Chaldean Catholics in Detroit area urged to vote in Iraqi elections

Published: 2005-01-19

DETROIT (CNS) -- Metropolitan Detroit's large population of Chaldean Catholics is being urged to register and vote in the upcoming elections that will shape the government of a democratic and independent Iraq. Registration began Jan. 17 and was to continue through Jan. 23. Polls will be open for voting Jan. 28-30. "We announced it in church, and encouraged people to participate," said Father Manuel Boji, rector of Mother of God (Chaldean) Cathedral in suburban Southfield, one of five Chaldean Catholic parishes in metro Detroit. The Chaldean National Congress is also working to turn out the vote, said its president, Joseph T. Kassab, a resident of suburban Farmington Hills and brother of Chaldean Archbishop Djibrail Kassab of Basra, Iraq. Chaldeans, as Assyrian Iraqi Christians in communion with Rome are known, make up 80 percent of all Christians in Iraq, and also comprise 80 percent of all Iraqi-Americans, he said. Nearly all of metro Detroit's 140,000 to 160,000 Chaldeans meet the voting eligibility requirements of either having been born in Iraq or born to people who were born in Iraq, Kassab said. Registration and polling stations also have been established in four other U.S. locations: Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and Nashville, Tenn., which is home to many Iraqi Kurds.

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