Bombs Explode Near Chaldean Patriarchate

Auxiliary Bishop Emmanuel Karim Delly Is Unharmed

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 23, 2003(Zenit.org).- Bombs damage the Chaldean Patriarchate in Baghdad, but auxiliary bishop Emmanuel Karim Delly was not wounded by the explosions.

On Saturday, news agencies said that the 75-year old prelate, who has been bishop since 1962, had been wounded by bombs that fell near his residence in the Patriarchate of Babylon of the Chaldeans.

«Glass from the windows fell on top of me. But nothing happened to me. The Virgin protected me. I am well,» the bishop told the Italian Catholic television channel «Sat2000» on Saturday afternoon.

Monsignor Shlemon Warduni, also an auxiliary bishop of the Chaldean Patriarchate, explained in turn: «There was a bombing next to our Patriarchate. All the windowpanes broke and this is the reason that the rumor spread that Bishop Delly had been wounded. However, as he himself has said, he is well.»

Bishop Delly made an appeal to «stop the war, to stop this catastrophe, in which children, young people, elderly people, women, men are lost. Everything is lost with war; much is gained with peace.»

«In particular, we ask all families to pray the Rosary, as Pope John Paul II has requested,» the bishop concluded.

ZENIT Daily dispatch - The World Seen from Rome
23. mars 2003