"We remember the long list of these men and women who died in 2007 while giving themselves for the missionary service," he told pilgrims gathering at his holiday residence in the small Italian town of Castel Gandolfo, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) outside Rome.
The leader of over 1 billion Catholics said it was important to use Easter to "commemorate those missionary martyrs, bishops, priests, religious men and women and the laity who died in the service of others." He said the missionaries died on this earth while reflecting what he called "the glorious resurrection of the Lord" Jesus Christ from death, according to remarks published by Vatican Radio.
Killed missionaries include Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, whose body was found this month some two weeks after he was seized by gunmen in the Iraqi city of Mosul when he left Mass on February 29. Three of his companions were killed, the latest in what church members called a series of attacks against Iraq’s dwindling Christian community by Islamic extremists. On Monday, March 24, the death toll among United States troops officially hit 4,000 after a roadside bomb in Baghdad killed four soldiers.
SINGLED OUT
Christian missionaries and other believers in Iraq have also been singled out for violence by militants, after being accused of cooperating with the US-led coalition and observing a "Western" or "American" religion.
In addition, around the world about 200 million believers, including missionaries, "suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with another 200 to 400 million facing discrimination and alienation," Christian advocacy group and other rights organizations have said.
Pope Benedict XVI suggested Monday, March 24, that their suffering should be "a stimulus for everyone of us" to testify "in a more courageous way our faith and our hope in Jesus who on the cross was victorious over hatred and violence with the omnipotence of His love." Christians around the world commemorate Easter as the moment when they believe Christ rose from the death, three days after dying at that cross, about 2,000 years ago.
TUBERCULOSIS DAY
The pope also mentioned those suffering of sickness Monday, March 24, the annual World Tuberculosis Day. The pontiff said he was "especially near to the sick and to their families" and said he hopes that that with "increased commitment on a global level this scourge could be eradicated."
He spoke after a busy Easter schedule, including on Sunday, March 23, when preached to thousands of pilgrims who came to a rain soaked and thunder stricken St. Peters Square in Vatican City. In a controversial move, Pope Benedict XVI also baptized an Egyptian-born commentator who renounced Islam and converted to Roman Catholicism.
Magdi Allam, a deputy editor at the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera who has been honored for encouraging tolerance between cultures, angered some in the Muslim world Monday, March 23, with his high-profile conversion in an Easter vigil service led by the pope in St. Peter’s Basilica.
"The pope provokes the indignation of Muslims by baptizing an Egyptian journalist who attacks Islam and defends Israel," read a headline in the newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi. The Arabic-language newspaper reportedly said Allam is known as a "Zionist Muslim." The Vatican said the Church was open for anyone willing to become a Catholic. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos).
