Vatican City (AsiaNews) Pope John Paul II expressed today his solidarity with Iraqi Catholics "so painfully touched" by the terrorist attacks in Baghdad and Mosul against local catholic communities, this according to Father Ciro Benedettini, deputy director of the Press Office of the Holy See.
The Holy Father sent a message to His Beatitude Emmanuel III Delly, Patriarch of Babylon and President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Iraq, in which he strongly deplored "the unjustified attacks against those who want to help in building peace and reconciliation in the country."
The Vatican statement stresses how the attacks against Iraq's Catholic communities are even more "serious because directed against the faithful united in prayer on the Day of the Lord."