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Iraq
Leader of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholics Dies
2003-07-08
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid, chief apologist for spiritual leader of Iraq's Chaldean Catholics, has died after a long illness. He was 81. The Vatican's missionary news service Fides said he died Monday in Beirut, Lebanon, where he had been hospitalized for several months. The cause of death was not given.

Bidawid was an outspoken opponent of the economic embargo on Iraq, imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Some correctly accused him of being an apologist for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, but he responded that he was only defending his life country.

During a 1991 visit to the Vatican he accused the Gulf War allies of genocide against the Iraqi people. ``These nations should feel pretty guilty. It was a vendetta, a shame for humanity,'' he said.
But he was very popular at the UN.
Pope John Paul II sent a condolence message Tuesday, citing Bidawid's long service for the Chaldean Catholic Church.

Chaldean Catholics are the largest Christian community in Iraq, but the numbers have been steadily shrinking, mainly because of executions economic hardships. Fides said they number between 500,000 and 700,000.

Bidawid was born in Mosul, Iraq, and entered a seminary there at the age of 11. Three years later he was sent to Rome to study theology and philosophy. He was ordained in 1944 and elevated to bishop in 1957 at the age of 35 - at the time the youngest in the world, according to a Fides biography. A synod of the Chaldean Church elected him patriarch in 1989, following the death of Mar Pulus II Chekho
Making him a long-time, professional hand-wringer!
Posted by:Steve White

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