By Baghdadhope
The women on the sides of the streets in Karamles cry and keep in their hands coloured flowers while at least ten men carry on their shoulders the coffin of Mgr. Faraj Rahho along the path of the funeral parade led by Mgr. Shleimun Warduni, Chaldean vicar patriarch vicar of Baghdad and Mgr. George Qas Musa, the Syriac Catholic bishop of Mosul, himself, as Mgr. Rahho, victim, on January 2005, of a kidnapping that ended happily after only one day. The astonished silence of the people is interrupted by the funeral hymns and by the screams by which the women all over the Arabic world, Muslim and Christian, accompany the moments of joy but also those of pain. The bishops held in their hands olive branches and it is by other olive twigs that some people makes the gesture of blessing the coffin while a young man precedes it spreading in the air the bitter and sweet smell of incense.
"Ia, Azizi" - "Oh My dear" sings with a sad voice a soloist of the choir of the Church of Karamles where the faithful are awaiting the beginning of the funeral ceremony. A young soldier, his head in his hands, his body motionless, is the image of this painful waiting.
"We are waiting," says to Baghdadhope Father Rayan P. Atto, "Mgr. Rahho’s coffin was brought first to the church of Mar Ghorghis and then will arrive here, in the church of Mar Addai."
Almost everyone already arrived in Karamles. There is the Patriarch of Chaldean Church, Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly, arrived this morning from Baghdad with two of his vicars, Mgr. Shleimun Warduni and Mgr. Jacques Isaac, the Apostolic Nuncio in Jordan and Iraq, Mgr.Francis Assisi Chullikat accompanied by his secretary, Mgr.Michael Crotty. There are Mgr.Luis Sako, Archbishop of Kirkuk, Mgr. Andreas Sana, bishop emeritus of Kirkuk, Mgr. Rabban Al Qas, Bishop of Amadhiya and patriarchal administrator of Erbil, Mgr. Mikha P. Maqdassi, bishop of Al Qosh, Mgr. Petrus Harbouli, bishop of Zakho, Mgr.George Qas Musa, Syriac Catholic Bishop of Mosul and the Syriac Orthodox one, Mor Gregorious Saliba Shamoun. Expected, maybe later, the Assyrian Church of the East bishop.
On behalf of the Iraqi government, Abdal Ahad Afram and Sarkis Aghajan for the Kurdish Regional Government.
It is the Christian Isthar TV satellite that is transmitting images, that, waiting for the beginning of the celebration are interspersed with photos of Monsignor Faraj P. Rahho and liturgical hymns.