An Iraqi-born priest who was kidnapped and tortured by Islamic
extremists for nine days says Australia is seen as “the promise land”
for thousands of Christians still suffering from genocide in the Middle
East.
Bagdhad-born Fr Douglas Bazi of the Chaldean Catholic Church told The
Catholic Leader that Australia was leading the way in welcoming
thousands of Christians forced to exile their homes because of Islamic
State.
“I appreciate people from Australia for one, their prayers, two,
opening their hearts before their arms, and three, opening the gates to
our people, our people who have suffered from this violence,” Fr Bazi
said.
“My people look to Australia as the promise land.
“My message to the people of Australia is my people are going to
forget those who put us under a genocide, but we are never going to
forget the people who stand for us, especially those of you in
Australia.”
The message from Fr Bazi, who will visit Brisbane next month to speak
about his kidnapping in 2006, comes more than a year after he pleaded
with the Australian Catholic Bishops to prioritise taking in Middle
Eastern Christian refugees.
In late 2015, while Fr Bazi was living in Erbil, Iraq, he received a
visit from seven Australian Catholic Bishops including Melkite Eparch
Robbert Rabbat and Chaldean Archbishop Amel Shamon Nona.
As his parishioners talked of the suffering and hardship faced by
Iraqi Christians, Fr Bazi offered an emotional plea to the visiting
episcopate.
“I told the Australian Bishops that I’m proud that I am an Iraqi, and
I would never think one day that I’m going to leave my country,” Fr
Bazi said.
“I always think like a soldier, to give all my blood until the very last drop, but now I have to think of my kids as a mother.
“I said to the Bishops, ‘I beg you to open your gates to my people’.”
Fr Bazi said he was grateful that the Australian Bishops had welcomed
hundreds of Iraqi refugees fleeing their homeland into parishes around
the country, including communities who arrived in Brisbane.
But he warned that this was no time to stop praying.
“We have to keep praying and make the government to accept more cases,” he said.
“There are thousands still suffering.”
Prayer is more than just a token action for Fr Bazi, who said he only
survived a kidnapping and eventual release from a group of
fundamentalist Muslims by the power of prayer.
Born and ordained a priest in Baghdad, Fr Bazi said his kidnapping,
which made headlines around the world, was linked with violent attacks
on Iraqi Christians following the US army’s invasion into Iraq in 2003.
The extremists bombed Fr Bazi’s church and twice he survived gunfire attacks on his parish community.
One of those times, he watched at the front gate of his church as the Shiia Militia opened fire on the sacred building.
He looked down to see “a fountain of blood up from my leg”.
Two months later, Fr Bazi was driving down the highway having visited
friends following his Sunday Mass when a group of armed men with
covered faces stopped his car.
He was removed from the drivers’ seat and thrown into the boot of his car and taken to an unknown location.
On the first night one of the kidnappers broke his nose and he was
locked in an “ugly, smelly” chamber with his hands tied by chains.
“I used the chains to pray the Rosary,” Fr Bazi said.
“There was a big lock in the middle which I used for the Our Father,
and then chains left from that which I used to say the Rosary.
“Before when I have to pray the Rosary, I always look to the finish.
“I don’t remember when I finished the Rosary in that chamber, probably hundreds.
“It was not because I was afraid, more it would make me relaxed, it would strengthen me.”
He did this for nine days, and said if his torturer’s goal was to destroy him, as a Catholic priest “it would take decades”.
Fr Bazi went without water for four days and was repeatedly questioned about being involved in suspicious espionage activity.
He said his abductors tortured him everyday but over time he became like a spiritual father, listening to their problems.
“They asked me for forgiveness,” Fr Bazi said.
“I told them ‘I’m a free man, and if I’m not going to forgive them, I will be like you’.
“As a Christian, we have to forgive.
“They could not understand me.”
An attempt to locate Fr Bazi riled the captors, and the following
night the Chaldean priest had a hammer ploughed into his face, back and
knees smashing his teeth, breaking two discs in his spine and breaking
his patella.
Nine days after his capture, his archdiocese paid a sum of money for his safe return and he was released.
He left his cell, walked to the nearby church and was greeted by a priest who hugged him and said: ‘You are brave, my son’.
“I started to cry a lot,” Fr Bazi said.
Eleven years since his capture, the Chaldean priest still has nightmares “from time to time”.
He sleeps with a bottle of water next to his bed so when he wakes he knows he is still alive.
For years he couldn’t smile because of the injuries to his face and has only recently had the courage to take a selfie.
One of his first was taken last July as he stood in Mosul, the city
of ISIS, with the flag of his new home, New Zealand, where he is leading
a Chaldean community of 300 families.
His prayers are now directed at changing policies in New Zealand to
allow Iraqi refugee children to live in his new home and he is using
Australia as a blueprint.
The latest campaign is called Project 52, and aims to sponsor 71 disabled children living in Iraq to come to New Zealand.
“I try my best to knock on doors to make the government of New Zealand open its doors,” Fr Bazi said.
“I had many meetings in our Archdiocese and I’m always using the
Catholic Church of Australia as an example of how we are able to do
that,” Fr Bazi said.
Fr Bazi will make his first speaking appearance at Brisbane’s annual Spirit in the City conference on October 7 and will also be speaking to Australian media during his visit.
Spirit in the City will also include talks by Archbishop Mark
Coleridge, Oratory priest Fr Adrian Sharp, South Brisbane parish priest
Capuchin Father Lam Vu, and young Catholic Ora Duffley who volunteered
with a Christian organisation supporting Iraqi refugees, among others.
Founded by staff and clergy associated with the Queensland University
of Technology in 2014, Spirit in the City is a popular Christian
conference tackling questions of faith, culture and public affairs.
This year the conference has been consecrated to Our Lady of Fatima and the Feast of the Rosary.