Patriarch pleads for humanitarian assistance, political action on behalf of Iraq’s Christians

August 06, 2014

The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church pleaded with the international community to offer humanitarian assistance to Iraq’s persecuted Christians and to take political action to restore peace to Iraq.

In his August 5 letter, written in French and addressed to Pope Francis, his fellow Eastern Catholic patriarchs, and the world’s episcopal conferences, Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako said that in recent days, Christians have had to flee from three northern Iraqi towns (Telkef, Batnaya and Telleskuf) in the wake of the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a Sunni jihadist group.

Lamenting the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government’s inability to cooperate with regional Kurdish authorities, as well as the nation’s inability to form a new unified governing coalition, the patriarch said that Church leaders must pressure the international community, “especially the superpowers,” to bring the persecutors of Christians to justice, to seek a peaceful solution to the military conflict in Iraq, and to end financial and military support of “violence and radicalization.”

“May God grant us the grace and the ability to overcome this ordeal, and may He remove all hatred and violence from all hearts,” he concluded.

 

---

For all current news, visit our News home page.

---

 
Further information:

• Sa Beatitude le Patriarche Louis SAKO envoie une lettre a sa Saintete le Pape Francois, et a tous les Patriarches, et aux conferances episcopales (Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate)