Pope calls attack in Nassiriya another obstacle to harmony, reconstruction in Iraq

Vatican City, Apr 27, 2006 / 22:00 pm

Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his sadness and prayers for victims of an insurgent attack Thursday in Nassiriya, Iraq, which killed three Italians and one Romanian soldier. He said that the latest attack constitutes yet another obstacle to the reconstruction of that “tormented country.”

The Pope sent a telegram by way of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Holy See’s Secretary of State, to Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, military ordinary for Italy.
Cardinal Sodano wrote that "The Supreme Pontiff received with great sadness news of the attack in Nassiriya in which three Italian members of the armed forces and a Romanian colleague, generously contributing in a mission of peace, lost their lives.”

The Pope, he said, “expresses his firm condemnation of this new act of violence which, together with other cruel acts perpetrated in Iraq, constitutes yet another obstacle in the path toward harmony and reconstruction in that tormented country."

Likewise, the Cardinal wrote that "His Holiness would like to express his profound spiritual closeness to the families of the victims in the midst of a grave sorrow which also effects the Italian and Romanian armed forces and their respective national communities.

Benedict also assured “his fervent prayers for the young lives cut short,” and invoked “heavenly consolation for those who mourn this tragic loss and he sends to all a special apostolic blessing, thinking in particular about those wounded and those, both civilian and military, who are dedicated to the arduous task of helping the people of Iraq, subjugated to so many difficulties."