February 29, 2008 - 12:53pm
|
From:
www.kaldu.org
Archbishop Faraj Rahho
Born on: November
20, 1942
Place of Birth: Mosul, Iraq
Ordained Priest: June 10, 1965
Ordained Bishop: February 16, 2001
Status: Working in the Chaldean Diocese in Mosul
Address: Mosul, Iraq |
YahooNews Source: MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen
kidnapped the
Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul on Friday in
the northern Iraqi city and killed his driver and two
companions, police said.
"He was kidnapped in the al-Nour
district in eastern Mosul when he left a church. Gunmen
opened fire on the car, killed the other three and kidnapped
the archbishop," said provincial police spokesman
Brigadier-General Khaled Abdul Sattar.
An assistant to Cardinal Emmanuel III
Delly, the
Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad and spiritual leader of
Iraq's Catholics, said they had heard that three people had
been killed and they did not know the fate of the
archbishop, Paulos Faraj Rahho.
A number of Christian clergy have
been kidnapped or killed, and churches bombed in
Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Last June gunmen murdered Catholic
priest Ragheed Aziz Kani and three assistants in Mosul, 240
miles north of Baghdad, after stopping his car near a church
in the eastern part of the city.
The assailants dragged out the priest
and his assistants and shot them dead in an attack that was
condemned by
Pope Benedict.
A former Archbishop of Mosul, Basile
Georges Casmoussa, was kidnapped at gunpoint in 2005, but
was released after one day of captivity and said no ransom
was paid.
Chaldeans belong to a branch of the
Roman Catholic Church that practices an ancient Eastern
rite. Most of its members are in Iraq and
Syria, and they form the biggest Christian community
in Iraq.
Christians make up about 3 percent of
Iraq's 27 million, mostly Muslim, population. According to a
1987 census there were 1.4 million
Christians in Iraq, but the number now is thought to
have fallen below one million.
While violence across much of Iraq
has fallen in recent months, U.S. and Iraqi officials say
that Mosul is the last urban stronghold of
al Qaeda, which they identify as the biggest threat
to the country's security.
(Writing by Michael Holden, editing
by Tim Pearce)
