Men, women religious in Iraq thanked, encouraged in their work

Published: 2004-07-07

ROME (CNS) -- While Catholics are a small minority in Iraq, members of religious orders can help rebuild the country by promoting pardon, mercy, justice and peace, said the president of the international Union of Superiors General. Christian Brother Alvaro Rodriguez Echeverria, president of the union of 226 superiors of men's religious orders, wrote a letter of support July 1 to men and women religious in Iraq. "The fact that you are so close to the Iraqi people, sharing their same lot and hope, suffering and desires, is an encouragement for all of us and for the church," Brother Rodriguez said in the letter released July 6 by the union's headquarters in Rome. "Your call is above all to be where there is pain and death and this makes your presence all the more necessary," he told the religious. According to Vatican statistics, there were about 350 religious men and women working in Iraq before the war began in 2003; according to the union, the number has increased over the past year. The Dominicans, Redemptorists, Salesians, Carmelites, Franciscans and Missionaries of Charity have significant communities in Iraq.

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