The Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon Cardinal Sako met Pope Leo XIV during his audience with Eastern Catholics on 14 May.
The Patriarch of Babylon said he hoped Pope Leo would regularly meet the Eastern Catholic patriarchs and work with the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches.
Pope Leo XIV must “find good people” to guide his engagement with Eastern Churches, according to the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
The Pope addressed Eastern Christians from the Eastern Catholic Churches in union with Rome gathered at the Vatican for their Jubilee pilgrimage on Wednesday, affirming the need for the universal Church to “cherish” their traditions.
The Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon Louis Raphaël I Sako told The Tablet he hoped Pope Leo would engage openly with Eastern Catholics, visiting them in their historic homelands and meeting their Churches’ patriarchs regularly to discuss “our difficult situation and our future” – echoing other cardinals’ calls for more interaction and collaboration with the papacy. “We can explain the realities of our countries,” he said.
He said the Churches “also need political help” from the Pope, particularly in the Middle East where their numbers have dramatically declined over the past 20 years but where they still have “a vocation”.
“He can ask countries to respect human rights, to respect the dignity of persons and their freedom,” Sako said.
The patriarch also reported speaking to the dicastery’s prefect Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, who promised “to take care of our Churches”, addressing the need to protect and preserve their patrimony and emphasising the importance of the “unity and integrity of the faith”.
In his address to members of the Eastern Churches on Wednesday, Pope Leo said he would direct the dicastery to establish norms for Latin bishops to support the diaspora of Eastern Catholics living in their dioceses to help them preserve their traditions.
“The contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense,” the Pope said. “Who better than you can sing a song of hope even amid the abyss of violence?”
The chairman of the charity Fellowship and Aid to the Christians of the East (FACE), John Adam Fox, welcomed Pope Leo’s statements, saying that “not only can the Eastern Catholic Churches – the Martyr Churches – be a rich source of inspiration to us in the West, through their tradition, loyal witness and self-sacrifice, but also they could be, potentially, a vital tool in Pope Leo’s future active peace-making policy in the Middle East”.
“The Eastern Christians have vast experience in peaceful co-existence down the ages – they are natural mediators on the ground in the multi-faith communities of that region”, Fox told The Tablet.
While the Dicastery for Eastern Churches hitherto was historically responsible for protecting the rights and rites of the Eastern Catholic Churches in their homelands, the migration of Eastern Christians to the West has led the Dicastery to devote its attention to the spiritual and pastoral needs of the Eastern Catholic communities in the diaspora, where they are dependent on the goodwill of the local Latin bishop.
Fox welcomed Pope Leo’s initiative to establish norms for this process, but said it “will only work if Latin-rite clergy can have access to instruction in the Eastern Catholic traditions and cultures. Many young clergy are going to have to face an ever-increasing presence of Eastern Catholics in their parishes.”
He continued: “Perhaps the time has come for Roman Catholic seminaries, working in conjunction with the Dicastery for Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Oriental Institute, to create a module for the instruction of future clergy in the spiritual and pastoral needs of the Eastern Catholic diaspora.”
In his remarks to The Tablet, Sako said he would be “wise to wait for a while” for a response to a report he submitted to Pope Francis in September after five bishops failed to attend the Chaldean synod that July, in what the patriarch said was a violation of their duties to him and to the synod.
Pope Francis did not take public action on the report before his death, but Sako said he was confident that Pope Leo would respond in time and “respect the synodality of our Church”, because the 17 Chaldean bishops who did attend the synod had supported his actions.
Under Canon 43 of the Code of Eastern Canons which governs the 23 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches, the Pope has “supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Church”.
“We should be patient and give him the chance to look at things closely,” Sako said. “We are hopeful.”
Commentators noted that despite his wide experience as a missionary and prior general of the Augustinians, Pope Leo had relatively little interaction with Eastern Churches. Sako nevertheless welcomed his election, saying he was “always speaking to him” during the congregations and the conclave and that the then-Cardinal Robert Prevost had complimented the simplicity of his Chaldean habit.
“He is very balanced, simple, humble, listening,” Sako said, adding that his experience of dialogue with Islam through the Augustinians’ historic presence in Algeria (particularly at the modern site of Hippo, where St Augustine was bishop) would be important for Chaldeans and other Catholics living in Muslim-majority countries.
The patriarch did not disclose further details of the conclave to The Tablet, but faced criticism in Iraq after disputed claims that he reported a void ballot in a telephone interview with an Arabic-language television channel on 9 May.
Charity Radio TV, a Lebanese outlet run by Maronite missionaries, broadcast an interview in which Sako apparently revealed that one ballot during the conclave was declared void after a cardinal submitted two voting slips by mistake – a story which circulated widely from several sources after the conclave ended on 8 May.
The Chaldean patriarchate published a statement on 11 May denying that Sako had made any statements about the conclave except a written account for its website. It said that “for years there has been a certain group spreading lies” about the patriarch, including false claims that he was responsible for “the sale of ancient churches, that he will resign, and that he is only an honorary cardinal”.
Such claims have been connected to the Babylon movement, an officially Christian political group derived from the Iran-backed Babylon Brigades militia (though it denies maintaining any links to an armed wing) and led by the US-sanctioned Rayan al-Kildani, with whom Sako has publicly clashed.
In his own statement on 12 May, Sako said he was the victim of “organised campaigns of provocation on social media” by “people who sell their honour and dignity for money or position”.
The Babylon Parliamentary Bloc denied any connection with the interview broadcast and said it was “entirely uninvolved in the matter”. It said its members did not interfere with the Church and maintained “a clear line between our political engagement and ecclesiastical affairs”, insisting the group was “not in conflict” with Sako.
Patrick Hudson, published by The Tablet