Monthly Archives: November 2014

ADVANCE FOR USE SUNDAY, NOV. 23, AND THEREAFTER – In this photo taken on Oct. 23, 2014, Chaldean Community Foundation program manager Sharon Hannawa, right, hands a tissue to a refugee in West Bloomfield, Mich., as she gets emotional while … more…

Between September 12 – 23, 2014, the Nineveh Center for Research & Development (NCRD) conducted a field study aimed at assessing the opinions of the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) from members of the minority communities of Iraq.…

By Ruth Sherlock, Izraa, Deraa Christianity is being extinguished in the land of its birth and the West is to blame, say Syria’s faithful Outgoing artillery shook St Elias church as the priest reached the end of the Lord’s Prayer.…

Catholic News Service A view shows smoke rising Thursday from a Kobani, Syria, neighborhood damaged by fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish forces. (CNS/Reuters/Osman Orsal) Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad implored moderate Muslims to…

John Conyers Jr., Detroit Free Press guest writer (Photo: Oct. 31 photo by MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/Getty Images) Seventy years ago, as the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed, the world rallied around a simple promise: never again. If a minority group in any nation should face the threat of systematic slaughter, we pledged not to avert…

JC Finley WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (UPI) –WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (UPI) — The U.S. is providing emergency airlifts to transport winter aid packages to 150,000 people displaced in northern Iraq. “The first of seven planned flights from Pakistan touched down at Erbil International…

By John Newton THE leaders of Iraq’s Christians has called on “the moderate majority of Muslims” to condemn attacks on Christians and other religious minorities by ISIS. Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, president of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops in Iraq,…

Posted by: Renad Mansour, Michael David Clark Muqtada al-Sadr, once labeled “the most dangerous man in Iraq,” now offers a potential solution to Iraq’s troubles. The scion of an influential religious family who rose by inheriting his father’s movement and building a militia after the United States toppled…

By Miriam Raftery Photos, (ltop left to lower right): Noori Barka and Supervisor Dianne Jacob, Wadi Deddeh and Congressman Susan Davis, Father Noel and Congressman Juan Vargas, Lion of Babylon/Citizen of the Year presentation to Pastor Harold Brown (third from right)…

By John Carroll One local Chaldean family is breathing a giant sigh of relief after hearing President Obama’s speech Thursday. San Diego 6 introduced you to Nesreen Daud and her family last week. Nesreen was facing deportation to Iraq … until now.…

Tom Coghlan, Sofia Barbarani, Hugh Tomlinson, Sara Elizabeth Williams, Hannah Lucinda Smith In the thin, deserted alleys of Baqofah, an ancient Assyrian town retaken from Islamic State, a local Christian militia holds sway. With a few dozen old weapons and the…

The Prince of Wales has condemned the persecution of Christians in the Middle East as “the most soul-destroying tragedy” and as a “grotesque and barbarous assault”. Speaking today at London’s Armenian cathedral, he said the persecution in the Middle East in countries where Armenian Christians have long lived peacefully with their…

Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako – RV (Vatican Radio) Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako has appealed to Muslim men and women the world over to seek “drastic change,” in response to the “unprecedented historic crisis” facing the Middle East. In an address in Vienna to a…

Ankawa.com – Exclusive A number of our displaced Christian people from the city of Mosul said that they had received phone calls from militants of the Islamic State. These calls threaten Christian people by planting explosive devises to blow up their houses if they are not sending to those militants certain amount of money.…

by Joni B. Hannigan A family of five recently fled fighting in the northern city of Mosul and took shelter in a garage provided by friends. Soon, however, they will have nowhere to go. ERBIL, Kurdistan, Iraq (Chrsistian Examiner) — Deborah receives an urgent request…

Catholic World News – November 18, 2014 Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako has disclosed that Pope Francis has received a formal invitation to visit Iraq. Speaking at a conference in Rome sponsored by the AsiaNews service, the Chaldean…

Medhat Klada They call themselves “The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.” On the other hand, clerics prefer to call them “Da’ish,” while the Western world and international press call them “ISIS,” which is the initials of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.…

Refugees re-open abandoned church to celebrate Eucharist. Telskuf, Nineveh Province, Iraq – Months after its closure, the Saint Georges Chaldean church in Telskuf has come back to life with the celebration of the Eucharist last Sunday with a number of the area’s young men. Telskuf is located in the Nineveh province…

Since the passing of Patriarch Shikho, our Chaldean Church leadership has undergone changes that have weakened it spiritually and structurally, with a free-for-fall of rules and regulations and disobedience of many its clergy. With the election of Patriarch Louis Sako, with additional pragmatic, intellectual, new bishops to the synod, the church…

by Joseph Mahmoud Salim al-Jubouri met Mar Sako and expresses solidarity and closeness to the Christian victims of violence. Sources of the Chaldean Patriarchate speak of “historic visit” that instills “new confidence”. The Church asks Christmas be recognized as a “national…