12/24/2020 at 4:09 PM
Posted by Kevin Edward White
Agenzia Fides, December 17, 2020,
Baghdad (Agenzia Fides) – From this year, Christmas becomes a public holiday throughout Iraqi territory. This is what the members of the Iraqi Parliament decided, expressing unanimously their agreement to the proposal made in recent months and made public during a meeting between the Iraqi President, Barham Salih, and Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako. The measure takes on particular importance in view of the apostolic visit that Pope Francis has planned to make in Iraq from March 5 to 8, 2021.
The Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, immediately after hearing the news of this unanimous decision of Parliament, released a message in which he thanked Iraqi President Barham Salih, the President of Parliament Muhammad al Halbousi and all the parliamentarians “for the vow cast for the good of their fellow Christians”, invoking God’s blessing and reward upon them.