by Andrea Tornielli
Today, the Synod of Chaldean Bishops, which is in Rome to elect a
new Patriarch, met to discuss the conditions and problems experienced by
Chaldean communities in the Patriarchal territory and wider diaspora.
To be elected, the new Patriarch will have to obtain two thirds of the
fifteen available votes. But during the meeting, the Chaldean episcopate
appeared divided. The blows and the decline experienced after the
“Iraqi Freedom” operation by what had been one of the most
well-established independent Catholic communities in the Middle East.
But new disagreements have sprung up in the run-up to the election of
the new Patriarch, over how to deal with the emergency and guarantee
continuity for this Catholic Church sui iuris.
In recent years, the identity option has gained a
lot of ground in the Iraqi context which has been seriously tested by
ethnic and political revanchism, even within the Chaldean Church. If
under the Baathist regime, Chaldean leaders theorised about the cultural
and political assimilation of Christians into the Arab milieu, in the
chaos of the post-war period, some of them put themselves forward as
leaders of an ethnic-national minority fighting to safeguard their own
social, political and cultural rights. The Chaldean diaspora which
settled in the United States, with its galaxy of circles, movements and
political logos, is the ideal context for this new sensitivity to
identity to thrive.
On an ecclesial level, the standard bearers of the
rediscovered ethnic identity and its liturgical and ritualistic links
are the two bishops of the United States-based Chaldean Church: the
75-year old Ibrahim Ibrahim, resident in Southfield (Michigan) and
71-year old Sahrad Jammo, resident in San Diego (California). The
former, in particular, despite his age (bishops are required to renounce
their Episcopal role once they reach the age of 75) is a potential
candidate for the papacy in the electoral Synod that is currently
underway. Before coming to Rome, Ibrahim, who was born in the village of
Telkaif, – as was Emmanuel III Delly who resigned and at least two
other electing bishops – was interviewed by The Michigan Catholic,
the newspaper of the Diocese of Detroit. In the interview, he praised
the great progress made in the last 5 years by the Chaldean diaspora in
the U.S., which went from having 20 thousand faithful 30 years ago, to
220 thousand today.
The election of a bishop who served in the West as
Patriarch of the Chaldean Church, would confirm the Church’s American
influence. A Church which is losing ground in areas where its strength
has traditionally lain (and where, according to the most pessimistic of
estimates, there are only a few hundred thousand faithful left)and
entrusts the Church’s unique liturgical, theological and cultural
rituals up to the sensitivity of the Chaldean community in the U.S.
There has recently been talk of the Chaldean Patriarchate being
transferred to America, as happened with the Assyrian Church of the
East, whose Patriarch moved to the U.S. in the 1930’s after the attacks
that started taking place against Assyrians in Iraqi territory at the
time.
A number of bishops who head dioceses in Iraqi
Kurdistan and other regions of the Middle East have distanced themselves
from the delocalised identity-focused perspective that is dominant in
the various circles of the diaspora. Five of them – including Rabban
Al-Quas, Louis Sako and Mikha Pola Maqdassi, who are attending the
electoral Synod in Rome – scandalously boycotted a Synod assembly in
June 2007, to communicate their disagreement with the line taken by
Patriarch Delly and speak out against the “insane condition” and state
of pastoral abandonment they believed the Chaldean Church was being
left in. The five bishops representing northern Iraq, also rejected
ongoing plans to create an autonomous administrative area for the
protection of Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, in the Nineveh plain,
north of Mosul.
In a recent appeal launched through Fides
news agency the Archbishop of Kirkuk, Louis Sako, warned against the
“trap of nationalism” that threatens the ancient apostolic Churches of
the East, especially at a time when they are haemorrhaging faithful who
are migrating to the West. The Syrian Bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo SJ,
continues to be a point of reference for those bishops who will not
tolerate the lack (according to them) of ecclesial sensitivity shown by
Chaldean Church leaders in recent years. The Syrian Jesuit’s critics
continue to oppose his lack of familiarity with the Chaldean language
used in traditional liturgical rituals. Meanwhile, the old and unfounded
accusations against his alleged sympathy for Assad’s Ba'athist regime now seem to have disappeared.
