Catholic San Bernardino Terrorist Attack Victim Fled Persecution in Iran

Last updated on: December 6, 2015 at 4:29 pm by Kate O'Hare

Catholic San Bernardino Terrorist Attack Victim Fled Persecution in Iran 2015-12-06T16:29:39-08:00 Kate O'Hare

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On Dec. 4, The Los Angeles Times ran profiles of the people killed and injured in the apparent terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, on Wednesday, Dec. 2.

Among them are Mike Wetzel, a family man who attended the Church of the Woods in Lake Arrowhead (and can be seen here lighting the first Advent candle with his family); Isaac Amanios, the cousin of New York Giants safety Nat Berhe; tattooed former truck driver Shannon Johnson; Larry Daniel Kaufman, a gay man who ran the coffee shop at the Inland Regional Center where the shooting took place; Mexican immigrant, husband and father Juan Espinoza; Messianic Jew Nicholas Thalasinos (whose character endured post-mortem assassination in a New York Daily News column); and Tin Nguyen, a Catholic immigrant from Vietnam who was engaged to be married at Saint Barbara Catholic Church in Santa Ana.

In other words, Americans.

Also among them was Benetta BetBadal. According to the LAT:

Bennetta Betbadal fled to America with her family to “escape Islamic extremism and the persecution of Christians that followed Iranian Revolution.”

She was 18 at the time, according to statement released by her family. Her first stop was New York but she eventually moved to California, where she met and married Arlen Vedehyou, a police officer.

Betbadal left her Rialto home Wednesday, eager to deliver a presentation to her colleagues in the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health at their meeting at the Inland Regional Center.

She would not return to her husband and their three children, 10, 12 and 15 years old.’

I reached out to her pastor, Iraqi-born Chorbishop Samuel Dinkha of St. Paul Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church in North Hollywood, and he referred me to a piece he wrote for the diocesan media center, Kaldaya.net. Via Google Translate, here’s what he wrote in remembrance of BetBadal:

With saddened hearts we received the news of the passing away of our beloved parish member Bennetta BetBadal who was one of the victims of the outrageous terrorist shooting in San Beernardino, CA.

Bennetta is the daughter of our faithful members Es’hagh & Shamiram BetBadal. She was 46 years old and worked for San Bernardino County as an Environmental Health Specialist for 9 years.

She is survived by her parents, her husband Arlin Vardayo, daughter Joline 15, sons Colin 12 and Ethan 10. She will be dearly missed.

May the Good Lord rest her soul with those who confessed him and grant comfort to the beloved family.

Click here to go a memorial fund for her family.

‘The horrors that BetBadal was fleeing have now followed her to America. On his feast day, St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, born in what is now Turkey, ora pro nobis.

Also, a special penitential rite has been written for, and distributed throughout, the Diocese of San Bernardino.

Image: Used with permission of Chorbishop Dinkha

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