Baghdad, Dec. 24, 2007 (CWNews.com) - "We are always the children of hope," Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly told the Associated Press in a Christmas Eve interview. But when asked whether the situation is improving for the country's Christian minority, the Iraqi prelate admitted, "I think that it's the same."
The Chaldean Patriarch-- who recently became the first Iraqi member of the College of Cardinals-- appealed to Iraqi Christians to remain in their homeland. He asked, in his AP interview, "for the emigrants to return home, to work for the good of their country and their homeland despite the situation which their country is in."
The Iraqi Christian leader issued "a message of peace and brotherhood and mutual cooperation" to all his countrymen, regardless of faith, "because we are all the sons of one family."