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POPE-TALABANI Nov-10-2005 (490 words) With photo. xxxi
Iraqi president urges pope to help support country's Christians
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- In a private meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, Iraq's president urged the pope to help support the country's minority Christian population, saying "they are in need of such ... support."
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told reporters Nov. 10 that during his 20-minute meeting with the pope at the Vatican he asked the pontiff "to support or at least to show more support for our Christian brothers and sisters."
Iraqi Christians make up just 3 percent of the population in a country that is mostly Shiite and Sunni Muslim. Many Christian leaders have said large numbers of Christians have been leaving the country because of continued insecurity, poor economic prospects and discrimination.
The Nov. 10 meeting with the pope was the first time the Iraqi president came to Italy and the Vatican; it was part of a weeklong visit that included talks with Italy's prime minister and other officials.
During an afternoon press conference after his visit with the pope, Talabani talked to reporters while seated next to Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad and Iraq's ambassador to the Vatican, Albert Yelda. Some 20 Chaldean bishops from Iraq and the diaspora -- who were meeting for an extraordinary synod in Rome -- stood in front of the room.
Talabani said the pope told him that he was "praying for peace and stability in Iraq." The Iraqi president said the pope asked him about the country's new constitution, which includes mention of Iraqi law being based on Islamic law or Shariah.
He said the pope "asked about the Shariah and the laws of Iraq, and I explained for him what is decided and he was glad with it, he was satisfied."
Talabani said he explained "that the Iraqi Constitution will consider all Iraqis, Christians included, as equal with respect to all religions ... and that there is nothing against" the Christians.
He said he told the pope "freedom will be guaranteed for all Iraqis."
Patriarch Delly said, "The government treats us without distinction" according to religious affiliation. "We are all one family, an Iraqi family."
At the end of the press conference after the president left, Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk told reporters the Islamic aspect of the present Iraqi Constitution is "very grave" and "very dangerous."
But he said that "after 12 months we hope there will be changes made" to the constitution.
"So the church must do something to ask for changes to these articles (because) Islamic law is against democracy; they are two opposite things," he said. "We have to choose, (we) can't have both."
When asked why the pope would have been satisfied with the president's explanation of the constitution and Shariah, Archbishop Sako said, "This is diplomacy" and that it also all "depends on how one presents these things. For (anyone) who lives on the ground in Iraq, it's a different story."
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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