The Archbishop of Mosul and the suffering of Iraq’s Catholics

The Chaldean Catholics have been suffering the brunt of the blowback from the American invasion.

Provincial police spokesman Brigadier-General Khaled Abdul Sattar, a witness, indicated “gunmen opened fire on the car, killed the other three and kidnapped the archbishop.”

The saintly Archbishop has not been heard from since.

The outcry from the Holy See to this act of barbarism was swift, strong, impassioned and has remained constant. Pope Benedict XVI immediately referred to this kidnapping as a “deplorable act, which is a powerful blow to the whole Church in the country”.

One could freely practise Christianity in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the kind of country radical Muslims hated. The archbishop is from the country’s biggest church.

From M.J. Ernst-Sandoval.