The EWTN News article of March 11, 2026, reports on the procedural mechanics for electing a new patriarch for the Chaldean Catholic Church following the resignation of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, accepted by “Pope” Leo XIV. It details the canonical norms from the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, including the role of the senior bishop as administrator, the two-thirds voting quorum of the Synod, the requirement for the new patriarch to seek “ecclesiastical communion” from the Roman pontiff, and the historical note on past hereditary succession. The article presents this process as a neutral, administrative fact of church life. This procedural focus, however, is a damning symptom of the **theological and spiritual bankruptcy** of the post-conciliar ecclesial structure, which replaces the immutable rights of Christ the King over His Church with a naturalistic, bureaucratic model of “self-governance” and collegiality.
The Heresy of “Autonomous Self-Governance”
The article’s foundational premise is that the Chaldean Church is an “autonomous, self-governing church within the Catholic Church” enjoying “self-governance” under Canon 27 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. This language is not Catholic; it is the precise error condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors. Error #37 states: “National churches, withdrawn from the authority of the Roman pontiff and altogether separated, can be established.” The concept of an “autonomous” particular church, managing its “internal affairs” by its “own law” while in “communion” with Rome, is the very “national church” error repudiated by the Syllabus. It implies a corporate, sociological entity rather than the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, which is a monarchical society with the Roman Pontiff as its visible head. Pius XI in Quas Primas declared that Christ’s kingdom “encompasses all men” and that “the Church, established by Christ as a perfect society, demands for itself by a right belonging to it, which it cannot renounce, full freedom and independence from secular authority.” This doctrine applies a fortiori to any supposed “autonomy” from the Petrine See. The true Church does not “enjoy self-governance”; she is governed by Christ through His Vicar. The article’s presentation of this conciliar novelty as a given fact exposes the **apostasy from Catholic ecclesiology** that defines the post-1958 structure.
The Bureaucratic Reduction of Sacred Hierarchy
The article’s tone is that of a procedural manual, reducing the sacred election of a successor to the Apostles to a matter of quorums, time frames, and administrative impediments. The Synod of Bishops is treated as a corporate board. The focus on “two-thirds quorum” and “15 days” for election, with referral to “the Roman pontiff” if deadlock occurs, is a **naturalistic, democratic infiltration** of the supernatural reality of episcopal consecration and apostolic succession. St. Robert Bellarmine, defending the divine institution of the hierarchy, would reject this model. The article notes that the elected patriarch need not be a bishop beforehand, a practice that, while historically present in some Eastern traditions, becomes problematic when coupled with the entire conciliar framework of episcopal “collegiality” and the erosion of the sacramental character of the episcopacy. The true Catholic principle, as expressed in the 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 147) and the teaching of the Church, is that bishops are successors of the Apostles by divine institution, not merely administrators elected by a synodal majority. The article’s silence on the sacramental and divine nature of the patriarch’s office, in favor of its “canonical” and “legal” aspects, is the gravest accusation: it reflects a **post-conciliar mentality that has replaced supernatural faith with legal positivism**.
The “Communion” Charade: A denial of Catholic Unity
The requirement for the new patriarch to “request ecclesiastical communion from the Roman pontiff” is presented as a routine administrative step. This is a profound distortion. In the Catholic Church, communion is not a “request” granted by a man; it is a state of being in union with the one, true Church, whose visible head is the Roman Pontiff. To speak of “requesting communion” from a particular individual, even the Pope, implies that communion is a contractual agreement between two sovereign entities. This is the ecclesiology of the “conciliar sect,” not the Catholic Church. The true teaching, defined by Vatican I and held always, is that the Roman Pontiff has “full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church” (Pastor Aeternus, Chapter III). A patriarch does not “request communion”; he submits to the authority of the Vicar of Christ as a matter of divine law. The article’s phrasing reveals the **heretical principle of collegiality and national church autonomy** condemned in the Syllabus (Errors 19-24, 37). It treats the “Roman pontiff” as the head of a global federation of churches, not as the supreme, universal pastor of the one flock of Christ.
Historical Whitewashing: Hereditary Succession and the Loss of Catholic Principle
The article’s historical aside on hereditary succession is telling. It presents the shift from hereditary to elective succession (following Rome’s intervention) as a simple change in custom, without moral or doctrinal evaluation. It notes that hereditary succession “provoked dissatisfaction and opposition” and led to a schismatic election (Yohannan Sulaqa) which was then regularized by Rome. This narrative whitewasks a critical point: the hereditary system was an **Eastern corruption** of the apostolic principle of free election by the clergy and people (or, in later practice, by the bishops of the province). The Catholic Church, while allowing particular laws for Eastern Churches, has always held that ecclesiastical offices are not hereditary. The article presents the historical turmoil as a mere administrative problem, not as a crisis of faith and discipline. More importantly, it fails to connect this history to the present. The current “elective” system within the conciliar framework is not a restoration of Catholic principle but a new corruption: a synodal, quasi-democratic process that undermines the direct, immediate authority of the Roman Pontiff over the appointment of patriarchs, as was the norm before the 1917 and 1983 Codes introduced “particular law” autonomy. The article’s neutral tone on this history is a **deliberate omission of the Catholic doctrine of hierarchical authority**, which demands that the Pope alone has the right to confirm or appoint patriarchs, as he did with Sulaqa in 1553.
The Omission of Christ the King: The Ultimate Theological Bankruptcy
The most damning silence in the entire article is the complete absence of any mention of Our Lord Jesus Christ as King. The election of a patriarch is, in the Catholic sense, an act of governing the Church, which is the Kingdom of Christ on earth. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, established the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularist error that separates religion from public life. He wrote: “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that “the state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations… who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church and contribute most to the expansion and establishment of Christ’s Kingdom.” The article discusses the election of a leader for a “church” facing “pastoral and political challenges” in Iraq and the Middle East, but never frames this within the **mandate of Christ the King to rule all aspects of human life, including the political**. This is the hallmark of Modernism: to reduce the Church to a private religious society or a cultural association, and to treat its governance as a matter of internal administration divorced from the social reign of Christ. The article’s world is one of “challenges,” “emigration,” and “canonical procedures”—a naturalistic, sociological view. It has no room for the supernatural principle that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ (Matt. 28:18), and that therefore all laws, elections, and governance in the Church must be explicitly ordered to His glory and the salvation of souls, not to the “self-governance” of an ethnic particular church.
Symptom of the Conciliar Revolution: Collegiality and the Death of Papal Supremacy
The process described is the direct fruit of Vatican II’s doctrine of “collegiality” and the post-conciliar reform of the Code of Canon Law (1983). The 1917 Code, while allowing some particular law, maintained a much stronger central role for the Holy See. The current system, as outlined, grants the Synod of Bishops a genuine, quasi-sovereign power to elect within a defined timeframe, with the Pope’s role being a subsequent “grant” of communion. This inverts the Catholic order. The Pope does not “grant communion” to a patriarch; he confirms the election or, in exceptional cases, appoints directly. The article’s description is the operational reality of the “conciliar sect”: a federation of autocephalous churches under a primus inter pares “bishop of Rome” who has lost his universal, immediate jurisdiction. This is the exact opposite of the doctrine of Pope Pius IX, who condemned the idea that the Church’s rights are defined by civil power (Syllabus, Error 19) and that national churches can be established (Error 37). The Chaldean Church, as described, is a “national church” in the conciliar sense, its “autonomy” a direct rejection of the centralized, monarchical Church willed by Christ.
Conclusion: A Process Belonging to the Neo-Church
The election process described by EWTN News is not a Catholic procedure. It is the liturgical and canonical expression of the **abomination of desolation** standing in the holy place. It operates on the principles of Modernism: the immanence of the Church as a human society, the relativization of authority, the democratization of the sacred, and the separation of the ecclesiastical from the social kingship of Christ. The true Catholic Church, which endures in the faithful who profess the integral faith and are led by bishops in communion with the true (pre-1958) Magisterium, does not elect patriarchs through such synodal, autonomous procedures. She submits to the direct authority of the Roman Pontiff, who, as the Vicar of Christ, holds the supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church. The entire framework presented—”autonomy,” “self-governance,” “particular law,” “synodal election,” “request for communion”—is the language of the post-conciliar apostasy. The faithful must have nothing to do with this canonical theater. They must pray for the restoration of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, where Christ truly reigns as King, and where the Petrine See exercises its divine, unrenounceable authority over all particular churches, including the Chaldean.
Source:
EWTN News explains: How does the Chaldean Church elect its next patriarch? (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 11.03.2026