By Kurdistan24
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024
Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and the World, on Monday stressed the importance of developing personal status laws concerning marriage, divorce, inheritance, children, moral and national principles, rights, duties, and freedoms for all.
Cardinal Sako’s remarks came during the Personal Status Law Congress for Christians in Iraq, hosted by the Catholic University in Erbil.
“The Iraqi parliament must adapt to changing times and find a fundamental solution to Iraq's issues,” the patriarch stated.
He also said that Iraq's constitution guarantees equality for all, but it must be a sovereign nation that respects its citizens, doesn't discriminate between communities, and provides a suitable life for its citizens.
To address the problems of diversity among different communities, nationalities, and religions, the top religious leader proposed a unified law on personal status while calling for a comprehensive law to address all communities and religions' personal status.
Following the rise of ISIS in 2014, thousands of Christians fled to the Kurdistan Region, where they sought sanctuary in the multi-ethnic and Christian-majority town of Ankawa whose population is estimated to be nearly 60,000 residents.
Religious leaders of the community on several occasions have praised the KRG’s efforts to protect Christians, whose numbers have been shrinking in Iraq since 2003 due to persecution and terrorism.