Requiescat in Pax Domini

Some don't know, and some may not even care, that I studied in Rome for four years with my beloved wife. It truly was an incredible blessing to study theology at the beating heart of the Catholic Church. We met so many people who deeply loved their faith and the Catholic Church. Not least among these were those young men, gathered from all over the world, who were sent to Rome to study for the priesthood.

I receive a really great Catholic News service called Zenit.org, run by the Legionaires of Christ, and the other day there was a news bulletin about a young Chaldean (one Rite in the Holy Catholic Church) priest who was killed in Iraq with 3 sub-deacons. His name was Fr. Ragheed Ganni. In fact, he was one of the many men my wife and I met while in Rome. He was an incredible man. He had already been ordained when we met him. The War in Iraq was just preparing to begin when we had first met him. He spoke somewhat positively about Americans arriving there, but had already voiced concerns that it would be the Iraqi Catholics who would suffer because Sadaam himself protected them. Like each one of us, he worried for his family and for his loved ones there in Iraq, even while studying in Rome for 3 years.

I just received another news report I would like to, in part, share here:

Professor Shares E-Mails From Father Ragheed
ROME, JUNE 13, 2007 (Zenit.org ).-

"The situation here is worse than hell," Father Ragheed Ganni wrote to a former professor the day before he and three deacons were shot after Sunday Mass in Mosul, Iraq. Father Robert Christian, a theology professor at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum, in Rome, spoke at the requiem Mass held in that school on Tuesday. There, Father Ganni had studied theology and ecumenism. On June 3, Father Ganni and three deacons, Basman Yousef Daoud, Ghasan Bidawid and Wadid Hanna, were killed in front of the Church of the Holy Spirit. Father Christian began his homily, saying: "On Saturday, June 2, I received an e-mail from Mosul. In part it read: 'The situation here is worse than hell, and my church has been attacked a few more times since we last met. Last week, two guards in it were wounded after an attack. We shall meet in the near future and have a chat about all these events. God bless, Ragheed." Father Christian continued: "The patriarch of the Chaldeans called them martyrs. And martyrs, who conform closely to the passion and death of Jesus Christ, have been revered since Christian antiquity as saints."

Father Christian called a hell that which "those left behind are experiencing: Ragheed's family and friends; the flock he pastured; his Chaldean Church, other Christians, and yes, Muslims, too, trapped in the senseless vortex of blind hatred and violence that is daily life in Iraq.""Ragheed could have fled," Father Christian continued. "As far as I know, he came to Italy three times after he returned to Mosul upon finishing his licentiate in ecumenism at the Angelicum. "But Ragheed had a strong sense of his priestly duty to be an icon of the Good Shepherd for his people."

The article continues:

Father Christian explained the source of Father Ganni's fortitude: "The strength of Father Ragheed was the Eucharist, and in his homilies he taught the faithful that the body and blood of Jesus, who was sacrificed and resurrected, strengthened the union among the members of the mystical body of Christ... May the Eucharist give us the courage to live and die like Father Ragheed."

I only pray each of us might consider whether we would, if we lived in Iraq sorrounded by persons hostile to our Catholic Faith, courageously obey Christ in the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church? Oh wait, we do live in a society hostile to our Catholic Faith - people reject the dignity of human life, murder innocent children and are seeking to murder the elderly who are "in the way," others seek to reject the teachings of the Church with regard to the dignity of a person not to be born of an IVF treatment, others reject our near 2000 year old belief of the Holy Eucharist, others use our Lord's Holy Name in vain, others deride Christ's teaching for us to live as a chaste people, others seek to lead our children into sexual sins and temptations, others seek to degrade our faith by making it irrelevant to the public discourse in our country, others reject and deride the glory of the Holy Priesthood of Christ, and I could go on and on.

In other words, the question we must ask ourselves is whether each of us WILL courageously obey Christ through the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church? Fr. Ragheed has been called a martyr by his Patriarch and bishop of the Chaldean (Catholic) Church because he was shot immediately after Mass. I know Fr. Ragheed and I don't think there is any other way he would have preferred to enter to his eternal reward than to have been so close to the Eucharistic Lord after Mass, joining the sacrifice of Christ for the sake of the world. May this glorious martyr of Christ's witness not be lost on each of us, the People of God, and may we be inspired to live and persevere in our faith more seriously and with more conviction for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.