Posted By:
Catherine Moy
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Michael Yon has done it again. His reporting from Iraq has been stunning. We have heard that the troop surge coupled with the years of our troops bonding with Iraqis has paid off.

Today, Michael tells the story of how a St. John’s Catholic church reopened for Mass. Brave parishioners, soldiers and Muslims attended the chuch, which was closed after terrorists murdered Priests from a nearby church.
It was the first mass said in St John’s since the church was shuttered after the nearby St George’s was destroyed and clergy in the north were kidnapped, tortured and executed, Yon reports.

Most Reverend Shlemon Warduni, Auxiliary Bishop of the St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Diocese for Chaldeans and Assyrians in Iraq officiated standing directly beneath the dome under the Chaldean cross. Speaking in both Arabic and English, Bishop Warduni thanked those American soldiers sitting in the pews for their sacrifices.  Again and again, throughout the service, he thanked the Americans.

Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”

Michael pays his own way in Iraq, where he does some of the best reporting on the war. Please go to http://www.Michaelyon-online.com to him continue his work.