Pope Holds Mass for Iraqi Martyr Bishop and Makes Remarks

Two Significant articles on the Death of the Bishop in Iraq and the Pope's response. These pics as well as the articles I am getting from the Ratzinger Forum here. Needless to say I suspect the question of Iraqi Christian security will be talked about when the Holy Father meets with the President in a few weeks. If the Vatican releases a full translation of the Holy Father's remarks I shall update here.

Vatican City, 17 March (AdnKronos) - Pope Benedict XVI says the death of the Iraqi Chaldean bishop Paulos Faraj Rahho should provide an opportunity for fresh dialogue between Christians and Muslims in the war-torn country.

Celebrating a mass in honor of Rahho at the Vatican on Monday, the Pontiff said the bishop's sacrifice is a model "for all Iraqis of good will - Christians and Muslims - to build a lawful and humane society with mutual understanding".


Chaldean priests and nuns, as well as the Vatican's secretary of state attended the mass, celebrated in the small Redemptoris Mater chapel inside the Vatican.

During the mass, Benedict encouraged Iraqi Christians "not to lose hope in the difficult situation in which they live" and prayed for Rahho to help them "have a better future."

Rahho was kidnapped on 29 February outside his church in a shootout that led to the deaths of his driver and two bodyguards.

His body was found in a shallow grave on Thursday in Kremlis, which lies about 28 kilometres east of Mosul.

It is not clear whether he was killed, or died of natural causes. Nobody has claimed responsibility for his death.

Before the US invasion in March 2003, there were an estimated 800,000 Christians in Iraq.

Some estimates suggest that the number has now halved.



ARCHBISHOP RAHHO:
MAN OF PEACE AND DIALOGUE
VATICAN CITY, 17 MAR 2008 (VIS) - The Pope celebrated a Mass this morning at the Redemptoris Mater Chapel for the soul of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mossul of the Chaldeans, Iraq, who died in tragic circumstances following his kidnapping on 29 February.

The Pope spoke of his closeness to the members of the "beloved Church which suffers, believes and prays in Iraq" and expressed the hope that "in the faith they may find the strength not to lose heart in the difficult situation they are experiencing".

The Holy Father then went on to recall the liturgy of Holy Week which presents the last days of Jesus' earthly life.

"Those hours", he said, were marked by a clear "contrast between truth and lies, between the mildness and rectitude of Christ and the violence and dishonesty of His enemies".

The Lord "felt the approach of His violent death, He felt the net of His persecutors tightening around Him, ... the anguish and fear, up to the crucial moment in Gethsemane". But Christ "experienced all this immersed in communion with the Father and comforted by the 'anointing' of the Holy Spirit".

The Pope referred to the Gospel reading on the anointing of Christ in Bethany, in enumerating Archbishop Rahho's own "anointings" during his life, from Baptism and Confirmation to his Ordination as a priest and then bishop.

"But I am also thinking", he went on, "of the many 'anointings' of filial affection and spiritual friendship ... which his faithful gave him and which accompanied him in the terrible hours of his kidnapping and his painful detention (where perhaps he was already wounded when he arrived), and even unto his agony, his death and that unworthy grave where his mortal remains were found.

"Those sacramental and spiritual anointings were a guarantee of resurrection, a guarantee of the true and full life that the Lord Jesus came to give us", he added.

On today's reading from the Prophet Isaia about the Servant of the Lord who will 'bring, proclaim and establish justice', the Pope obsserved that the Servan,t "faced with an unjust condemnation bears witness to the truth, remain(ed) faithful to the law of love".

"On this path, Archbishop Rahho took up his cross and followed the Lord Jesus, thus he contributed to bringing justice to his martyred country and to the whole world, bearing witness to the truth. He was a man of peace and dialogue ... with a particular fondness for the poor and the disabled. ... May his example sustain all Iraqis of good will, Christians and Muslims, to build peaceful coexistence founded on human fraternity and mutual respect.

"Over these days, in profound union with the Chaldean community in Iraq and abroad, we have wept his death and the inhuman way in which he was compelled to end his earthly life. But today in this Eucharist ... we wish to give thanks to God for all the good He achieved in Archbishop Rahho. ... At the same time, we hope that, from heaven, he may intercede with the Lord to obtain for the faithful in that sorely-tried land the courage to continue to work for a better future".