Gunmen in Iraq kidnapped the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul today and killed his driver and two guards.
Pope Benedict deplored the kidnapping of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho in the northern city, describing it as a "despicable" crime and urged the gunmen to free the prelate.
Provincial police spokesman Brigadier-General Khaled Abdul Sattar said Archbishop Rahho was kidnapped in the al-Nour district in eastern Mosul when he left a church.
"Gunmen opened fire on the car, killed the other three and kidnapped the archbishop," he said.
While violence across much of Iraq has dropped in recent months, US and Iraqi officials say that Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, remains the last urban stronghold of al Qaeda.
Chaldeans belong to a branch of the Roman Catholic Church that practises an ancient Eastern rite. Most of its members are in Iraq and Syria, and they form the biggest Christian community in Iraq.
The Vatican issued a statement in Rome saying the pope was saddened by what it called a premeditated criminal act.
"The Holy Father asks the universal Church to join in his fervent prayer so that reason and humanity prevails in the kidnappers and Monsignor Rahho is returned to his flock soon," the statement said.
A number of Christian clergy have been kidnapped or killed, and churches bombed in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. Last June, gunmen killed Catholic priest Ragheed Aziz Kani and three assistants in Mosul,.
A former Archbishop of Mosul, Basile Georges Casmoussa, was kidnapped at gunpoint in 2005, but was released after one day of captivity and said no ransom was paid.