'Go West': Chaldean bishop says new U.S. diocese is pioneering work

Published: 2004-05-12

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When Pope John Paul II created a new Chaldean eparchy in the United States and named then-Msgr. Sarhad Jammo as its head, little did the Iraqi-born bishop know it was to be his pioneering call of "Go West, young man." "It's not easy to establish a new diocese in the United States," said Bishop Jammo. "It's a new spiritual adventure; it's being in a whole new world." In Rome for his first "ad limina" visit May 9-15, Bishop Jammo, head of the Chaldean Diocese of St. Peter the Apostle of San Diego, said he was bringing to the Vatican a whole set of different needs from those of his other brother bishops who serve long-established dioceses in California, Nevada and Hawaii. "There are churches that still must be built in my diocese. I literally have started from scratch," he told Catholic News Service in an interview May 11. The eparchy was created in May 2002 for the western United States when the growing and westward-spreading Chaldean community became too big for the one bishop and one eparchy in Michigan, he said.

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