Iraq | July 12, 2024
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The Prime Minister of Iraq has officially recognized the status of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako as Patriarch of the Chaldean Church, La Croix International reported on 13 June 2024. This comes after Cardinal Sako spent almost a year in self-exile in Erbil.
On 11 June 2024, the Chaldean Church published the official decree made by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al-Sudani recognizing Cardinal Sako as “Patriarch of the Chaldeans in Iraq and the world”. The Patriarch has now announced that he is returning to Baghdad, which he left in July 2023 in protest after Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid had revoked a previous decree which had given official recognition to his position. Sako attributed this move by the President in 2023 to a campaign against him instigated by Rayan Al Kildani, the leader of the Chaldean militia ‘Babylon Brigades’, which is affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces, a collection of primarily Shiite, Iran-backed militias (APNews, 4 August 2023).
World Watch Research Analyst Henriette Kats comments: “As the leader of the largest Christian church in Iraq, Cardinal Sako’s position is of great symbolic importance. Several countries, including the USA, France and Germany, had expressed their support for Sako after recognition of his official status was withdrawn in 2023. The timing of his reinstatement – two months after Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani visited US President Joe Biden in Washington – shows that Western influence may have been at least partly responsible. Cardinal Sako’s reinstatement brings new stability for the Church community and, as Sako himself put it, ‘more hope for Christians about the respecting of their rights’. However, underlying issues such as the complex power-structures that Christians in Iraq face are likely to remain a source of unrest.”
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