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Christmas Unites a Divided Iraq
Parliament’s unanimous vote to make Jesus’ birth an annual holiday succeeds where other national holidays have failed.
Jayson Casper|
Image: Chris McGrath / Getty Images
Priests lead a Christmas Day mass at Mar Hanna church in Qaraqosh on December 25, 2016 in Mosul, Iraq.
Seventeen years since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the fractious Iraqi nation divided mostly between Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish Muslims remains unable to agree on a national day.
But they can agree on Christmas.
Last week, the parliament unanimously passed a law to make Christmas a “national holiday, with annual frequency.”
The latter phrase gave great “joy and satisfaction” to Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Last October, he presented an official request to Iraqi President Barham Salih to make Christmas a permanent public holiday. ....

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