Raphael I Bidawid, 81; Spiritual Leader of Iraqi Chaldean Catholics
Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid, 81, spiritual leader of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholics, died Monday in Beirut after a long illness, the Vatican’s missionary news service Fides reported. The cause of death was not announced.
Chaldean Catholics are the largest Christian community in Iraq and are believed to number between 500,000 and 700,000.
Bidawid was born in Mosul, Iraq, and entered a seminary there at age 11. Three years later, he was sent to Rome to study theology and philosophy.
He was ordained in 1944 and elevated to bishop in 1957, at the age of 35 -- at the time the youngest bishop in the world, according to a Fides biography.
A synod of the Chaldean Church elected him patriarch in 1989, following the death of Mar Pulus II Chekho.
Bidawid was an outspoken opponent of the economic embargo on Iraq imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Some accused him of being an apologist for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, but he responded that he was only defending his country.
During a 1991 visit to the Vatican, he accused the Gulf War allies of genocide against the Iraqi people.
“These nations should feel pretty guilty. It was a vendetta, a shame for humanity,” he said.
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