Baghdad, Iraq, Apr 7, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Despite potential danger, several hundred people gathered at St. Joseph's Chaldean Church in Baghdad yesterday for a special memorial mass for Pope John Paul II.
Iraq’s newly trained soldiers provided security for the event. They stood outside the church, searched cars and asked for ID cards from people at different stations surrounding the church, reported The Associated Press. Most Christians appreciated the heightened security.
"The Pope won the hearts of everybody because he worked for the good of all," said Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly, the head of Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Church. The Pope’s death "was a loss not only for Iraqi Catholics and Christians but indeed it was a loss for the whole world," he said.
The patriarch concelebrated the mass in Arabic with the heads of the Latin, Armenian and Syrian Catholic churches, and a representative of the papal nuncio's office.