EWTN News reports that “Archbishop” Bashar Matti Warda of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil appealed to “Patriarch” Paul III Nona to defend Ankawa, Iraq’s largest Christian district, against demographic change and political exclusion. The article presents a portrait of a “Church” struggling for survival in a hostile land — yet what it reveals, upon examination through the lens of integral Catholic theology, is not the story of the Mystical Body of Christ enduring persecution for the faith, but rather the spectacle of a conciliar structure reduced to a mere ethnic advocacy group, devoid of supernatural mission, and operating entirely within the categories of secular political activism. The tragic reality is that Ankawa’s Christians are not being abandoned by the world — they are being abandoned by a “Church” that has surrendered its divine mandate in exchange for a place at the table of modernity.
The Complete Absence of the Supernatural Order
Let us begin with what is most conspicuous by its absence: the supernatural. The article, purportedly about a Christian community facing existential threat, contains not a single mention of the sacraments, the state of grace, the necessity of sanctification, the reality of sin, the devil, or the life to come. Archbishop Warda speaks of “catechetical programs,” “youth pastoral initiatives,” a university, a hospital, and Radio Maryam — but where is the Most Holy Sacrifice offered with the intention of propitiating God’s justice? Where is the call to repentance? Where is the preaching of the necessity of baptism of desire for those in danger of death? Where is the warning against mortal sin?
This silence is not accidental. It is the hallmark of the post-conciliar apostasy. As Pope Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned proposition 40 states plainly: “The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society.” The entire conciliar revolution was predicated on the reversal of this condemnation — on the assertion that the Church’s teaching is, in fact, compatible with and beneficial to the world’s conception of well-being. The result is a “Church” that speaks the language of development, job opportunities, and political representation, while the souls entrusted to its care are left to perish in ignorance of the supernatural end for which they were created.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili sane exitu, condemned the modernist proposition that “the sacraments merely serve to remind man of the presence of the ever-benevolent Creator” (Proposition 41). Warda’s enumeration of the archeparchy’s “achievements” — four schools, a university, a hospital, 800 job opportunities — reads as though the sacramental life of the Church were an afterthought, if it is thought of at all. The Church is presented as a social service agency, not as the Ark of Salvation. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — outside the Church there is no salvation — this dogma, defined by the Fourth Lateran Council and repeated by Pope Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam, has been effectively abolished in practice by a “Church” that measures its success in job placements and construction projects.
Political Activism in Place of the Kingship of Christ
Warda’s appeal is framed entirely in the categories of secular political discourse: “demographic change,” “political representation,” “public services,” “investment projects,” “decision-makers.” He urges the “patriarch” to “be the voice of the people before decision-makers so that its residents may regain their right to have a say in the future of their city and land.”
Let us be precise about what this means. The Archbishop is asking a churchman to function as a lobbyist — to represent an ethnic-religious minority before a secular government. This is not the mission Christ entrusted to His Church. Our Lord Jesus Christ said: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). He did not say: “My kingdom is not of this world, but please lobby the regional government for better municipal services.”
Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Quas Primas, established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the laicism that removes Christ and His law from public life. Pius XI wrote: “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” And further: “Rulers of states therefore should not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but should fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.”
What Warda demands is not the recognition of Christ’s kingship over the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. He demands a seat at the table of a secular government for a Christian minority. This is the ecclesiology of the conciliar sect: the Church as interest group, negotiating its survival within a pluralist order, rather than the Church as the one true society divinely instituted to lead all men to eternal salvation. The Syllabus of Errors condemned proposition 19: “The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free — nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder; but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church, and the limits within which she may exercise those rights.” Warda’s entire posture — appealing to “decision-makers,” acknowledging the government’s authority over Ankawa’s future — is a practical embodiment of this condemned proposition.
The Myth of “Preserving Christian Identity”
The article speaks repeatedly of Ankawa’s “Christian identity” and the need to “preserve” it. But what is meant by “Christian identity” in this context? From the text, it appears to mean: a demographic majority of people who identify as Christian, control over local governance, the absence of nightlife venues, and the maintenance of green agricultural land.
This is not Christianity. This is tribalism wearing a Christian mask. The preservation of a “Christian identity” that consists in land ownership, political control, and cultural distinctiveness — without reference to the supernatural life of grace, the necessity of the true faith, the obligation to convert non-Cathologies, and the reality of eternal judgment — is a phantasm. It is what Pius XI, in Quas Primas, identified as the bitter fruit of removing Christ from public life: “Seeds of discord sown everywhere, flames of envy and hostility have engulfed nations… unbridled desires, often cloaked in the guise of public good and love of country, from which arises division among citizens and blind and immeasurable egoism.”
The article notes that Ankawa includes “about 75,000 Christians from the apostolic churches — Catholic and Orthodox — as well as evangelical communities.” This ecumenical amalgamation — Catholics, schismatics, and heretics grouped together as “Christians” — is itself a violation of Catholic truth. The Church has always taught that there is one true faith, one baptism, one Church. The Syllabus condemned proposition 18: “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.” And proposition 17: “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.” By treating Orthodox schismatics and evangelical heretics as fellow members of a common “Christian” community, the conciliar sect effectively proclaims these condemned propositions as its operative ecclesiology.
The 2014 Displacement: Where Was the Supernatural Response?
The article recounts that in 2014, ISIS forced Christians from Mosul and the Nineveh Plain, and Ankawa received more than 13,200 displaced families. The “Joint Episcopal Relief Committee” and the “Chaldean Mercy Association” provided shelter, food, water, and mattresses.
Let us contrast this with what a true Church would have done. The Church of the martyrs — the Church that produced the witnesses of the early centuries, the Church of St. Polycarp and St. Lawrence and the Theban Legion — would have responded to persecution not with relief committees and camps, but with fervent prayer, public reparation, the offering of the Most Holy Sacrifice for the persecutors and the persecuted alike, and the preaching of the Gospel to the infidels. The Church would have called the faithful to embrace the cross, to offer their sufferings in union with Christ’s Passion, to pray for the conversion of their persecutors, and to prepare for martyrdom if God so willed.
Instead, we are told of “temporary shelter” and “basic needs.” The response is entirely naturalistic. The persecuted are treated as refugees in need of humanitarian aid, not as souls in need of sanctifying grace. This is the conciliar Church’s response to every crisis: not conversion, not reparation, not the supernatural, but social services and political advocacy.
The Deliberate Exclusion: A Conciliar Church Without Authority
Warda’s most revealing passage is his complaint that “since 2011 the Chaldean Church has been excluded from having the final word on matters concerning Ankawa and its future, despite being, as he put it, ‘the owner of the land, the history, and the people.'” He calls this exclusion “deliberate” and attributes it to “the narrow interests of beneficiaries at the expense of the good of the city and the future of its people.”
This is a remarkable admission. The Archbishop acknowledges that the “Church” — his own institution — has no authority over its own community’s temporal affairs. It must appeal to secular authorities for what it considers its rightful prerogatives. This is the direct consequence of the conciliar abandonment of the Church’s temporal sovereignty and its social kingship.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus, condemned proposition 24: “The Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect.” And proposition 27: “The sacred ministers of the Church and the Roman pontiff are to be absolutely excluded from every charge and dominion over temporal affairs.” The entire post-conciliar order has been built upon these condemned propositions. The result is precisely what we see in Ankawa: a “Church” that owns land, claims history, and speaks for a people — but possesses no authority, no sovereignty, and no power. It is a Church that has voluntarily abdicated its divine right and now begs for crumbs from the tables of secular powers.
Pius XI warned of this in Quas Primas: “The annual celebration of this solemnity will also remind states that not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him: for it will remind them of the final judgment, in which Christ, whom not only was cast out of the state, but was also forgotten and ignored through contempt, will very severely avenge these insults.” The conciliar Church, having forgotten this truth, now finds itself without a voice before the very states it once commanded to recognize Christ’s kingship.
A Testimony for History — But Not for God
Warda declares: “This is my testimony for history. I place it before God and before you.” Let us take him at his word. His “testimony for history” is that the Chaldean Church has been deliberately excluded from authority over its own community, that it has responded with social programs and political appeals, and that it hopes the Kurdistan Regional Government “sincerely desires the survival and flourishing of Christians.”
But where is his testimony before God? Where is the acknowledgment that these calamities are the just punishment of a world that has rejected Christ the King? Where is the call to repentance — not only for the persecutors, but for the faithful themselves, who have allowed their “Church” to become a conciliar institution indistinguishable from a secular NGO? Where is the recognition that the true cause of the Church’s impotence is not political exclusion, but apostasy?
St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, diagnosed the modernist mentality with surgical precision: the reduction of the supernatural to the natural, the transformation of the Church from a divine institution into a human community, and the substitution of social activism for the apostolate of faith. Every word of Warda’s address confirms this diagnosis. The “Church” he represents is not the Church of the martyrs of Adiabene, who shed their blood for Christ. It is the Church of the conciliar revolution, which has shed its divine commission in exchange for relevance in a world that is passing away.
Conclusion: The Tragedy of a Church Without a Mission
The Christians of Ankawa deserve better than what the conciliar sect offers them. They deserve pastors who will preach the necessity of the true faith, who will offer the Most Holy Sacrifice with reverence and propitiatory intention, who will warn against the snares of ecumenism and religious indifferentism, who will call their persecutors to conversion, and who will remind the faithful that this vale of tears is not their home — that their true citizenship is in heaven, and that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come.
Instead, they receive a “Church” that builds hospitals and radio stations, that lobbies regional governments, that counts its success in job opportunities, and that speaks of “preserving Christian identity” while having abandoned the very faith that constitutes that identity. This is the fruit of the conciliar apostasy: a Church that is all things to the world and nothing to God. As Our Lord warned: “If the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matthew 5:13).
The tragedy of Ankawa is not that it is surrounded by enemies. The tragedy is that its “shepherds” have surrendered the only weapon that could save it: the integral Catholic faith, the sacramental life, and the uncompromising proclamation of the Kingship of Jesus Christ over all nations, all peoples, and all aspects of human life.
Source:
Chaldean archbishop urges patriarch to defend Iraqi Christian town’s identity (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 17.06.2026