Christians Under Attack

In Rome, Pope Benedict deplored the kidnapping of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho as a "despicable" crime and urged the gunmen to free the prelate.

Provincial police spokesman Brigadier-General Khaled Abdul Sattar said Rahho was kidnapped in the al-Nour district in eastern Mosul when he left a church.

"Gunmen opened fire on the car, killed the other three and kidnapped the archbishop," he said.

While violence across much of Iraq has dropped in recent months, U.S. and Iraqi officials say that Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, remains the last urban stronghold of al Qaeda, which they call the biggest threat to the country's security.

An assistant to Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad and spiritual leader of Iraq's Catholics, said they had heard that three people were killed and they did not know the fate of the Rahho.

Chaldeans belong to a branch of the Roman Catholic Church that practices an ancient Eastern rite. Most of its members are in Iraq and Syria, and they form the biggest Christian community in Iraq.

The Vatican issued a statement in Rome saying the pope was saddened by "this new despicable act" which it called a premeditated criminal act.

"The Holy Father asks the universal Church to join in his fervent prayer so that reason and humanity prevails in the kidnappers and Monsignor Rahho is returned to his flock soon," the statement said.  Continued...