In his historic ‘pilgrimage of penitence’ to Iraq, Pope Francis calls Iraqis to affirm kinship under one God By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis summarized his “pilgrimage of faith and penitence” to Iraq in a prayer: “If God is the God of life — for so he is — then […]
Pope’s pilgrimage: Iraq: Full of historic sites important to Christianity
By Dale Gavlak Catholic News Service AMMAN, Jordan — Pope Francis hopes to embark on the first-ever papal visit to the biblical land of Iraq in early March in a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts to the place known in Arabic as the “land of the two rivers” — the mighty Tigris and Euphrates — and […]
Iraqi cardinal: Innocents will ‘be the fuel’ for war
By Dale Gavlak Catholic News Service Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako, responding to a U.S. drone attack in Baghdad that killed Iran’s top general, said “wisdom is required to avoid the ‘volcanic eruption’ we are about to face.” Speaking during the Epiphany Mass in Baghdad Jan. 6, he said the current crisis resulted from the […]
Syriac Catholic Church reestablishes diocese for Kurdistan region
THE PERSECUTED CHURCH By Doreen Abi Raad Catholic News Service BERUIT — To support the faithful and encourage them to stay in their homeland, the Syriac Catholic Church has reestablished a diocese for the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan celebrated the new diocese at a Mass at Queen of […]
‘They want to kill you’
The Iraqi monks had just finished hiding manuscripts when the Islamic State militants showed up By Doreen Abi Raad Catholic News Service BEIRUT — The first time a band of Islamic State militants “visited” the monks, they presented the monks with a kind of suggestion, in a nonthreatening manner: “Why don’t you become a Muslim?” […]