Iraq's Chaldean Patriarch stirs controversy with 'normalisation' Christmas Mass speech

Iraq' Chaldean Patriarchate issued a clarification on Wednesday after a Christmas sermon made by Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako in Baghdad included the word "normalisation", sparking backlash against the cleric.

Social media users understood the word as referring to "normalisation" with Israel - a country which Iraq has no formal ties with.

“Social media platforms circulated statements by His Beatitude Patriarch Sako in his homily this evening during the festive Mass. Patriarch Sako emphasised that everyone should normalise with Iraq, not with any other country, because Abraham is Iraqi, and Iraq is the land of religions and many prophets,” the patriarchate said in a statement, according to Iraq's Shafaq News.

The statement added that the cleric had said in an interview with Al-Sharqiyah that emphasising Iraq's status as a cradle of civilisation and the patriarch Abraham would "encourage tourism".

Part of the Christmas Mass sermon addressed Iraq's outgoing Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who was present at the ceremony.

"There is talk about normalisation and I hope from the new government that normalisation in Iraq and with Iraq will be the country of the prophets, just as the Talmud was written in Babylon, the world should come to Iraq and not to any other place," Shafaq News quoted the patriarch as saying.

Sudani, who also spoke at the mass, rejected the cleric's use of the term, "because it is linked to an occupying entity that has violated the land and the people".

The speech also drew the ire of prominent Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who called for the prosecution of those who call for normalisation.