Catholic church damaged as bombs explode at Baghdad Orthodox churches

Published: 2004-11-09

ROME (CNS) -- St. John's Chaldean Catholic Church was damaged Nov. 8 when car bombs went off at two Orthodox churches in Baghdad, Iraq, said Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad. "This is the third time our churches -- Catholic or Orthodox -- have been attacked," the patriarch told Catholic News Service in a Nov. 9 telephone interview from Baghdad. Car bombers targeted churches in August and again in October. Three people died and more than 30 were injured when the car bombs went off minutes apart Nov. 8 at St. George Syrian Orthodox Church and at the Church of St. Matthew, the parish of the Assyrian Church of the East, the patriarch said. "The pressure of the bombs" broke the windows and damaged a wall of the nearby Catholic church, he said. Patriarch Delly said Iraq's Christian minority, like the bombers, "make no distinction" between Catholic and Orthodox churches; an attack on one is felt as an attack on all.

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