By BaghdadhopePhoto by Ishtar TV
So, thanks God, he was wrong. Yesterday, soon after the killing of Fr. Yousef Adel Abudi in Baghdad, a source of the Chaldean church reported to Baghdadhope his fear that the murder could be something more than a mere killing but rather a trap to attract as many Christians as possible in occasion of Fr. Yousef’s funeral ceremony : “a very, very dangerous moment.”
As said, thanks God the funeral mass was held today in the Syro Orthodox church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the central district of Karrada and nothing happened during it. Nothing apart from the sorrow that invested all the Christian community in the capital city and in the country. A community that feels to be besieged by violence and to which Pope Benedict XVI’s words of sadness and condolences sent trough a telegram signed by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, to the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Baghdad and Basra, Mor Severius Jamil Hawa can appear far.
A community that participated to the funeral mass honoring the memory of Fr. Yousef that was attended also, as foreseen yesterday, by representatives of different Iraqi churches and of the government. There were many syro orthodox priests and Mor Severius Jamil Hawa who pronounced the funeral oration; Mgr. Avak Asadorian, bishop of the Armenian Apostolic Church and secretary of the Council of the Christian Churche Leaders in Baghdad that today issued a letter of condemnation of the killing of Fr. Yousef; Mgr. Athanase Matti Shaba Matoka Syriac Catholic bishop of Baghdad, Mgr. Francis Assisi Chullikat, Apostolic Nuncio in Jordan and Iraq and Mgr. Michael Crotty, from the Vatican nunciature in Iraq too. For Iraqi central government there was Mr. Abdallah Naufali, head of the affairs of non-Muslims. For the Chaldean Church there were Mgr. Andraous Abouna and the same patriarch of the church, Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly who in an interview to Reuters recalled that many people of different religions - Christians, Muslims and Sabeans - were killed, and who declared the readiness of the Iraqi Christian community to forgive those who committed these crimes for the sake of the “Iraqi family”.
A family that however, in spite of these conciliatory and peaceful words, seems to be more and more divided. If no one in fact can deny that many representatives of all the different religions were killed in Iraq, it is also true that many of those killings can be linked to the fight for power and to recent and old revenge desires. All fields from which the unarmed, tiny and peaceful Christian community should be excluded but into which it founds itself as usually caught in the middle of the fire with no other hope, for many of its members, than to leave the country and re-build a new life somewhere else.
Ankawa.com website published Fr. Yousef Adel Abudi’s biographical notes:
Born in Baghdad in 1961
Got a degree in electrical engineering and worked for the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
In 2001 he became a priest and successively the parish priest of Mar Benham syriac orthodox church in Dora/Mechanic.
After the destruction of Mar Benham church he moved to Saint Peter and Saint Paul church.
He was married with Mrs. Lamia and had not children, as previously and wrongly reported by Baghdadhope.
Ankawa.com website published Fr. Yousef Adel Abudi’s biographical notes:
Born in Baghdad in 1961
Got a degree in electrical engineering and worked for the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
In 2001 he became a priest and successively the parish priest of Mar Benham syriac orthodox church in Dora/Mechanic.
After the destruction of Mar Benham church he moved to Saint Peter and Saint Paul church.
He was married with Mrs. Lamia and had not children, as previously and wrongly reported by Baghdadhope.