According to the head of the Iraq-based Chaldean Catholic Church, the United States government has done nothing to aid Christians in Iraq while the US State Department is touting hundreds of millions in aid for Christians and other minorities in the country.

“Americans are very nice and very friendly as individuals, but their policy is wrong,” said Cardinal Raphael Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldean Church on Tuesday. “There are promises, but until now, there’s nothing [from the U.S. government] to help these people return to their homes.”

To forget Christians in Iraq and Syria, and also those living as refugees in neighboring countries, is a “mortal sin,” the patriarch said.

Hungary, he added, has understood that the priority has to be to help Christians stay where they are - where they were born - and “instead of welcoming refugees, they have given $5 million to help Christians in Iraq and Syria to rebuild their villages. If we leave, we’ll lose our identity, our patrimony.”

On the U.S. policy, he said he doesn’t understand why they help one regime change into another, “or why do they keep killing people?” He also floated a few questions that he left unanswered, such as “who’s financing [Islamic terrorist organization] ISIS that has decimated Syria and Iraq and forced millions to flee their homes.”

“Why are there 3.5 million Iraqis outside of their homes? Who will restore Iraq’s normality? This is a big political responsibility. The policy is not only looking for political interests but also to respect human beings,” Sako told reporters at an encounter on the margins of the Oct. 3-28 Synod of Bishops on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment.

Several sources expressed surprise at Sako’s statements, which came on the heels of the U.S. State Department releasing data on the hundreds of millions of dollars it has spent on Christians and other religious minorities since 2017, and on the eve of Sako’s meeting with the head of United States Agency for International Development, Administrator Mark Green.

Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana was also present at the press conference, and he was quick to clarify that when it comes to U.S. aid for the reconstruction of Christian villages in Syria and Iraq, “even though there’s been no help from the government,” there’s been a lot of money coming in the form of organizations related to the U.S. Church and also from ordinary citizens.

Speaking about the Synod experience, Sako says he’s learned a lot and that he believes the presence of 35 young people in the meeting has enriched the experience, although he says there were not nearly enough youth represented. He also wants the Church to find a language that is comprehensible to young people, because “we’re used to a traditional language that today doesn’t speak,” he said, noting that he says this as a patriarch of an Eastern Church.

“I come from a country that has suffered a lot, and unfortunately in the Instrumentum laboris [the document the bishops have been using to kickstart the discussions], we talk a lot about problems, including migrants, but very little about these young persecuted Christians,” Sako said, adding that despite this omission, it is being addressed in the small working group discussions the bishops take part in.

“I think, at the end of the tunnel there’s so much light,” he said. “The Gospel talks about the light, the leaven.”

US OFFICIAL 'DISAGREES' WITH THE IRAQI CARDINAL OVER US HELP FOR CHRISTIANS

A Trump administration official has insisted that "the U.S. is helping a tremendous amount, by any measure."
"We have mobilized a massive amount of resources," said Mark Green, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, one day after the American State Department released data showing $178 million has been allocated as aid to Iraq's Christians.

That data also asserted that the U.S. government has worked with 36 faith-based organizations, 11 local faith organizations, and 27 international organizations to provide aid, including the Knights of Columbus, of which Green is a former member.
Green spoke to reporters in Rome, hours after he had met Cardinal Louis Rapahel Sako of Baghdad as part of a previously scheduled visit. He said that he didn't fault Sako for speaking out, because "he should be asking tough questions."

"I think he's supportive of all the work we're doing, I don't think there was ever a doubt about that," Green said.

"It was constructive," he said of his meeting with the Iraqi prelate. "We had a long, good conversation ... smiled, shook hands, and it was good, and I truly enjoyed the conversation."

In a Vatican press conference on Tuesday, Sako said that to forget Christians in Iraq and Syria, and also those living as refugees in neighboring countries, is a "mortal sin," and then charged that the U.S. government is not stepping up.
To that, Green bluntly said, "I disagree."

"It's a reminder to a development agency like the one I'm privileged to help lead that it's not enough to do a lot of work, to produce a lot of things, to work on things like rebuilding water systems or electricity and helping to provide humanitarian assistance," he said.

"We have to make sure that people are aware of what we're doing, and constantly talk about the work we're doing," Green said.

A former Republican member of the House from Wisconsin and onetime gubernatorial candidate, Green said the U.S. commitment to rebuilding the Christian presence in northern Iraq is long-term.

"We're helping to reinforce the basic infrastructure that communities need to see their regions as a place where they can live, work, raise a family and have a future," he said. "That requires all parts of the development spectrum. We have to be able to show young people that there is an economic future in the region."

The Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq, once considered a Christian stronghold, was occupied by ISIS in 2014 and held for more or less the next three years, driving some 100,000 Christians into exile. Today, the Nineveh Plains Reconstruction Project, pioneered by local churches acting in concert with the backing of international organizations such as the papal foundation Aid to the Church in Need and the Knights of Columbus, is working furiously to rebuild destroyed or damaged homes and entice displaced Christians to return.

Of his Wednesday meeting with Sako, Green said, "It was an opportunity to show him some of the work we're doing, both directly in his constituency and throughout the region in northern Iraq. We showed him pictures, showed him some of the biometrics work we're doing, and it was great."

"We just entered into [an agreement] with the Knights of Columbus, we entered into one with the Knights of Malta a couple of months ago now. This is some of the work we're doing directly in the constituency, and I think he found it interesting," he said.