Saad Hanna Sirop*

P. Saad Hanna Sirop, one of the first Chaldean priests to have been abducted in Baghdad and ex director of the Babel College, reiterates that the persecution underway in Iraq is not exclusive to Christians, but also targets Shiites and Sunnis. The priest’s observations come in the wake of the Chaldean Churches unanimous rejection of the Nineveh Plains project. There is a need to avoid sectarian and divisive declarations, and to promote “universal action for the common good of the country, which is the patrimony of all humanity”.

Opposition to the “Assyrian” ghetto to save Iraq’s persecuted Christians today finds a qualified representative: Fr. Saad Hanna Sirop, one of the first Chaldean priests to have been kidnapped in Baghdad, and for whose release Benedict XVI intervened. A victim of Iraq’s violent anti Christian persecution, he too views the idea of an ethnic-religious enclave as diametrically opposed to Iraq’s history and the purpose of evangelization. Moreover, Fr. Saad maintains that the project’s real aim is not protection of the Chaldean and Assyrian Christians, but to protect ambitious “personal and economic interests”.