MOSUL - Gunmen murdered a Catholic priest and three assistants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which Pope Benedict condemned as a ‘senseless killing’.Iraqi police said Chaldean Catholic priest Ragheed Aziz Kani and his assistants were killed near the church of Rouh Al Quds after leading Sunday prayers in eastern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad on Sunday. Police sources said gunmen stopped Kani’s car, dragged him and his assistants out and shot them dead.
Iraqi sources say Al Qaeda-inspired militants are behind the attacks against Christians in Mosul, a religiously and ethnically mixed city of around 3 million people. It is also home to ethnic Kurds, Shias and Sunni Arabs, as well as some Turkmen and Christians.
In a telegram sent on his behalf to Mosul’s bishop of the Chaldean Rite Catholics on Monday, Pope Benedict said he was ‘deeply saddened’. The Pope paid tribute to the ‘costly sacrifice’ of those killed and prayed that their deaths would ‘inspire in the hearts of all men and women of goodwill a renewed resolve to reject the ways of hatred and violence.’
| Um, sure, your Holiness, we'd all like to see that; in the meantime bless the Marines and soldiers who go in harms way to protect the flock. |