often wrongly called did not have well trained armies which were required to sew a cross on their overcoats. That "cross symbol" was exclusive to armies belonging to certain rulers, not of the church.

The Crusades, of which there were many, but only three which were petitioned by the pope, were defensive in nature, a response to the Mohammadan crusades, or "jihad' if you like. They were sent to retake the holy lands. The third crusade never even materialized.

53 posted on 03/13/2008 7:09:56 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: tommix2

I really wish people would learn to separate international diplomacy from actual belief. It gets so tiresome.


54 posted on 03/13/2008 7:10:02 AM PDT by cake_crumb (I will criticize Obama as much and as often as I want.)
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To: NYer
Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho is the most recent Christian martyr, Stephen the Deacon was the first. Stephen was oppressed by the Temple Hierarchy and the Roman Empire. Christianity prevailed over them and it will prevail over Islamic jihadism.
55 posted on 03/13/2008 7:10:59 AM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (I'm here for a purpose. I know what my purpose is.)
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To: Inwoodian
"Let the next Crusade begin."

It's already begun. Against us.

56 posted on 03/13/2008 7:11:27 AM PDT by cake_crumb (I will criticize Obama as much and as often as I want.)
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To: catfish1957

Many Christians have been brutally singled out for killing...more than we are told, and more than we will ever know.

This horror is not a recent development. It has been going on for 1300+years ever since the islamic cultists went on the rampage.

It is only our officials - and we - who are clueless...or willfully and willingly going along with the butchery. It us the latter of course.

We know and we do nothing about it.


57 posted on 03/13/2008 7:11:31 AM PDT by eleni121 (Solzhenitsyn on the bombing of Serbia: "no difference whatsoever between NATO and the Nazis")
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To: Allegra
"But I really don't know as much as y'all do...I don't watch the news very much.

Nor study it appears.

58 posted on 03/13/2008 7:12:01 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: detective

It also reads as though the author is blaming coalition forces for Muslims torturing and murdering harmless priests.


59 posted on 03/13/2008 7:12:28 AM PDT by cake_crumb (I will criticize Obama as much and as often as I want.)
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To: NYer

I am very much saddened by the news.


60 posted on 03/13/2008 7:13:06 AM PDT by Biggirl (A biggirl with a big heart for God's animal creation, with 4 cats in my life as proof. =^..^=)
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