Tragic and horrifying news.

From the New York Times report:

The body of the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho, who was kidnapped by gunmen in Mosul late last month as he drove home after afternoon mass, was discovered in an area south of the city, church officials and Iraqi police said Thursday.

Cardinal Emmanuel Delli, a church official in Baghdad, confirmed that Archbishop Rahho’s body had been found and taken to the morgue in Mosul. The body would be released to the archbishop’s family late Friday or early Saturday so that they could bury him.

The body was found in al-Intessar, a residential area near the northern city known as a haven for gangs and criminal activity. Iraqi officials in Mosul said that the church had received a phone call telling them were to find the body. It was not immediately clear how the archbishop died.

In the kidnapping, on Feb. 29, Archbishop Rahho’s car was sprayed with bullets and two of his body guards were killed.

The kidnapping followed a series of attacks in January on Christian churches in Mosul and Baghdad, including a Chaldean church.

After the attacks, Archbishop Rahho, the head of the Chaldean church in Mosul, appeared on television and made a strong statement against the attacks, according to an Iraqi Christian who watched the broadcast.

In the last few years, Mosul has been a difficult place for Christians. Last June, a priest and three companions were shot and killed in the same church where Archbishop Rahho presided.

In January 2005, Archbishop George Yasilious was kidnapped and later released. In October 2006, an Orthodox priest, Polis Iskander, was beheaded after he was kidnapped and attempts to ransom him failed.

The Chaldean church is an Eastern denomination that maintains ties with Rome.

Pope Benedict’s reaction is reported here:

Pope Benedict XVI called the kidnapping and death of an Iraqi archbishop “an act of inhuman violence that offends the dignity of the human being and seriously harms the … coexistence among the beloved Iraqi people.”

Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, 65, was kidnapped Feb. 29 in an attack that left his driver and two bodyguards dead. The pope had made several public appeals for his release.

Catholic leaders in Iraq said March 13 that they had recovered the archbishop’s body after the kidnappers told them where they had buried him.

In a March 13 telegram to Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Pope Benedict said that after being informed of “the tragic death” of the archbishop, whom he called a “zealous pastor,” he wanted to let Chaldean Catholics and all Christians in Iraq know that he is close to them.

The pope also said he was praying that the Lord would show “his mercy so that this tragic event would serve to construct a future of peace in the martyred land of Iraq.”