ROME – In Iraq, the Chaldean Catholic Church has not yet chosen its new patriarch, who will succeed the deceased Raphael I Bidawid. John Paul II has summoned the Chaldean bishops to Rome December 2-3, to come to an agreement. But in the meantime, important things have been happening at the top levels of some dioceses.

Bidawid was hotly contested within his own Church. He was accused of governing it in an authoritarian way, and of carrying on an excessively fawning relationship with the Baathist regime and Saddam Hussein.

After the fall of Saddam, the Chaldean Church was afraid of paying dearly for its link with the defunct regime. But events belied these fears. Now the danger looming over Iraqi Christians is the same that threatens the whole country: terrorism, which strikes without distinction not only the American occupation, but the U.N., the Red Cross, foreign embassies, police forces, local authorities, religious leaders, and the Iraqi population itself, in its various components.

The Chaldean Church is one of the participants in the laborious process of democratization now underway. The Vatican is apprehensively following this process, and the steady stream of terrorist attacks, while abstaining from any public comments.

But one of the newly appointed Chaldean bishops has spoken openly: Louis Sako, nominated as bishop of Kirkuk on September 28. He has spoken, among other places, in an interview – reproduced below – with the magazine of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, published in Milan, “Mondo e Missione.”

Sako, 55, an outstanding figure in the Chaldean community, was until recently a parish priest in Mosul, and before that the rector of the seminary in Baghdad. He knows twelve languages, has studied in Rome and Paris, is an expert in ancient Christian literature, and has a master’s degree in Islamic history. His is a consultant for the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and has often been the guest of “Pax Christi” in Italy.

Mosul, his home town, which was the ancient city of Nineveh, was the first in Iraq to be provided with a provisory provincial council, shortly after the end of the war. And Sako was elected its vice-president. The Mosul model was later reproduced in Kirkuk and other provinces.

Sako told the Italian newspaper “Il Foglio” on October 21 that “Iraq as an engine of democracy does not sit well with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and other neighbors,” because “civil rights for non-Arab minorities, religious liberty, and legal reform would bring into question the power upon which atavistic tyrannies and proven systems of repression are based.”

He raised the alarm over certain Muslim imams “who are not as moderate as they would like to be believed. They are ‘Radio Islam,’ more capillary than Al Jazeera.”

But he has said he trusts that “the Iraqi New Deal can become reality.” And thanks to whom? “To the Americans. The pope was opposed to it, and he had his reasons, but for all Iraqis the destruction of the dictatorship was a liberation. We could never have done it by ourselves.”

Here is the interview with Sako in “Mondo e Missione,” published in the November 2003 edition:

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

An interview with Louis Sako, bishop of Kirkuk

The news media speak of an interminable post-war period. What is life like in Iraq now?

“Like in a country emerging from thirty-five years of dictatorship, during which the people were deprived of everything: of oil, but even of air to breathe. Saddam Hussein had transformed Iraq into an enormous barracks. Two wars, first with Iran and then the Gulf War, and twelve years of embargo produced a massive exodus of Iraqis abroad and a million deaths. And yet, faced with such a disastrous situation, today the people are satisfied with the change, with the renewed possibility for freedom. In just a few months eighty new political parties have arisen, five of them Christian, freedom of the press has blossomed in dozens of new publishers, six of them Christian. And even some of the television stations that have sprung up in the zone of Mosul are Christian. None of this was here with Saddam! Even from the economic point of view, everything has changed: before it was not possible to make any plans, but now we can construct projects, albeit modest ones, for the future. One example: state employees receive 150-200 dollars a month, before only 3-4.”

But all of this was achieved through war.

“Yes, but the civilians were not the targets. The Americans did a lot of bombing, especially in Baghdad, striking government buildings, and the bombs were usually precise.”

Do you defend the American action?

“I’m not saying that they’re angels! They have their interests, and they came to Iraq for those, not to liberate the Iraqis. But, in fact, freedom was the result. They made mistakes; for example, eliminating all of the old guard of the Baath party from the scene and dismantling the army. There were good-hearted people there, too.”

Are you afraid that there are still some of Saddam’s men around?

“There aren’t any more people linked to the dictator. What we have instead are Arab fighters who have entered Iraq, financed by fundamentalist movements in nearby countries, or maybe even by the governments. There are those who do not want Iraq to be open and free. Those responsible for the stream of attacks are loose cannons, without any popular support.”

Are you satisfied with the test of democracy in course, for example, at Mosul and Kirkuk?

“Yes. The people treasure freedom. Sometimes they criticize the decisions of the Americans, but the process underway is working. I myself was elected by popular vote as the vice-president of the interim council in Mosul. I have resigned from office, but being still part of the council. We have been working with the Americans since last May, and I am optimistic. Gradually roads and hospitals are being constructed, and I ask myself, Why should we resist? It’s useless! Of course, the United States made mistakes.”

Can you mention one of them?

“They are slow in acting, and above all, they do not understand the Iraqi mentality and habits, the history of the country. But they have undoubtedly done good things as well. The trouble is that, not knowing whom they can trust, they live in a state of perpetual suspicion; the soldiers tend to open fire at the first sign of danger.”

Why do you think the Americans do not understand the Iraqis?

“We are moderates by nature; the extremists who are operating are supported from outside. It is obvious that, if a democracy is born in Iraq, the surrounding countries will be worried.”

Are you hoping for a domino effect? That is, do you think that a democratic solution for Iraq would have positive effects on the whole region?

“I don’t know. The Iraqi people are among the best-educated in the area. The embargo weighed heavily on education, but the Iraqi cultural and academic tradition is well advanced; the Americans have recognized this. But there isn’t the same degree of education everywhere. This is certainly the moment in which we have the greatest need for you Europeans: Europe should put pressure on the countries bordering Iraq. And we need to learn; U.S. democracy is not the only model; Europe also has a valuable heritage. The point now is to create a democracy with Iraqi characteristics.”

How is the writing of the new constitution proceeding?

“The national committee is working on it, and there are five Christians among its two hundred members [ed.: one of whom is Sako]. But we need time. The future is prepared through small steps; the people must be instructed in a new mentality.”

What role do you see for Christians?

“The Christians have a great task, even though we are relatively few. But our strength is not in numbers; it is rather in our culture, values, openness, fraternity, and capacity for friendly criticism.”

What influence did the pope have in preventing the war from being interpreted as a war of religion?

“A great one. The Muslims tried to paint the war as a crusade against islam; but they quickly saw that the bombings touched everyone, including Christians, and they understood that the United States was intervening in Iraq for economic and political reasons, not religious ones. On our part, we formed a mixed group of Christians and Muslims to defend the churches and mosques before and during the war. We furthermore promised conferences to explain Christianity and islam; many friendships were born, and some of the Muslims have welcomed our appeal for national unity. Finally, the aid we distributed, which also went to Muslims, was a witness of charity, which did not draw accusations of proselytism.”

Is this more than ever the time for dialogue?

“In the municipal council [of Mosul], where I hold a seat, I was able to do a lot as a priest to help the Muslims to work for peace and dialogue, renouncing the weapons of violence. I always speak of reconciliation and forgiveness, on television, too. I have even had the opportunity to do so with an imam at my side.”

What do you ask of the international community and of the Churches of the West?

“Don’t forget us! There are 700,000 Christians in Iraq, and in a year, when the emphasis on Iraq is gone, who will remember them? It has already happened with the Gulf War and the embargo. I make this appeal to all the religious congregations: come to Iraq to lend a hand, especially in education, and not only for the Christians. Here in Iraq, man himself must be reconstructed, and we can’t do it alone. Iraq is rich in economic potential, but it also needs spiritual resources.”

What future do you imagine for Iraq? And what role do you see for the United Nations?

“The United Nations is finished; we need to think of other instruments. Europe must have a crucial role. Before the war its support was strong, but now we lack its political support. It would be an error for Europe to leave the reconstruction of the country to the Americans.”

Your Excellency, how should your nomination as bishop be interpreted?

“In the context of the delicate phase of transition underway, Catholics – especially those with responsibility – must become involved. They have more courage and an adequate cultural formation: they can contribute to widening the horizons, strengthened by the universal vision of the Church.”

(Interview by Gerolamo Fazzini)

Naturally, the Louis Sako’s positions are not shared by all the Chaldean bishops. An opposed view, for example, is that of Shlemon Warduni, provisory administrator for the patriarchate of Baghdad, in an interview with the weekly magazine “Vita”:

“We said, with the pope, that war does not solve problems; it increases them. And that is what happened. Everything has been destroyed. We are living in a great prison. War was not necessary to defeat Saddam Hussein. With less than a tenth of the more than fifty billion dollars spent in the conflict, we could have paid the tuition of all the young Iraqis, and Saddam’s regime would have imploded without a single bomb or a single victim. But to the contrary, the United States sold weapons to Iraq, pocketing our money; then they destroyed those weapons, again using our money; and now they have to rebuild, using money obtained from our oil.”

For the sake of accuracy, the Center for Strategic and International Studies documents that in the period from 1973 to 1991, prior to the embargo, the biggest arms dealers to Iraq were the USSR, at 31.8 billion dollars; France, at 9.24 billion; China, at 5.5 billion, and Germany, at 995 million. During the same period, the United States sold Iraq 5 million dollars’ worth of weapons.