Last week I've posted about the kidnapping of the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul. Today we learn with great sadness that the Archbishop has been killed. This is a sad day for the entire Christian Church. Christians in Islamic countries are suffering, lets not forget them in our prayers.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him

Mosul (AsiaNews) - The Chaldean archbishop of Mosul is dead. Archbishop Faraj Rahho was kidnapped last February 29 after the Stations of the Cross. His kidnappers gave word of his death, indicating to the mediators where they could recover the body of the 67-year-old prelate. "It is a heavy Cross for our Church, ahead of Easter", Bishop Rabban of Arbil tells AsiaNews in response to the news. Leaders of the Chaldean Church, including Bishop Shlemon Warduni, brought the body to the hospital in Mosul to ascertain the causes, still unknown, of the archbishop's death. The funeral will be held tomorrow in the nearby city of Karamles. Archbishop Rahho will be buried near Fr Ragheed, his priest and secretary killed by a terrorist brigade on June 3, 2007, while leaving the church after celebrating Mass.

The archbishop had been very sick. He had suffered a heart attack a few years ago, and since then he had needed to take medication every day. The difficult negotiations for his release carried forward over the past 14 days of his kidnapping had immediately raised concern because of the total absence of direct contact with the hostage. The conditions posed by the kidnappers - sources in Mosul tell AsiaNews - in addition to an outrageous ransom on the order of millions of dollars, had also included the provision of weapons and the liberation of Arab prisoners held in Kurdish prisons.

The news of Archbishop Rahho's death "profoundly wounds and saddens" the pope, says the director of the Vatican press office, Fr Federico Lombardi. Benedict XVI hopes that "this tragic event may renew once again and with greater force the efforts of all, and in particular of the international community, for the pacification of this greatly tormented country". Three times in recent days, the pope had launched an appeal for the liberation of the bishop. Numerous Muslim leaders had also spoken out for the prelate's release, both Sunnis and Shiites, in Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan, and also condemned the action as "contrary to Islam".

It is not often that I go to Technology News and find an article listed from Catholic World News.   This is great news.

NEW YORK, MARCH 12 – Michael (Michał) Heller, a Polish cosmologist and Catholic priest who for more than 40 years has developed sharply focused and strikingly original concepts on the origin and cause of the universe, often under intense governmental repression, has won the 2008 Templeton Prize.

Various processes in the universe can be displayed as a succession of states in such a way that the preceding state is a cause of the succeeding one… (and) there is always a dynamical law prescribing how one state should generate another state. But dynamical laws are expressed in the form of mathematical equations, and if we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about a cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the Great Blueprint of God’s thinking the universe, the question on ultimate causality…: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes.

For more information look at these:

• Associated Press Coverage
• Catholic World News
• The Christian Science Monitor
• Templeton

Madrid, Mar 3, 2008 / 02:29 pm (CNA)

The Mensajeros de la Paz (Messengers of Peace) foundation is reporting that the captors of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul are demanding $1.8 million in ransom money to free the Iraqi prelate who was kidnapped last Friday.

Baghdad, Feb 29, 2008 / 05:00 pm (CNA)

The Vatican responded to the violent kidnapping with a statement that condemned the act as premeditated since the gunmen knew Rahho would be celebrating the Way of the Cross.

Pope Benedict XVI appealed to the whole Catholic Church "to unite in fervent prayer so that reason and humanity prevail among the authors of the kidnapping, and that Monsignor Rahho is returned quickly to the care of his flock," according to the statement.

The Holy Father also expressed his spiritual closeness to the Iraqi people, particularly the minority Christians, and offered his prayers that the whole country could find the path to reconciliation and peace.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi Christians have been targeted by Islamic extremists who label them "crusaders" loyal to U.S. troops. These radical Muslims are able to use this strategy to recruit other extremists, raise terror funds, and force Christians to flee the country forfeiting their homes and property to extremists. The property is then sold or used to fund insurgency strikes against coalition forces.

Churches, priests and businesses owned by Christians have been systematically attacked by Islamic militants forcing most Christians to flee the country. Without any protection and indifference by the Iraqi government, Christians in Iraq remain easy targets for their attempts to destabilize the government.

Missionary News Agency (MISNA) reported in November that Rahho said the situation in Mosul was not improving and "religious persecution is more noticeable than elsewhere because the city is split along religious lines."

"Everyone is suffering from this war irrespective of religious affiliation, but in Mosul Christians face starker choices," he told MISNA.

Let us pray for the Archbishop and all the suffering Christians in Iraq

SACRAMENTO, CA (CNS) - Rosalind Moss, an author who is an Eternal Word Television Network TV host and one of the network's radio hosts, announced Feb. 13 that she is starting a new community of sisters in the Archdiocese of St. Louis with the permission of Archbishop Raymond L. Burke.

The new group will be called the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope, she told an audience of more than 200 at the Catholic Breakfast Club of Sacramento.

Moss, 65, said she hopes to move to St. Louis within a few months, intends to fulfill as many of her scheduled speaking engagements in the coming year as possible, and plans to continue her radio program from St. Louis.

She is working now on designing a floor-length habit, along with a basket to hold religious articles which sisters will distribute both in the poorest areas of the city and the richest.

"The purpose of this religious community is to flood the world with holy habits as signs to God," said Moss, who is also a staff apologist with Catholic Answers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the Catholic faith through all forms of media.

..."I want to tell the world that God hasn't left. He is still here. We are loved by the God who made us for himself. I want to show there is no such thing as secular and religious. There is no division. All is from God," she said.

Moss said her group will be an evangelistic, teaching community following in the spiritual tradition of St. Francis de Sales, whose writings and sermons inspired many to convert to Catholicism. She already has a few women who plan to join her, she added.

"I'll come back to Sacramento one day in a habit," said Moss. "Hold nothing back from God."

Having been a big fan of Rosalind Moss for years now this news is very exciting. She is going to do a lot of good.