Aid to the Church in Need: Iraq archbishop speaks out as abductions increase

Iraq archbishop speaks out as abductions increase

Posted by Press release on 27/8/2008, 5:23 pm
Board Administrator

ACN News, Thursday 27th August 2008 – IRAQ
Iraq archbishop speaks out as abductions increase

By John Pontifex

A LEADING bishop in Iraq has appealed for government action to stem the growing tide of kidnappings, saying that Christians feel especially at risk.
Hitting out at alleged media and government reluctance to confront the problem, Archbishop Jean Sleiman said there were “countless” reports of people being abducted.
The bishop, based in the Iraqi capital, described families and friends of kidnapped people coming to plead for his help to secure their release.
Speaking from Baghdad in an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Sleiman said: “We have more problems, especially kidnapping.
“The media ignores this matter,” he said, adding: “It is important to ask the government to pay attention to these issues and not only the general political situation.”
Archbishop Sleiman, who ministers to Iraq’s small Latin-rite Catholic community, added that money was the main motive for the kidnappings but that religious extremism was often an important factor especially concerning the abduction of Christians.
In the interview the archbishop described how only recently (Tuesday 19/08/08) he met a Christian man whose brother-in-law and son had been kidnapped and found dead a month later.
The meeting came barely 24 hours after he received a visit from a lady who begged for money for her 19-year-old daughter kidnapped with a ransom request of US$20,000.
The archbishop, a Carmelite from Lebanon, continued: “It is not only Christians who are targeted but other groups. And yet the Christians feel the injustice of the situation very keenly because they have never played any part in the conflict within the country.”
Nor is the problem confined to Baghdad. In July there were reports that Christians in northern Iraq had formed militia in a bid to improve security.
Archbishop Sleiman is not alone in calling for action over the problem of kidnappings.
In May, Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, made a video appealing for the release of five British men – four security guards and one computer expert – who were seized in Baghdad a year earlier.
The month before, British journalist Richard Butler was freed after two months in captivity in the south-east Iraqi city of Basra.

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, contact please contact the Sydney office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org