[Oldeconomybuyer]

Hmmmmm. Tareq Aziz is a chief executive of a regime that butchered innocents, put children in prison, cut out the tongue of people who speak out, and tortured women for sport ... an yet, Father Boutros Haddad will miss Mr. Aziz on Easter Sunday.

[wideawake]

Hmmm . . . Aziz was a murderer and almost never attended Mass - but Fr. Haddad thinks he's great.

However, a Catholic US soldier is lucky not to be turned away from his church.

Which diocese was he ordained in? Boston?

[Steve_Seattle]

I can't believe the issue that's being made of this goddamned museum, which was in all probability trashed by Baath Party members. But this ignorant priest blames the Americans.

[Stormy_MS1]

I would say the resurrection of human rights is "rebirth" enough.

[Russ]

"What they have done is criminal"

Right, like liberate Iraq from a sadistic regime, free thousands of political prisoners including hundreds of children from prison, allow thousands of iraqi citizens in exile to return to their land. What's criminal is Haddad impersonating a Chistian while, no doubt, on the payroll of Saddam, as agent of Satan.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

I wonder if Father Boutros Haddad and Georgis Gewergis Sliwa would have been able to retain their exalted positions without doing obeisance to the regime. They certainly seem to be parroting the Baathist/Franco/German/Democrat line.

[dirtboy]

Tareq Aziz, a member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle and now one of the world's most wanted men, is not expected to make it to Easter Day mass at Baghdad's Church of the Virgin Mary this year.

Oh, cry me a frickin' river...

[scubadave]

Father Boutros Haddad will miss Mr. Aziz on Easter Sunday.

Did "Father" Haddad miss the thousands of prisoners held in the dungeons? Haddad was understanding of Aziz' absence; those shredders required maintenance on Sundays too >:( Another compromised clergyman, another fellow traveller, another werewolf in a robe.

No surprise, there were a few German churches that supported the National Socialists of the '30s; the brave Lutherans and Catholics that spoke out ended in the death camps.

[Mister Baredog]

"If the soldiers come to my church to attend the mass, I will accept them but I won't like it,"

It's called FREEDOM father, give it a little time, you'll see.

[omega4412]

Sounds like a cross between dhimmitude (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/778126/posts) and Stockholm syndrome. A pox on these clerics.

[colorado tanker]

So, this guy was a buddy of Aziz and enjoyed Saddam's patronage. The imprisonment of children and other opponents of Saddam, rape and torture didn't bother him one bit. Some Christian.

[browardchad]

"(Aziz) did not come to mass often, but his wife and his son were here every Sunday," Haddad told AFP in fluent French, learned at the seminary in Mosul in northern Iraq before he studied philosophy and theology in Rome.

So the Mosul seminary is under the control of French clerics. Are we surprised at the ethic that considers Tariq Azziz a Christian, in any sense of the word?

[JoeSchem]

"The museum! Oh, the museum!"

Lord, now the liberals are giving us historonics over history!

[Paleo Conservative]

Tareq Aziz, a member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle

Aka the eight of spades.

[wgeorge2001]

"Father Haddad stressed that, as a Christian, he had few difficulties practicing his faith under Saddam Hussein's secular regime."

Another catholic liberal who denies the doctrines and precepts of the Father's holy child Jesus Christ. Personally, I take no stock with scripturealess and dead christianity.