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Catholics in Iraq are 'challenging' the Islamic State not with weapons or violence but through education and teaching, thanks to the contribution and support of Australian Catholic University. This October courses will begin at the Catholic University of Erbil, which was desired by the Chaldean Church in Iraq as a concrete way to aid the Christian youth in the Middle East. In recent days, Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda of Erbil for Chaldeans met with representatives of Australian Catholic University (ACU) and the President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Archbishop Denis James Hart of Melbourne in order to better...

Iraqi Christians flourished long before Muslims By Steve Gushee Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Friday, January 28, 2005 The kidnapping of a Catholic bishop in Mosul last week is a sad reminder of the once robust but rapidly diminishing Christian community in Iraq. Insurgents abducted Syrian Catholic Archbishop BasileCasmoussa apparently to frighten Iraqi Christians. They wanted to discourage Christians from voting on Sunday, according to Iraqi bishop, Louis Sako of Kirkuk. Both bishops are members of a branch of the Roman Catholic Church and one of several small, eclectic church groups in the country. Christians flourished in Iraq long before...

Christians flee genocide as fear sweeps Iraq By Jack Fairweather at St Matthew's Monastery near Mosul (Filed: 08/01/2005) One of the most ancient monasteries in the world, St Matthew's, stands on a barren mountainside in northern Iraq, its last inhabitant a crusty old Syrian Orthodox priest. Nestled between sandstone crags with views of the hills around ancient Nineveh, now called Mosul, it looks like the final redoubt of the Christian world. Seven thousand monks used to worship here; now there is just one, Father Ada Qadr al-Kars. St Matthew's Syrian Orthodox Monastery was founded in the fourth century AD This...

ROME, APRIL 21, 2004 (Zenit.org).- The Chaldean Church is trying to mediate in the release of three Italian hostages in Iraq, according to Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad. "The patriarch, the patriarchate and I myself are trying to do something to rescue the hostages, which has nothing to do with the drama of the war," the bishop told Vatican Radio today. "But things are going very slowly," he said. "For the time being we can say nothing ... [as] it would damage the situation." Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of the kidnapped Italians, was slain last week. There is no clear...