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Iraq: Leader of Iraq's Christians calls for national plan to stop IS/Daesh


Patriarch Louis Sako

Patriarch Louis Sako

In a strongly-worded statement addressed to the Iraqi government, the leader of the Chaldean Church, Patriarch Raphael Louis Sako called on his country's leaders to do their utmost to defeat "extremist groups that wear religious habits [whose] use of violence to extend their control are a danger to all."

The thinly veiled reference to Daesh (ISIS) came in a letter dated Thursday 6 August 2015, exactly one year after more than 120,000 Christians fled the Nineveh Plain after Daesh's capture of Qaraqosh, the last Christian majority town in Iraq.

Writing as President of the Assembly of the Catholic Bishops in Iraq, Patriarch Sako said Christians and Yazidis have had their land "occupied and their heritage threatened with extinction." He also referred to "thousands of dead Iraqi Muslims".

Rather than calling for a military solution for the defeat of Daesh and other extremist groups plaguing Iraq, Patriarch Sako called on legislators to earnestly and energetically embark on a process of "national and political reconciliation" as the foundation of the "common citizenship" of all of Iraq's ethnicities and religious groups.

Such a reconciliation would also produce a "reconciliation with God."

"The authentic basis for reconciliation is loyalty to Iraq--the united homeland of the whole people, and not just for individual persons or groups," the prelate said, with all citizens "giving priority to the common good."

On a practical level, the Patriarch said that the process of reconciliation "requires a review of the existing institutions and their relevance to our time."

Iraq, he stressed, needs to become a "strong modern civil state that is sustainable and representative of the best and most realistic ideals of its people."

The fruits of genuine reform, the Patriarch said, would be a stronger economy that "resolves unemployment and poverty", "new education" and a "constructive media", and "restoring the role of the middle class" to ensure "social and economic mobility."

He also called for a "religious discourse" that "should contribute to the development and stability of society, and direct it toward its highest values."

To make that possible, the Patriarch added, strict laws and their enforcement should deter "contempt of religion and its holy sites, and forms of discrimination, spreading hatred and division."

Pope Francis has also referred to the "atrocious, inhumane, and inexplicable persecution" of Christians in the Middle East.

The message of solidarity with the region's victims of "intolerance and fanaticism" came in a letter to Bishop Maroun Lanham, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem's Vicar for Jordan.

He wrote: "They are the martyrs of today, humiliated and discriminated against because of their fidelity to the Gospel."

The pontiff also lamented of the "silence" of the international community.

Source: ACN

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