August 1, 2004
Archbishop bears message of peace from Iraq

The archbishop of Baghdad came to Chicago bearing words of peace. Archbishop Jean Benjamin Sleiman, 58, a Lebanese native and Carmelite priest, visited the Chicago area and nearby Carmelite communities as a guest of Washington D.C. based Carmelite Institute and the Lumen Christi Institute of Chicago for a Carmelite conference, “Carmel as a Sign of Healing and Hope in our Troubled World.”

Before being appointed in 2001 to shepherd what are now estimated to be 2,500 Catholics in Iraq, Sleiman earned doctorates in theology and cultural anthropology in Paris and taught at the university level in Rome and Lebanon. Raised in the Maronite Rite, a church in communion with Rome but with its own tradition, Sleiman joined the Latin Rite to become a Carmelite. Now, he says, he enjoys the Latin Rite liturgy because it can be “simple and solemn at the same time.”

In addition to visiting Carmelite houses, Sleiman celebrated Mass and preached at Ss. Faith, Hope and Charity Parish in Winnetka. He sat down with Michelle Martin on a free morning at the Carmelite Edith Stein House in Hyde Park.

 

The Catholic New World: At Mass (July 18), you preached about finding faith in times of turmoil and learning the value of peace in times of conflict. Has that happened?

Archbishop Jean Sleiman: For some Christians, but not for all. Really, I was speaking for myself, and I won’t generalize my own experience, but I wanted to share it. I experienced another civilian war in Lebanon, and really I am against war—even just wars. Because war is a process you cannot control. Maybe you prepare very well for war, but when war begins, you cannot control it, and you will be changed by the war itself, and war will create many things that you don’t want. The mechanism of war is really dangerous, because hatred is created by war. When you kill someone else, even if you are defending yourself, even if it is legitimate, you kill something in yourself. War creates new problems.

When you observe and experience the negative results of war, I think you appreciate peace. I will speak of my country, Lebanon. Many Christians lost their souls in war. I knew young people, young students, very, very good morally and so on. When they began the war, they became killers. Really something changed in themselves. As Christians they became unhappy. A Christian cannot justify killing. Don’t kill. Maybe some fundamentalist Muslims can justify it because they are following some Koran verses, but a Christian cannot do it. …

When you experience this, you are invited to discover the gift of peace, the power of mercy and pardon and reconciliation.

 

TCNW: Before the war started, what did you hope for?

AJS: We hoped to avoid war. It doesn’t mean we were ingenuous. Iraq and other countries in the Middle East had and have regimes that are from other time periods. The regime in Iraq had to be changed. I am not alone—the Catholic Church was against the war. Not against the aims invoked to make war. But there were many problems for conscience. Preventive war isn’t accepted by everybody, and in our theology and our creed, war is the last thing you do. If you can achieve the aims without war, it is better. Really, it would have been better if the regime collapsed without war.

 

TCNW: What do you hope for now?

AJS: I hope that Iraqis will take this opportunity. After the war arise many new problems, but I think that Iraq now has an important opportunity to rebuild itself, to make something new, to make something really for everybody, to incorporate democracy. But I think it can’t do it by itself, alone. I am glad that the new government has asked for help and is ready to help in this rebuilding. But we will see soon. …We can use this situation positively, or we can lose it. The insurgents are losing the opportunity to rebuild. They are continuing a war instead of taking the opportunity to be positive.

 

TCNW: What challenges have become greater since the first Gulf War?

AJS: Between the two wars, the regime was still there, and the church enjoyed some freedom for worship, but not more than others. In the real life, all people had to be careful not to say things. …

Now one of the challenges is freedom. With freedom, you have to become responsible. You have to choose what to do. You cannot say, ‘I am not free to do this or do that.’”

With freedom you don’t know really what it means until you have it.

When you are a minority, say with the Muslims, and the majority don’t share your idea of freedom, the challenge becomes greater.

 

TCNW: Is there a fear that there could be an Islamic government?

AJS: There is a fear, but I am trustful that with the help of the international community, especially the United States, and especially with the help of many liberal Muslims, we can avoid this. It would be very, very negative, not only for the minorities, but also for Islam to have a theocracy in Iraq. Iraq is different from Iran; we have not only Shi’a (one form of Islam), we have also Sunni, who claim another tradition and another theology of politics, and you have your ethnic problems. An Islamic republic would be very difficult for both groups.

 

TCNW: How does the Roman Catholic Church function in Iraq?

AJS: The Roman Catholic Church in Iraq is a very modern church, compared with the Oriental church. The first churches in Iraq, first the Assyrian and now the Assyrian Chaldean, began with the evangelization of the apostles. Even if some historians are a little bit dubious, the tradition maintains that Thomas the Apostle preached the Gospel and in Mesopotamia. This Oriental church was very linked by liturgy and theology to Syro-Christian communities. There are until now traditions from these early times.

The Latin church began in Iraq in the 17th century. The first bishop was appointed in 1632, and the first Carmelite missionaries arrived in 1605. This church never had many believers. It had been a missionary church with friars and after some time the sisters from Europe to help other churches. In the last century, because of the opening of Iraq to the rest of the world, because of business, sometimes because of war in other Arab countries, many, many Roman Catholics had been living in Iraq.

With the first Gulf War, many left. When the war started, there were about 60,000 Roman Catholics, mostly from Europe and other countries, some from South America. It was very rich, very various. After the invasion of Kuwait and the war against Iraq, all these people left. Even the Iraqi Latins, many of them left.

Twenty-five hundred (Roman Catholics) is a good estimation. We never are sure of our numbers, because there is no census. People many times leave Iraq without saying, so you don’t know if they are still there. The diocese is all Iraq, so you can’t check easily. I have families spread in many cities where there is no church. For example, I have some families in Bayji—it’s a city near Tikrit. Many times Marines have been attacked there. Bayji is a very Muslim city, and I think they have become more militant there. In Bayji, I have two or three families, and they don’t have a church. To baptize their children, they used to come to Baghdad. It’s difficult to be sure how many are still there.

But when you give people help, you will discover many who have been hidden for a long time.

 

TCNW: With such a small community, why is it important for the Latin church to keep its presence in Iraq?

AJS: The presence of the of the Latin church in the Middle East really isn’t a question of a small or great community. It really has a purpose to serve other churches. The Latin church has been at all times helping other churches, especially with the religious orders. The Latin church is the smallest one Iraq, but the Latin church has more sisters than the Chaldeans, who represent about 80 percent of all Christians in Iraq. We have Dominicans, Carmelites, Redemptorists, friars—the Jesuits also had a very important mission for education and culture in Iraq. Everybody profits from this presence.

 

TCNW: What do you think the United States as a country should do to help Iraq? What should American Catholics do to help the people?

AJS: The United States has changed policies over the last year, so it shows they are trying to adjust the policies for the situation. When they handed over power (in June), that was really good for Iraq. I hope that the consensus reached in the United Nations continues. It is important, even for the United States, even for a very powerful state, to have others’ cooperation and consent. Maybe others could not stop the United States, but they can make all kinds of difficulties. So consensus is important.

As for the Catholic Church, first of all, communion is very important. When you recognize another, you are helping him. We had some visits from the United States, from Dominicans from Chicago, before the war and after the war. The visitors came and they offered their friendship and they prayer. They were very important for saving Iraqi Christians from a feeling of isolation, from a feeling of being abandoned by others.

There can be another kind of help in formation, theological and educational formation, in information.

The Catholic Church was helping with Catholic Relief Services, but CRS left after the kidnappings started last month. They are still working with Caritas of Iraq. They and many other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) follow the rule of “need before creed,” so they help everybody.

 

 

TCNW: What are hoping to do in the United States?

AJS: I came to attend the Carmelite conference, and the theme is really hope in our contemorary world. I will share my hope in our special situation, in Iraq and in the Mideast in general.

 

TCNW: Do you see signs for hope?

AJS: I see signs, but I think the question of the Middle East is really the impossible peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Many things begin with this question and cannot be achieved without a solution to this problem. If peace could have been achieved between Israel and the Palestinians, even the regime of Saddam would have collapsed by itself. Many regimes are taking this question to protect their politics, to justify themselves. If there is a solution of peace, all these anti-democratic regimes will collapse. But we cannot make again history. There has been the Iraq war, and there is history before the war and history after it, just like there is history before 9/11 and after 9/11.

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