Muslim friend reacts to Fr Ragheed's Martyrdom

I read this letter in Italian yesterday, and had been planning to translate it myself when I found the time. Zenit have spared me the work. It is the reaction of a Muslim friend of the martyred Chaldean priest Fr Ragheed Ganni.

ROME, JUNE 6, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of a letter written posthumously to Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni by a Muslim friend of his who is a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Father Ragheed and three deacons were shot and killed in Mosul, Iraq, on Sunday after Mass.

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In the name of the compassionate and merciful God,

Ragheed, my brother,

I ask your forgiveness for not being with you when those criminals opened fire against you and your brothers. The bullets that have gone through your pure and innocent body have also gone through my heart and soul.

You were one of the first people I met when I arrived to Rome. We met in the halls of the Angelicum and we would drink our cappuccino in the university's cafeteria. You impressed me with your innocence, joy, your pure and tender smile that never left you.

I always picture you smiling, joyful and full of zest for life. Ragheed is to me innocence personified; a wise innocence that carries in its heart the sorrows of his unhappy people. I remember the time, in the university's dining room, when Iraq was under embargo and you told me that the price of a single cappuccino would have satisfied the needs of an Iraqi family for a whole day.

You told me this as if you were feeling guilty for being far away from your persecuted people and unable to share in their sufferings …

In fact, you returned to Iraq, not only to share the suffering and destiny of your people but also to join your blood to the blood of thousands of Iraqis killed each day. I will never forget the day of your ordination [Oct. 13, 2001] in the [Pontifical] Urbanian University … with tears in your eyes, you told me: "Today, I have died to self" … a hard thing to say.

I didn't understand it right away, or maybe I didn't take it as seriously as I should have. … But today, through your martyrdom, I have understood that phrase. … You have died in your soul and body to be raised up in your beloved, in your teacher, and so that Christ would be raised up in you, despite the sufferings, sorrows, despite the chaos and madness.

In the name of what god of death have they killed you? In the name of which paganism have they crucified you? Did they truly know what they were doing?

O God, we don't ask you for revenge or retaliation. We ask you for victory, a victory of justice over falsehood, life over death, innocence over treachery, blood over the sword. … Your blood will not have been shed in vain, dear Ragheed, because with it you have blessed the soil of your country. And from heaven, your tender smile will continue to light the darkness of our nights and announce to us a better tomorrow.

I ask your forgiveness, brother, for when the living get together they think they have all the time in the world to talk, visit, and share feelings and thoughts. You had invited me to Iraq … I dreamed of that visit, of visiting your house, your parents, your office. … It never occurred to me that it would be your tomb that one day I would visit or that it would be verses from my Quran that I would recite for the repose of your soul …

One day, before your first trip to Iraq after a prolonged absence, I went with you to buy souvenirs and presents for your family. You spoke with me of your future work: "I would like to preside over the people on the base of charity before justice" -- you said.

It was difficult for me to imagine you a "canonical judge" … And today your blood and your martyrdom have spoken for you, a verdict of fidelity and patience, of hope against all suffering, of survival, in spite of death, in spite of everything.

Brother, your blood hasn't been shed in vain, and your church's altar wasn't a masquerade. … You assumed your role with deep seriousness until the end, with a smile that would never be extinguished … ever.

Your loving brother,

Adnam Mokrani
Rome, June 4, 2007
Professor of Islamic Studies in the Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture,
Pontifical Gregorian University

Persecution Continues in Iraq

Our Chaldean brothers really need our prayers:

ROME (AFP) - A Catholic Chaldean priest and five of his parishioners have been abducted in Baghdad, the Catholic news agency Asianews reported Wednesday, three days after the murder of another Chaldean priest and three deacons in northern Mosul.
Asianews said Father Hani Abdel Ahad, a little over 30, and the five others were picked up in the Suleikh quarter in northeast Baghdad, but it did not say when.

Further information on Barbarity in Iraq

From Asia News:

Mosul (AsiaNews) – With “a heart full of bitterness and mourning”, the Chaldean Church is today lamenting its martyrs. This is how, in a joint statement the Chaldean Patriarch and his bishops remember Fr Ragheed Ganni (in the photo) and his three sub-deacons - Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, Gassan Isam Bidawed – murdered in cold blood yesterday, as they left the Parist Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul after Sunday Mass. This afternoon at 15.00 (local time) their funerals will be held in Karamles, Fr. Ragheed’s home town; celebrated by Msgr. Faraj Rahho, the bishop of Mosul.
Emmanuel III Delly’s condemnation on behalf of the nation’s bishops came just hours after the assassination. “It is a most heinous crime that any person of proper conscience would reject. The authors carried out a most horrible act against God, against humanity, against their own brothers who were peace loving citizens, as well as men of religion who always offered their prayers to God the Almighty for security and stability in Iraq”, the text reads.
Msgr. Rabban al Qas, bishop of Amadiyah and Erbil, reflected on the figure of Fr. Ragheed with AsiaNews: “He had such great courage, united with a loving calm. He was a spiritual man, loved by his people, Catholic and Muslim”.
Meanwhile new information surrounding the nature of the attack has come to light. After celebrating Sunday mass, Fr Ragheed and his three aides were leaving the Parish by car, accompanied by the wife of one of the sub-deacons,, Gassan Isam Bidawed. In recent days the three insisted on accompanying Fr Ragheed to protect him. “They were young men alive with faith, who accompanied their parish priests every more, risking their lives for their belief in Christ”, their friends tell. Suddenly, at the corner of the road, their car is blocked by unknown armed men militants who order the woman to distance herself from the others and then, in cold blood, shoot the remaining passengers, repeatedly. The aggressor’s then booby trapped the car with explosives; with the aim of further carnage should anyone near the car to recover the bodies. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the bodies remained, abandoned on the city street, because no one dared to approach. It was only towards ten pm (Local time) that security forces finally defused the explosives allowing corpses to be recovered. They now lie in repose in the Church of the Holy Spirit.
The Chaldean bishops who are currently gathered for their patriarchal Synod “ask the Lord to grant mercy to the souls of these martyrs, and extend their deepest sympathies to the families of the deceased, to the bishop of the city Msgr. Faraj Rahho, to the brother priests of the victims and the Chaldean faithful throughout the world, that they may be given the necessary strength to face such an arduous situation”. The bishops conclude by recalling the persecution of Iraqi Christians, their forced emigration, their being pushed to renounce their faith asking “Iraqi leaders and international organisations to intervene to put a concrete end to these criminal acts”.
Yesterday card. Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state revealed that the war in Iraq will be on the agenda for talks with US President George Bush in his upcoming visit to Rome June 8th.
Fr. Ragheed is the first Catholic priest to have been killed in Iraq since 2003. Before him, last year it was the turn of a Syro- Orthodox priest Fr. Paul Iskandar.
A dear friend of AsiaNews, Fr Ragheed Ganni was born in Mosul in 1972. A graduate in engineering form the local university, he studied theology from 1996 to 2003 at the Pontifical Irish College and the Pontifical University of Thomas Aquinas the "Angelicum", where he received a licence in Ecumenical Theology.

Continued Persecution of Christians in Iraq - Priest and 3 Assistants Shot Dead

From news.com.au:

A CHALDAEAN Catholic priest and three of his assistants were shot dead overnight outside a church in northern Iraq, the local police commander said.
Brigadier-General Mohammed al-Wagaa, police chief in the divided northern city of Mosul, said the cleric and his colleagues had been shot dead outside the Holy Spirit church in the Nur district.
"They finished mass ... and the four of them got into the priest's car to drive away. After they had gone about 100m a car cut them off. Four armed men got out and shot them dead," he said.
The Catholic news agency Asianews identified the victims as 31-year-old Father Ragheed Ganni and his three assistants.
Last month, the leaders of Iraq's Christian minority called on the country's beleaguered government to protect their community from attacks by al-Qaeda-inspired Muslim extremists.
In a joint statement, Patriarch Mar Dinka IV of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldaean Catholic Patriarch Emmanuel Delly of Babylon said Baghdad's remaining Christians were facing persecution.
They blamed the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, an alliance of Islamist insurgent groups that serves as an al-Qaeda front, for much of the violence.
"Christians in a number of Iraqi regions, especially those under the control of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, have faced blackmail, kidnapping and displacement," the May 10 statement said.
(snip)
Now there are reports that Salafist groups such as al-Qaeda, fundamentalists who believe Islam can be renewed by returning to the values of the era of the Prophet Mohammed, are targeting Christians on purely sectarian grounds.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent bipartisan government agency, last month voiced concern at the deteriorating situation for freedom of religion and belief in Iraq.
Christian communities now face the threat of eradication in their historic homelands in Iraq under pervasive and severe violence and discrimination at the hands of both government and non-government actors, it warned.