SEPTEMBER 2019

chaldean DIGEST
What others are saying about Chaldeans
Why Detroiters shut down a gas station for 5 days
DETROIT FREE PRESS
BY NANCY KAFFER
LOS ANGELES TIMES
BY MELISSA ETEHAD, NABIH BULOS
For many in Detroit’s Iraqi Chaldean
Catholic community, the election
of President Trump appeared a positive
development. They envisioned
a bright future with an administration
led by a man who had advocated
strongly on behalf of Christian minorities
in majority-Muslim countries.
Chaldean and Arab Americans
own roughly 300 gas stations in
this majority black city, according to
the Arab American News.
It’s not news that this can lead to
conflict. Gas station workers are often
targeted by criminals who see the
stores as easy targets, and clerks as acceptable
collateral damage. Residents
often view owners with no organic
ties to the community as indifferent,
just out to make a buck, a perception
perpetuated by those who stock
expired food, provide poor lighting
around pumps and parking lots, or racially
profile their customers.
Those are the inequities the Detroit
Coalition for Peace’s 16-point
plan is meant to address, and most
Iraqi Chaldeans supported Trump.
Now one of their own died after being deported
“Christians in the Middle-East
have been executed in large numbers,”
Trump tweeted in 2017. “We
cannot allow this horror to continue!”
A few months into his presidency,
however, scores of Iraqi
immigrants were swept up in immigration
enforcement raids for
overstaying visas or criminal convictions.
Many are Christians who
fled their war-torn homeland, some
Priest says Chaldeans in northern Iraq
face uncertainty in return to homes
CATHOLICPHILLY.COM
BY DENNIS SADOWSKI
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Chaldean
Christians in northern Iraq
are determined to continue their
2,000-year-long mission despite the
near-deadly blow inflicted by Islamic
State forces and new challenges from
nongovernment militias, said a priest
ministering in the region.
“The situation is so complicated
in Iraq, but our faith and principles
are that Christian religious communities
should be there. Our mission is
to be there and not in another place,”
Chaldean Father Thabet Habib told
Catholic News Service July 17.
“We have faith at this time. We
feel the hope. That gives me a sense
to be optimistic,” the priest said after
addressing a session during day two of
the second Ministerial to Advance
Religious Freedom sponsored by the
Chaldean Catholics celebrate Mary, culture,
family at Ohio National Shrine
CATHOLIC SUN
BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
CAREY, Ohio (CNS) — With its
one stoplight and surrounding cornfields,
the small Ohio village of Carey
seems an unlikely travel destination.
Yet, once a year, an estimated
5,000 visitors swell the town population
to more than double.
For nine days, climaxing on the
evening of Aug. 14, scores of charter
buses drop off pilgrims, most of
whom are Iraqi Christians. Hundreds
of families fill a five-acre plot with
tents, recreational vehicles, Middle
Eastern food and music.
“We feel that we’re like in our old
village back home. Like when I walk
around, I know a lot of people,” said
of it sounds like good advice for any
business: Provide customer service
training for all staff and employees.
Don’t sell loosies or other illegal
products. Make sure the building is
safe and clean. Hire employees from
the community.
But that 16-point plan was developed
after another shooting of a
black customer by an Arab-American
clerk…
when they were children decades ago.
Since then, the community — in
a state that could prove crucial in the
coming presidential election — has
been on edge. News last week of the
death of a Detroit man who was deported
to Iraq two months ago has
heightened fears. Some view it as a
prime example of how Trump has
turned his back on a community he
promised to protect.
U.S. Department of State.
Father Habib recounted a story of
determination on the part of Christian
families who were forced to flee
towns and villages on Iraq’s Ninevah
Plain just ahead of advancing Islamic
State forces in August 2014 to an audience
of 300 at the United States Institute
of Peace. The session was part
of a daylong look at religious freedom
in development and humanitarian assistance.
Khalid Markos, who is now a resident
of Sterling Heights, Michigan,
but was born in Alanish, Iraq.
His family, like most of the pilgrims,
fled from war and persecution in their
home country. Now exiled refugees, they
have found consolation by celebrating
their faith and traditions at the aptly
named Basilica and National Shrine of
Our Lady of Consolation in Carey.
Assyrian genocide
remembered in Turlock
TURLOCK JOURNAL
BY ANGELINA MARTIN
As Turlock’s Assyrian community
convened for the third annual
Assyrian Genocide Remembrance at
Stanislaus State on Wednesday, they
chose to not only remember their fallen
ancestors as martyrs, but as heroes.
Lawmakers, city leaders, university
officials and other ethnic community
members joined in solidarity with local
Assyrians to commemorate Martyrs
Day, a day to remember the victims
of genocides perpetrated against their
nation, such as the Turkish genocide
of Assyrians that claimed the lives of
750,000 Assyrians between 1915 and
1918, as well as the lives of 1.5 million
Armenians and 500,000 Pontic Greeks.
Aug. 7 was chosen as Martyrs Day
because of the massacre of Assyrians in
August 1933 in north Iraq, which was
conducted by the Iraqi Army and Arab
and Kurdish irregulars. During that
three-day period, 3,000 Assyrians in
the town of Simmele were massacred.
Chaldean Church
delegation meets with
Kurdistan President,
highlights religious
coexistence, tolerance
KURDISTAN 24
BY HIWA SHILANI
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A delegation
from the Chaldean Catholic Church on
Wednesday met with Kurdistan Region
President Nechirvan Barzani to congratulate
him on his appointment as leader
of the autonomous Kurdish region.
Louis Raphaël I Sako, who is the
current Patriarch of Babylon of the
Chaldeans and head of the Chaldean
Catholic Church in Iraq and the
world, led the delegation which included
several of the church’s pastors.
In the meeting, the delegation
extended its congratulations to the
president and wished him success in
taking up his responsibilities as the
leader of the Kurdistan Region.
President Barzani and the Catholic
delegation highlighted the current
circumstances of Christians in
general and the Chaldeans, in particular,
in Iraq and Kurdistan.
SEPTEMBER 2019 CHALDEAN NEWS 17