From AP, with thanks to Belisarius:
VATICAN CITY “” A Roman Catholic archbishop in Mosul, Iraq, has been kidnapped, the Vatican said Monday.
It identified the kidnapped man as Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, 66, of the Syrian Catholic Church, one of the branches of the Roman Catholic Church.
“The Holy See deplores in the firmest way such a terrorist act,” a Vatican statement said, demanding that he be freed immediately.
A priest in Iraq said on condition of anonymity that the archbishop was walking in front of the Al-Bishara church in Mosul’s eastern neighborhood of Muhandeseen when gunmen forced him into a car and drove away.
There are some nomenclature problems here (the Syrian Catholic Church is not a “branch” of the Roman Catholic Church, but a Church in its own right, in communion with Rome, and this Archbishop is not a “Roman” Catholic, but, obviously, a Syrian Catholic), but they aren’t important. What is important is the question of whether this will lead the Vatican to speak more forthrightly about the threat of Islamic jihad, or to retreat more into dhimmitude.