Ragheed Aziz Ganni
Ragheed Aziz Ganni was an Iraqi Chaldean Catholic priest. On 3 June 2007, Trinity Sunday, the Sunday after Pentecost, he was killed along with three subdeacons including his cousin Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed in front of Mosul's Holy Spirit Chaldean Church, where he was a parish priest.
Ragheed Aziz Ganni was born on 20 January 1972 in the Sunni city of Mosul, Iraq. After completing a degree in Civil Engineering at Mosul University in 1996 and fulfilling obligatory military service under the Saddam Hussein regime Ganni entered the seminary in Iraq. In 1996 his bishop sent him to Rome for further study at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Angelicum where he completed a licentiate in ecumenical theology in 2003. He was ordained a priest in Rome in 2001 at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. During his study in Rome, he resided at the Pontifical Irish College where he played soccer for the College. The annual showcase 5-a-side tournament played in May among the Scots, English, Beda, and Irish Colleges has been named the "Ragheed Cup" in his memory.
Ganni celebrated his first Mass in the Chapel at the Irish College. Today Ganni is one of the nine figures represented in the apse of that chapel where the relics of Saint Oliver Plunkett rest in the altar wrapped in the priestly stole of Ganni. Fluent in Aramaic, Arabic, Italian, French, and English, and served as a correspondent for the international agency Asia News of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions. Ganni was finishing his degree in Rome when the Iraq war broke out. He looked forward to returning to his native land to serve the Church and people there. He did so after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power in 2003.
On June 3, 2007, he had just finished celebrating the Sunday evening Holy Qurbana. Three deacons decided to accompany Ragheed because of threats against his life. He walked away from the church with Daud as Isho, Bidawed, while Isho's wife followed by car; then unknown armed men stopped the group. One of the gunmen shouted at Ganni that he had warned him to close the church and demanded to know why he didn't do it. Ragheed replied, "How can I close the house of God?" The gunmen ordered the woman to flee, then after the gunmen demanded that the four men convert to Islam, which they refused, the four were shot dead. The car was then set with explosives to deter interference. Several hours passed while a police bomb-squad defused the devices. Thousands attended the funeral of the four men in Karemlash, Iraq on 4 June 2007.
The Vatican Secretary of State telegrammed Ragheed's bishop on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI saying that "Ragheed's sacrifice will inspire in the hearts of all men and women of good will a renewed resolve to reject the ways of hatred and violence, to conquer evil with good and to cooperate in hastening the dawn of reconciliation, justice and peace in Iraq." The Congregation for the Causes of Saints has opened a cause for his beatification and declared him a Servant of God.