Iraqi priests have been celebrated Masses in churches liberated from ISIS.
Masses were held in the towns of Bashiqa, Qaraqosh and Bartella for the first time since the invasion of Islamic State militants two years ago.
“We are so happy at the liberation,” said Fr Elkhoury Alfaran Elkhoury of Bashiqa.
“They want to give a message to the world, and that message is damage, their message is destruction, their message is death,” he said, pointing to the damage jihadis had inflicted on the church while occupying the area.
Catholics returning for a prayer service in their home town of Keramlis found everything in the church destroyed, including the statue of the Virgin Mary, which militants had decapitated before they left.
A confessional had been turned into a closet, a tomb had been desecrated, red prayer benches were burned, according to the Associated Press.
Worshippers stepped on broken glass as Fr Thabet Habib recited prayers at the St Addai Chaldean Catholic church.
The bell tolled for the first time in two years. “It was amazing, I got goose bumps. The bell for us means a great deal,” Sahir Shamoun, a PE teacher, told AP.
Fr Bools Mate Afram, an Orthodox priest in Bashiqa, told the Guardian last month that although he planned to return to Mosul if it was freed from the threat of ISIS, he feared that many would not.
“Many Christians say that under no conditions will they return to Mosul city itself because the chances that it will be a secure and safe city, even after Daesh is gone, are very weak,” he said.
“I know many families who want to go back but they need international protection to be able to live in Nineveh plains again,” he said.
On Mercy Friday, Pope visits men who gave up ministry
Nearing the end of the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis paid a visit to seven families formed by men who left the priesthood to marry. The Vatican said the visit was a sign that God loves and is merciful to everyone experiencing difficulty.
“The Holy Father wanted to offer a sign of closeness and affection to these young men who made a choice that often was not shared by their fellow priests and families,” the Vatican said.
The visit was part of the “Mercy Friday” initiative Pope Francis began last December. Almost every month throughout the year, the pope visited a group of people – people recovering from addiction, women rescued from prostitution, infants in a hospital neonatal unit – as his own expression of the corporal works of mercy.
The destinations were not announced in advance and journalists were not invited.
Travelling to a flat on the edge of Rome, the Pope met the families of the former priests. The Vatican said the Pope was embraced by the priests’ children. The adults, the Vatican said, “could not hide their emotion”. The Pope listened to their stories and concerns.
Cohen hailed as ‘voice of the age’
Church leaders have paid tribute to the songwriter Leonard Cohen, who has died aged 82.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi tweeted some of Cohen’s lyrics: “I’ll stand before the Lord of Song / With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.” Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge called Cohen “one of the voices of the age – very old and always new.”
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