Pope calls on Chaldean bishops to elect a ‘man of the Beatitudes’ as Patriarch

April 11, 2026

Pope Leo XIV received the members of the Synod of Bishops of the Chaldean Catholic Church as they prepared to elect a new Patriarch and urged them to elect a “father in faith” and “man of the Beatitudes” who seeks to build communion in charity.

The papal audience took place one month after the Pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, 76, the Church’s Patriarch since 2013.

On the same day, the Pontiff also accepted the resignation of Bishop Emanuel Hana Shaleta, the Chaldean Catholic bishop of San Diego, who had been arrested on money laundering and embezzlement charges. The Pillar reported that Cardinal Sako, amid an earlier internal investigation into allegations of financial and sexual misconduct against Bishop Shaleta, had “objected strongly to the Vatican request for Shaleta’s resignation” and was “attempting to rally support for the bishop in Rome.”

“Your Church has its roots in the early apostolic Church, representing a very ancient and fruitful tradition which, intimately linked to the wellsprings of salvation, was able to bring the Gospel beyond the borders of the Roman Empire, developing a Christianity rich in faith, culture and missionary spirit, as far as India and China,” Pope Leo said during the April 10 audience. “Your history is glorious, but also marked by very severe trials: wars, persecutions, tribulations that have struck your communities and scattered many faithful throughout the world. And it is precisely in these wounds that the luminous witness of faith shines forth, because if your Church bears the scars of history, it is precisely the Risen Lord who shows us how the most painful wounds can become in him signs of hope and new life.”

“You are called to elect the Patriarch in a delicate and complex, sometimes even controversial, phase,” the Pope continued. “I invite you to let yourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit, finding harmony in him and seeking not what appears most useful in the eyes of the world, but what is most in conformity with the heart of Christ.”

“May the new Patriarch be first and foremost a father in faith and a sign of communion with all and among all. It might seem that living according to the Gospel, that is, in meekness and in the patient search for unity, is against the tide and sometimes even counterproductive, but in reality it reveals itself to be the wisest way, because love is the only force that conquers evil and defeats death,” Pope Leo said. “May His Beatitude be a man of the Beatitudes: not called to extraordinary gestures and to arouse clamor, but to a daily holiness, made up of honesty, mercy and purity of heart.”

The Pontiff called upon the Chaldean bishops to preserve the Church’s liturgical and spiritual traditions:

In gratefully acknowledging the many contributions that the various Patriarchs have made to the Chaldean Church—I am also referring to the significant contributions of His Beatitude Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako and the remarkable efforts he has made—I feel that this is the time for spiritual renewal, for a renewal faithful to your precious and special traditions. which must be preserved. I am thinking of the richness of your liturgical and spiritual patrimony.

Pope Leo also asked the bishops to encourage the faithful to remain in the Middle East, as he appealed for respect for religious freedom and peace in the region:

Accompany the lay faithful, providing them with pastoral care, so that they may feel encouraged, despite all trials, to remain firm in the faith received from the Fathers and to remain in their territories. This is important for the whole Church, because the regions where the light of faith has arisen—orientale lumen [Eastern light]—cannot live without believers in Jesus, Christians, who are to the Middle East as the stars are to heaven. May the clouds that obscure this light clear: may Christians throughout the Middle East be respected, not just in words: may they enjoy true religious freedom and full citizenship, without being treated as guests or second-class citizens!

Brothers, you are signs of hope in a world marked by absurd and inhuman violence, which in this time, moved by greed and hatred, is spreading with ferocity precisely in the lands that have seen the rise of salvation, in the sacred places of the Christian East, profaned by the blasphemy of war and the brutality of business, without regard for the lives of the people, considered at most as a side effect of one’s own interests. But no interest can be worth the lives of the weakest, of children, of families; No cause can justify the innocent blood shed.

You, called to be tireless peacemakers in the name of Jesus, help us to proclaim clearly that God does not bless any conflict; to cry out to the world that those who are disciples of Christ, the prince of peace, are never on the side of those who yesterday took up the sword and today throw bombs; to remind us that it will not be military actions that will create spaces of freedom or times of peace, but only the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue between peoples.

The Chaldean Catholic Church (CNEWA profile) is an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Holy See; its headquarters are in Baghdad. The Annuario Pontificio notes that the Church has 23 eparchies and other circumscriptions: nine in Iraq, four in Iran, two in the United States, and one each in Australia, Canada, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey.

 

---

For all current news, visit our News home page.

---

 
Further information:

• To Members of the Synod of Bishops of the Chaldean Church of Baghdad (Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Media, 4/10/26)
• Pope accepts resignations of Chaldean Patriarch and bishop amid corruption scandal (CWN, 3/11/26)