Even by the standards of savagery we have come to expect in Iraq, Sunday’s attack on a Catholic church in Baghdad, in which 58 people were killed and another 70 to 80 seriously wounded, was particularly horrific, upsetting and, as the Holy Father put it, “absurd”.
Without any provocation, eight men from a terrorist group entered the church and immediately murdered a priest, before seizing the rest of the congregation hostage with the intention to kill. This was the deadliest attack on Iraqi Christians since the US-led invasion in 2003.
