After months in Erbil, the cardinal is back at the patriarchal seat in the Iraqi capital. His voluntary departure was triggered by the decision of the Iraqi president to repeal a decree recognising patriarchal authority, a controversy linked to a militia led by a self-styled Christian leader eager to grab Church-held assets. On social media, Iraqi Christians (and Muslim leaders) express joy and satisfaction at the patriarch’s return.
After months in Erbil, the cardinal is back at the patriarchal seat in the Iraqi capital. His voluntary departure was triggered by the decision of the Iraqi president to repeal a decree recognising patriarchal authority, a controversy linked to a militia led by a self-styled Christian leader eager to grab Church-held assets. On social media, Iraqi Christians (and Muslim leaders) express joy and satisfaction at the patriarch’s return.
Twenty-one years have passed since the return to peaceful Baghdad, after a forced absence that lasted more than a decade and a half. I remember those moments well, as if they were days ago. A feeling that words cannot describe. It’s like I was reborn.
Prominent Iraqi publisher and former presidential aide Fakhri Karim survived an assassination attempt in Baghdad on Thursday after gunmen intercepted his vehicle and shot it with eleven bullets. Karim was on his way home after visiting the Iraq International Book Fair in Baghdad that is being sponsored by the Al Mada Foundation for Media, Culture and Art, which he founded in the 1990s.
Before I assumed national responsibility as Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq, I recalled many questions that I had carried with me since my forced exile until my return in mid-2003, through all the stages that followed, all the way to the legitimate popular protests in October 2019.