Osama bin Laden Tells Us to Embrace Islam or Else...Father Ragheed Didn't

In lieu of Osama Bin Laden's videotape airing and being analyzed today, his main message they claimed had no threat with it. Or did it? The leader of the terrorist group, Al Qaeda, invited all Americans to embrace Islam...or else what?

I invite you to learn about the fate of a Catholic priest in Iraq. This news had very little if any attention via the media. The only reason I know about him was from my church on base. Our chaplain asked us to pray for his soul and for ALL of the Catholics CURRENTLY being persecuted in Iraq by Al Qaeda. I guess because they failed to 'embrace Islam'.

Father Ragheed, sometimes referred to as the 'Martyr of Mosul', was a native Iraqi and when he finished his studies he returned to Iraq knowing full well of the danger within his country. Despite his church being continuously bombed and fired on, he remained and would not waver from celebrating mass. He wrote to his friend, "but we will not stop celebrating mass; we will do it underground, where we are safer. I am encouraged in this decision by the strength of my parishioners. This is war, real war, but we hope to carry our cross to the very end with the help of Divine Grace".

Father would not relent. He felt it was important to continue to provide a place for the faithful, all of this despite the killings and abductions of other religious members around him, nuns and bishops alike. Father Ragheed was positive about a change in Iraq and was encouraged by the fall of Sadaam Hussein. Then on Trinity Sunday, immediately, after mass, Father Ragheed and three sub-deacons were seized, taken away and murdered. Their killers placed vehicles loaded with explosives around the bodies so no one would dare approach them.

It is important to note that nearly all of Father Ragheed's parishioners attended his funeral despite the threats and obvious danger. The persecution of Christians continues in Iraq and the unspeakable evil and violence against them grows, and yet the faithful remain. A head tax has been imposed on all Christians to pay for the right to live in their homes, alive. Father Ragheed is only one among many martyrs and most likely to more to come.

Sandro Magister, "The Last Mass of Father Ragheed" www.freerepublic.com