Chaldean Archbishop found dead

[IrishAm]

Breaking News, CNN: AP: Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped in Iraq last month has been found dead, Italian bishops’ conference news agency says.

 

[Shoshana]

Breaking News, CNN: AP: Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped in Iraq last month has been found dead, Italian bishops’ conference news agency says.

Here is a news link:

03/13/2008 IRAQ
The archbishop of Mosul is dead
Bishop of Arbil: “A heavy Cross for our Church, ahead of Easter”. http://www.asianews.it/inc/templates/files/spacer.gif
asianews.it/files/img/size2/Mon._Paulo_Faraj_004.jpgMosul (AsiaNews) - The Chaldean archbishop of Mosul is dead. Archbishop Faraj Rahho was kidnapped last February 29 after the Stations of the Cross. His kidnappers have given word of his death, indicating to the mediators where they could recover the body of the 67-year-old prelate. “It is a heavy Cross for our Church, ahead of Easter”, Rabban al Qas, bishop of Arbil, tells AsiaNews in response to the…

asianews.it/main.php?l=en

 

[RShackleford]

Very sad news today.

Here is another news article from the Associated Press:

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080313/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_archbishop;_ylt=AisVz1o.H5y7jdfOz8TopVys0NUE

Archbishop kidnapped in Iraq found dead By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - The body of a Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped in Iraq last month was found just outside the northern city of Mosul, officials said Thursday.

Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was seized by gunmen in Mosul soon after he left Mass on Feb. 29. Three of his companions were killed, the latest in what church members called a series of attacks against Iraq’s small Christian community.

Monsignor Shlemon Warduni, the auxiliary bishop of Baghdad, said the church in Mosul had received a phone call from the kidnappers on Wednesday telling them the archbishop was dead. They also told church officials where they could find the body.

“We are hurt by this painful incident,” Warduni told The Associated Press.

A Mosul police officer and morgue official said Rahho’s body was found just outside the city.

It was not clear whether the kidnappers had killed the archbishop or whether he had died from health problems. A medical examiner in the morgue, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said the body had been buried and showed no signs of being shot. The examiner said Rahho might have been dead for a few days.

At the time of the kidnapping, Rabban al-Qas, the bishop of the northern Iraqi cities of Irbil and Amadiyah, said the church was concerned because Rahho had health problems, which he did not specify.

The Vatican said Pope Benedict XVI had been informed of Rahho’s death and was “deeply saddened.” Benedict called on the international community to intensify efforts to promote reconciliation in Iraq following the “tragic event,” said spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi.

“We had all kept hoping and praying for his release,” Lombardi said in a written statement. “Unfortunately the most absurd and senseless violence keeps dogging the Iraqi people, and especially the small Christian community.”

The Chaldean church is an Eastern-rite denomination that recognizes the authority of the pope and is aligned with Rome.

Chaldean Catholics comprise a tiny minority of the Iraqi population, but are the largest group among the less than 1 million Christians in the country, according to last year’s International Religious Freedom Report from the U.S. State Department.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi Christians have been targeted by Islamic extremists who label them “crusaders” loyal to U.S. troops. Churches, priests and business owned by Christians have been attacked by Islamic militants and many have fled the country.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged last fall to protect and support the Christian minority.

Benedict has frequently expressed deep concern about the plight of Christians in Iraq. Last year, he urged President Bush in a meeting to keep their safety in mind.

Although most of Iraq has seen a decrease of violence over the past six months, the U.S. military regards Mosul as the last urban stronghold of al-Qaida in Iraq, and is engaged in a campaign with Iraqi forces to root out extremists from the city 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

In a November interview with AsiaNews, a Vatican-affiliated missionary news agency, Rahho had said the situation in Mosul was not improving and “religious persecution is more noticeable than elsewhere because the city is split along religious lines.”

“Everyone is suffering from this war irrespective of religious affiliation, but in Mosul, Christians face starker choices,” he told the news agency.

At the time of his kidnapping, the Vatican said the fact that the gunmen knew Rahho had been celebrating a religious rite indicated the attack was premeditated.

 

[mschrank]

May God wipe these terrorist scum off the face of the earth!

It’s almost enough to make me want to join the Marines to kill terrorists, if I weren’t already in the Air Force. I hope I get a middle eastern language so I can help destroy these evil men.

 

[Biblioassistant]

May God wipe these terrorist scum off the face of the earth!

It’s almost enough to make me want to join the Marines to kill terrorists, if I weren’t already in the Air Force. I hope I get a middle eastern language so I can help destroy these evil men

.

If I wasn’t so old I’d join you. I know I am supposed to be forgiving and all, but I’m not. This was good man, a man of peace and he’s murdered. Well God rest his soul, and may his killers find no peace.

 

[Mirdath]

Sad

mschrank, Biblioassistant – consider a few things before you speak in the heat of the moment. What the Church has lost in an archbishop, she has gained in a martyr and an inspiration. And this ‘revenge’ talk sounds mighty odd coming from people who worship a man to whom much the same thing happened, and who preached forgiveness all the way up to his death :tsktsk:

 

[Lance]

.

If I wasn’t so old I’d join you. I know I am supposed to be forgiving and all, but I’m not. This was good man, a man of peace and he’s murdered. Well God rest his soul, and may his killers find no peace.

Don’t you know that it is George Bush’s and Israel’s fault? Islam means peace. How many times do we have to hear that and ignore the facts before we believe it?

 

[IvanKaramozov]

May God wipe these terrorist scum off the face of the earth!

It’s almost enough to make me want to join the Marines to kill terrorists, if I weren’t already in the Air Force. I hope I get a middle eastern language so I can help destroy these evil men.

Can’t you transfer your MOS to the PJ’s?

 

[Polaris]

May God wipe these terrorist scum off the face of the earth!

It’s almost enough to make me want to join the Marines to kill terrorists, if I weren’t already in the Air Force. I hope I get a middle eastern language so I can help destroy these evil men.

They are doing this because they are fighting for God, now you want to turn around and kill them because that is the right thing to do and thats what God wants you to…

Some how I do not think that is the way that God wants either side to work.

I think I will rather die with my head chopped off by the enemy saying I love you all the way to them, and hoping that witness converts rather then kill them, but hey Im old fashioned.

 

[Lance]

Can’t you transfer your MOS to the PJ’s?

I don’t know what a PJ is but many if not most Airforce MOSs don’t transfer well into ground combat units like the Marines or Army infantry.

 

[Lance]

They are doing this because they are fighting for God, now you want to turn around and kill them because that is the right thing to do and thats what God wants you to…

Some how I do not think that is the way that God wants either side to work.

I think I will rather die with my head chopped off by the enemy saying I love you all the way to them, and hoping that witness converts rather then kill them, but hey Im old fashioned.

Thank God we are not dependant on you to defend us.

 

[IvanKaramozov]

I don’t know what a PJ is but many if not most Airforce MOSs don’t transfer well into ground combat units like the Marines or Army infantry.

pararescue.com/

 

[IvanKaramozov]

Sad

mschrank, Biblioassistant – consider a few things before you speak in the heat of the moment. What the Church has lost in an archbishop, she has gained in a martyr and an inspiration. And this ‘revenge’ talk sounds mighty odd coming from people who worship a man to whom much the same thing happened, and who preached forgiveness all the way up to his death :tsktsk:

Very True

 

[Shoshana]

Sad

mschrank, Biblioassistant – consider a few things before you speak in the heat of the moment. What the Church has lost in an archbishop, she has gained in a martyr and an inspiration. And this ‘revenge’ talk sounds mighty odd coming from people who worship a man to whom much the same thing happened, and who preached forgiveness all the way up to his death :tsktsk:

I fully agree with you and very well said. I can honestly believe that the Archbishop would not be of the same sentiment that we always hear from those who are pro-war.

Revenge belongs to the Lord and no one else…

 

[mschrank]

I think I will rather die with my head chopped off by the enemy saying I love you all the way to them, and hoping that witness converts rather then kill them, but hey Im old fashioned.

You do that, and I’ll go out with guns blazing hoping to kill as many as possible so they can’t do the same to others.

Seriously whats loving your neighbor, doing nothing and hoping for yourself to go to heaven, or killing the terrorist and saving other’s lives.

I guess this thread will get shut down now for going off topic. Verbotensprachen and all.

 

[Della]

What our military, already in Iraq, is trying to do is bring the terrorists to justice. The sort of people who kidnap a religious leader and hold him for ransom and don’t get him the medical care he needs while their prisoner should stand trial for their crimes.

Unfortunately, they are not going to just give up and hand themselves over. They are going to keep on killing innocent people, Muslim and Christian alike, until they achieve their goal–to turn Iraq into an oppressive state made in their own image.

Al-Queda will keep on trying to bomb us, kill us, do whatever it takes to destroy us. They are the ones who set the standards for the kind of world they want, just like the Nazis, and they must be stopped. That is our duty and responsibility. Their souls I leave in God’s merciful hands.

 

[Aramis]

Don’t you know that it is George Bush’s and Israel’s fault? Islam means peace. How many times do we have to hear that and ignore the facts before we believe it?

More correctly, Islam means more akin to the peace of submission.
Muslim means “they who Submit”

And muslims have been killing christians for their warped Allah since Mohammed commanded them to.

There can be no lasting peace with islam; it can neither tolerate nor welcome other religious flavors.

As one muslim explained it to me: Christian laymen are not considered infidels unless they spread the christian gospel. But all christian clerics are considered infidel since they teach contradictions to the Quran, and thus are teaching “lies”, and must be stopped.

George Bush had little to do with muslim aggression against Christian clerics.

May the Lord grant to his Hieromartyr Paulo Eternal Memory!
May the Lord reach the hearts of the muslims and show them the errors of Islam and their way of it.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

I don’t know what a proper response to this evil is precisely but I hope that you will send a note of condolence, encouragement, and respect to our Chaldean brothers and sisters.

Here is what I sent to some of our Chaldean friends:

Dear friends,

Since our meeting last fall with you and Bishop Ibrahim I have often had the Church of Iraq in my prayers. My heart is broken over the murder of your beloved Archbishop Faraj Rahoo of Mosul. We pray for your loss but rejoice with you for his faithful service to God and His beloved people. Since he was a martyr we pray to Archbishop Faraj Rahoo that he remember us to our Lord and Savior.

Carson D. Lauffer

Here are some places you might send a note and for whom you might pray.

The Detroit Diocese of the Chaldean Catholic Church

Chaldeandiocese-Detroit@comcast.net

An organization with a newsletter

info@chaldean.org

The head of the Assyrian support group

jtamraz@hotmail.com

CDL

 

[Polaris]

You do that, and I’ll go out with guns blazing hoping to kill as many as possible so they can’t do the same to others.

Seriously whats loving your neighbor, doing nothing and hoping for yourself to go to heaven, or killing the terrorist and saving other’s lives.
l.

Protect? protect who?

And what about the children of the ones you kill? Will they just blame you, no they will go after your children. You are not saving anyone. You are just going to continue this cycle, and the killing will continue.

This war has been going on for how many hundreds of years? How is recipricol killing going to stop it?

Where does your hope for peace reside? Your only hope is to kill every Islamic follower. No thank you. Ill try the way that original won the middle east and north africa and not the way that lost it.
In the beggining of this church we were persecuted and whole families were executed, they did not fight back. Yet we still grew, and many a romans and arabs converted by our witness of love, of God and them. I respect them even today and was a support reason for my conversion.

This Archbishop died with honor not with intent to kill but to save others. He knew he was in danger. Did he go around order killings? No, he went with love. You have no such intent, you want revenge. You are his exact oppisite.

 

[Polaris]

I don’t know what a proper response to this evil is precisely but I hope that you will send a note of condolence, encouragement, and respect to our Chaldean brothers and sisters.

Here is what I sent to some of our Chaldean friends:

Dear friends,

Since our meeting last fall with you and Bishop Ibrahim I have often had the Church of Iraq in my prayers. My heart is broken over the murder of your beloved Archbishop Faraj Rahoo of Mosul. We pray for your loss but rejoice with you for his faithful service to God and His beloved people. Since he was a martyr we pray to Archbishop Faraj Rahoo that he remember us to our Lord and Savior.

Carson D. Lauffer

Here are some places you might send a note and for whom you might pray.

The Detroit Diocese of the Chaldean Catholic Church

Chaldeandiocese-Detroit@comcast.net

An organization with a newsletter

info@chaldean.org

The head of the Assyrian support group

jtamraz@hotmail.com

CDL

Thank you for this.
I will be sure to send my prays and condolences.
I respect him from what I am reading about him.