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Iraq's Top Catholic Cleric Concerned About Future of Country's Christians

Dale Gavlak

   DOHUK, IRAQ - The U.S. State Department is hosting its second Religious
   Freedom Ministerial Roundtable in Washington, gathering international
   organizations, religious and government leaders, and social activists
   to tackle the challenges facing religious freedom.

   Ahead of the meeting, Iraq's top Catholic cleric, Patriarch Cardinal
   Louis Sako, said he is concerned about the future of Iraq's Christians.
   He says they are struggling after the destruction of their ancestral
   lands by Islamic State militants and the growing encroachment by
   Shi'ite militias linked to Iran, on their towns.
   Patriarch Louis Sako's Chaldean Catholic Church represents about
   two-thirds of Iraq's Christian community. The once-thriving community
   was found throughout the country and numbered around 2 million before
   the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But it has dwindled dramatically over the
   past decade to about 200,000, decimated by sectarian violence and
   driven out of its ancestral homeland of the past 14 centuries by
   Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
   Louis Sako is not optimistic about the future.
   "The ideology of ISIS is so strong, even among simple people because of
   the speech in the mosques," he said. "This is bad, it's against human
   nature and religion. Fundamentalism is the biggest challenge today. The
   Iraqi government is not so strong, maybe another edition of ISIS will
   come out."

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