The Martyr of Mosul
On April 1—Palm Sunday—after bullets were fired into the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul, Iraq, during mass, the pastor, Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean Catholic, e-mailed friends at the Asia Times:
"We empathize with Christ, who entered Jerusalem in full knowledge that the consequence of His love for mankind was the cross. Thus, while bullets smashed our church windows, we offered our suffering as a sign of love for Christ."
The attacks continued. Father Ragheed wrote again: "Each day we wait for the decisive attack, but we will not stop celebrating mass; we will do it underground, where we are safer. I am encouraged in this decision by the strength of my parishioners. This is war, real war, but we hope to carry our cross to the very end with the help of Divine Grace."
As the bombings in Mosul and Baghdad rose during April and May, and priests were kidnapped, Father Ragheed grew weary. In his last e-mail, May 28, he wrote, "We are on the verge of collapse."
A day before, Pentecost Sunday, a bomb exploded in his church, and Father Ragheed seemed dispirited: "In a sectarian and confessional Iraq, will there be any space for Christians? We have no support, no group who fights for our cause; we are abandoned in the midst of the disaster. Iraq has already been divided. It will never be the same. What is the future of our church?"
Though tempted by despair, Father Ragheed did not give up hope.
"I may be wrong, but I am certain about one thing—one single fact that is always true: that the Holy Spirit will enlighten people so that they will work for the good of humanity, in this world so full of evil."
Following mass on Trinity Sunday, a week after Pentecost Sunday, Father Ragheed and three sub-deacons were seized, taken away and murdered. Their killers placed vehicles loaded with explosives around the bodies so no one would dare approach them.
The story of "The Last Mass of Father Ragheed, a Martyr of the Chaldean Church," is related by Sandro Magister of www.Chiesa.
Father Ragheed had completed his studies in Rome in 2003, Magister writes, and returned full of hope. "That is where I belong, that is my place," he said of Iraq. "Saddam has fallen, we have elected a government, we have voted for a constitution."
Since 2003, an immense tragedy has befallen the Iraqi Christians. In 2000, Chaldeans, Syro-Catholics, Syro-Orthodox, Assyrians from the East, Catholic and Orthodox Armenians, and Greek-Melkites together numbered 1.5 million. Today, perhaps 500,000 remain. Hundreds of thousands have found sanctuary in Syria and Jordan, tens of thousands in Egypt and Lebanon. Among the refugees are many of Iraq's professionals—doctors and teachers who could have helped build a better future for all in Iraq.
The region around Mosul and Nineveh, writes Magister, is the "cradle of Christianity in Iraq. There are churches and monasteries that go back to the earliest centuries. . . . Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is used in the liturgies."
As the war has dragged on, life has become hellish for the remaining Christians. Yet they have never resorted to bombings or assassinations.
Father Ragheed is neither the first nor last of the Iraqi martyrs.
After Pope Benedict gave his speech in Regensburg, Germany, touching on Islam, Father Paulos Iskander was kidnapped and beheaded in retaliation by the "Lions of Islam." Father Joseph Petros was murdered. A Catholic nun told the Vatican news agency: "The imams preach in the mosques that it is not a crime to kill Christians. It is a hunting of men."
In May, St. George's Assyrian Church in the Dora neighborhood, a Christian enclave of Baghdad, was burned down, destroying what had survived a firebombing in 2004. The Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) reports it was the 27th church destroyed by Muslim gangs since the liberation of Iraq.
Now the ancient practice of the jizya—the "head tax" Muslims have traditionally imposed on Christians, Jews and religious minorities—is being reinstituted. According to AINA, "Al-Qaida is demanding that Christians pay 250,000 dinars (around $200) for the right to remain in their own homes, a sum equivalent to an average month's salary in Iraq."
All this, and the news of Father Ragheed's murder, moved Benedict XVI to raise the issue with President Bush.
For when Bush left the Vatican, he told reporters: "He (the pope) is worrisome about the Christians inside Iraq being mistreated by the Muslim majority. . . . He was concerned that the society that was evolving would not tolerate the Christian religion."
For the martyrdom of Christianity in its birth cradle, blame must fall heavily upon the men who conceived this misbegotten war.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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Bush II, executive secretary of the neocons, soon will have singlehandedly eliminated the use and knowledge of Aramaic, the native tongue and family language of Jesus the Christ. What a Christian!
What heritage will be lost forever from an attack on Iran?
Pat mentions the ancient Catholic communities which were rarely mentioned before the war . Some of these parishes date to the Apostles. The Chaldean rite is the most ancient liturgical rite existing in the Christian world. From 1.5 million before the war to 700,00 --500,000 today. Who is the beneficiary of this loss ? Were these communities of any concern to the neo-cons before the war? Where are the water-bearers like Mr. Wiegel (the name dropper) or the other Catholic writers who live in fear of being anything but 'NICE" ? Wiegel made big bucks off JPII's charity and generous access and then headed for the tall grass when the Holy Father asked for Catholics to keep their head when everyone else was losing theirs. Buchanan is twice the servant that those who despise him will ever be.
Frank,
The heritage to be lost in attacking Iran is ours: our understanding of a just war, our understanding of the rule of law, our understanding of the worth of human life. We attack a country which has not attacked us. We attack a country which is no threat to us. In the process, we kill thousands of innocents, destroy any viable opposition in Iran, and provide the energy for an escalation of violence which will kill our children and our grand children. For the Christians among us who attempt to also be patriotic Americans, it must ultimately mean a bifurcation of our loyalties; for we cannot serve the Christ of Peace and, at the same time, Mars, the god of war. We will have left our first Love and will have gone whoring after another god. Some Christians among us already whore after Molech (Molach) as millions of the unborn are offered on his altars.
Also, there are about 300,000 Christians in Iran, some of whom trace their origins back to conversions of their ancestors at Pentecost. They have survived Zoroastrianism, the invasion of the Mongols, the Iranian (Persian) state, and Shia Islam. They, like their counterparts in Iraq, will certainly bear the brunt of the blowback after a U.S. attack as Iran predictably radicalizes after such an attack.
It is again evident that all Christians: Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant should pull together and find common ground.
Don
Don,
I agree, and I think at least one common ground would be to recognize the Christians who live in the middle east and to recognize their plight .
" We have no support, no group who fights for our cause; we are abandoned in the midst of the disaster.' wrote Father Ragheed days before his murder.
A large number of Americans would no doubt wonder why this is true ? Why is not at least a part of America's cause their cause ? Why, in your words, are not "all Christians: Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants not pulling together and finding common ground." for these people ?
And as if to answer the question, Mr. Buchanan concludes :
" For the martyrdom of Christianity in its birth cradle, blame must fall heavily upon the men who conceived this misbegotten war."
Rohil,
The anger is justified but not the proposals. It would be a dishonor to the martydoms to distract from them with more hype and outrageous responses.
"Though tempted by despair, Father Ragheed did not give up hope.
“I may be wrong, but I am certain about one thing—one single fact that is always true: that the Holy Spirit will enlighten people so that they will work for the good of humanity, in this world so full of evil.”
Calm down. The world is a very old place and the remedies are known, just very hard to practice. Random and impulsive stealth fu.k.ings and murders are the problem, not the solution. Endurance in our sufferings, and courage in speaking the truth in season and out, is what is needed now.
I really like Pat Buchanan's viewpoints on all these issues, domestic and foreign. And while its obvious the Uberzionist NeoCons played a major role in bringing about the Iraq debacle, I wonder why, in all of his articles on the subject of the Iraq War, he never mentions the influence of Big Oil and Wall Street in the decision to attack that hapless nation.
Isn't it also obvious at this point that our venal and national sovereignty-hating, global corporate interests were just salivating at the prospect of being able to get hold of Iraq's enormous natural resource wealth, and the chumps in the White House were simply their willing servants? Or is Pat just unwilling to concede that the leftwing critics of our foreign policy, like Gore Vidal, who've long argued that the U.S. armed forces are nothing but enforcers for American big business, could be right?
Mr. Miller,
I think Pat has said plenty about the globalist and the transnational corporations. The shipping lanes were being kept open with our Fifth Fleet, a ground war was unnecessary, and there was plenty of opportunity elsewhere in the region for what Marine Corps General Smedly Butler called "the racket." Plus America was and is one of the two largest markets for oil, there was no danger to our interest. They had to sell it to us, if they wanted to sell much at all.
And if oil and corporate greed is the main or real source of Iraq invasion II, then what is the source of Iran attack 1 that is now developing ? Honestly, I imagine Pat is still smarting over the unjust public lynching and character assasination he received at the hands of his detractors, but I don't think he has been blinded by revenge. It is too distracting from his real desire, which is to break the cartel of silence surrounding foreign policy in America.
Let's not forget that the neocons have two lineages: fascist through Leo Strauss and Marxist though William Kristol. The mentor of Strauss was Martin Heidegger, chief philosopher of the Nazi Party in academe, the claims of the revisionists not withstanding. Strauss brought that worldview with him to the University of Chicago and there begat the likes of Wolfowitz. William Kristol and the neocons of his ilk are Trotsky's children. Both fascists and Marxists are spawns of left-wing Hegelianism. The third ugly sister of this spawn is social democracy, so pervasive in the West, including these United States.
As a Christian, I have every confidence that the Church - the bride and the body of the Christ - will fulfill her mission of bringing the evangelium to a dark and dying world and will be therein the salt and the light. We must reject three things: the enticement of secularism in which much of the Church has become apostate; the old heresy of gnosticism which, I believe, has made itself manifest in the form of dispensationalism and rapture theology - this in an unholy alliance with a modern movement of Judaizing the Church, and genuflecting to the state and using its means to "solve" problems. As Christians, we must remember that the only true and real transforming Agent in the universe in the Christ who through the power of His blood and His Spirit transforms individuals, the Church herself, and societies. Governments and law do not do this. If the transformation by and through the Christ is taking place in a given society, then it will be reflected in the nature of that society's polity and in the laws of that society. However, governments and laws cannot transform societies; they can, however, deform societies.
As a Christian, I can pray against neocons - using them as the latest manifestation of the enemy; I can offer political alternatives to their ideology and programs; I can advocate secession from polities which they control; and if they use force against such attempts on my part, I can defend myself against them.
I do pray daily for the brethren, largely forgotten by their sister churches in the West but certainly not by their Christ, under siege in the Middle East and elsewhere. As an American, it grieves me that the government of these United States, acting immorally and illegally in my name, has greatly contributed to their suffering. It is my hope, that when the Church in America falls under the same shadow that they will pray for us.
Eunomia,
Great post or quote. It reminded me of Catholics for Free Choice. I once heard an old Jesuit say to a questioner who had asked him, " If The Mass is the summation of Catholic belief, why is it that such a large % of Catholics don't believe in the Real Presence ?"
Answer: 100% of Catholics believe in the Real Presence, those you describe are either imposters or apostates."
Thanks for the good post.
Why have Rohil's comments supra not be deleted? Below the mark and beyond the pale, would they be more at home at [url suppressed] and [url suppressed], groups with whom we have nothing in common, and company with whom we ought not keep?
on this topic, here's a classic from 2004 - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4179618:
Tim Russert: If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?
President Bush: They're not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I'm very aware of this basic law they're writing. They're not going to develop that because right here in the Oval Office I sat down with Mr. Pachachi and Chalabi and al-Hakim, people from different parts of the country that have made the firm commitment, that they want a constitution eventually written that recognizes minority rights and freedom of religion.
...I said, you know, “I'm a Methodist, what are my chances of success in your country and your vision?” And [SCIRI leader Hakim] said, “It's going to be a free society where you can worship freely.” This is a Shiia fellow. And my only point to you is these people are committed to a pluralistic society.