Cardinal denies controversial conclave interview in Iraq imbroglio
In a controversial interview, Cardinal Sako claimed one cardinal voted twice during conclave balloting. He now denies giving the interview.
In a situation that’s gained widespread attention in Iraq, Chaldean Catholic leader Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako has denied giving a controversial media interview in which the cardinal allegedly disclosed details of the papal conclave, including the claim that one cardinal accidentally submitted two ballots in a round of voting.
Sako told The Pillar Wednesday that an Iranian-backed militia was spreading misinformation about him, the cause of a social media maelstrom that has engulfed the cardinal since soon after the conclave concluded.
Controversy began in Iraq soon after a May 9 telephone interview between Sako and the Arabic-language Charity Radio TV, which is run by Maronite missionaries in Lebanon.
In the interview, the Iraqi cardinal — patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church — seemingly described the voting process at the May 7-8 conclave.
In the course of the interview, Sako is heard explaining the way in which support grew for electing Pope Leo XIV during the course of the conclave.
But as the interview proceeded, Sako also disclosed an apparent procedural irregularity in one round of voting.
“There was a mishap: one of the cardinals placed two ballots into the box. There were 133 cardinals in total — two were absent due to illness — so the total became 134 ballots found,” Sako apparently said.
The ballots were apparently stuck together, Sako appeared to recount, recalling that the cardinal who submitted them said it was a mistake, with Sako seeming to suggest that the accidental ballot had been left blank, and thus did not materially impact the process
“But no one paid it much attention,” the cardinal apparently told interviewers, before moving on to discuss his personal interactions with Prevost, and his hopes for the pope’s approach to Eastern Catholics.
When it aired May 9, the interview became immediately controversial in Iraq — with both Catholics and non-Catholic Iraqis taking to social media to criticize it.
At issue, according to several sources, was that Sako was seen to have improperly disclosed the confidential deliberations of the conclave.
And because the cardinal was the first Iraqi to participate in a conclave in centuries — something that had been widely celebrated in Iraqi media in the weeks prior — critics said his disclosures were a source of shame for the Chaldean Catholic Church, and for Iraq itself.
While in recent weeks, numerous cardinals have given interviews discussing elements of the conclave, despite official canonical obligations of secrecy, Sako was one of few to face public pushback for it.
But Sako now claims not to have given the interview at all.
Amid widespread pushback, Sako issued a statement May 11, saying that accounts attributed to him about the conclave “are false,” and that the cardinal had not “given any written or visual interviews since May 9.”
In fact, “the only article about the conclave, which he proudly wrote about his experience, was positive and is posted on the patriarchate website,” said the May 11 statement.
According to multiple sources in the Chaldean Catholic Church, Sako’s statement was widely understood to be a denial that he had actually given the May 9 Charity Radio TV interview — effectively, a claim that the interview was a kind of digital manipulation or fabrication.
And as the cardinal faced more pushback for that claim, he issued another statement May 12, entitled “Evil will never win.”
In that text, Sako claimed he was the victim of “strangely organized campaigns of provocation on social media platforms, using vulgar language that lacks taste, decency, accuracy, and truth.”
“This evil will not last, because only good is true and lasting,” the cardinal added.
The Pillar contacted Sako May 14 for clarity about the controversy.
In response to questions about the May 9 interview, Sako told The Pillar by email that he had not given it at all.
“I had several positive interviews [in Rome], but not in Iraq nor in Arabic,” he wrote.
The cardinal claimed that the confusion was caused by the Babylon Brigade, an Iranian-backed militia affiliated with Iraqi strongman politician Rayan al-Kildani, with whom Sako has publicly feuded for years.
“Babylon [Brigade] militia is since the beginning against me because of my position against corruption, sectarianism, and other things,” the cardinal wrote.
“Therefore it published false informations about the conclave, which I did not [say], Sako added.
Sako did not explain how an interview aired in which he seemed to participate, if he did not actually give the interview, or how the Iraqi Babylon Brigade might have co-opted Real Charity TV, which could itself not be reached for comment.
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The interview imbroglio is the latest in a series of controversies in recent years surrounding Sako and the Chaldean Catholic Church.
The Church is one of the 23 Eastern Catholic sui iuris churches in the Catholic communion.
Headquartered in Baghdad, the Chaldean church has more than 600,000 Catholics — but because of decades of violence and instability in the region, it is difficult to estimate how many live in Iraq, and how many live in diaspora, either in the United States, Europe, Australia, or across the Middle East.
Sako himself has been embroiled for more than a year in a dispute with Iraq’s President Abdul Latif Rashid, and with al-Kildani, who leads the Babylon Brigade militia, and its political wing, an Iraqi political party called the Babylon Movement.
Al-Kildani, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. government since 2019 for human rights violations, is an Iraqi power broker, and reportedly a Chaldean Christian, who has styled himself a representative and protector of the country’s Chaldean minority, and even of Iraqi Christians more broadly. He has a reputation in Iraq for political corruption, and sometimes violent treatment of political adversaries.
In April 2023, al-Kildani publicly accused Sako of failing to stand with Christians during the 2014 ISIS terrorism of Iraq, and of corruption and political opportunism.
Sako had long been a critic of al-Kildani — who has been described by Iraqi observers as both a “thug” and a “war lord” — with Sako stating in 2017 that al-Kildani “does not represent Christians in any way. His unfortunate statements aim to create abhorrent sectarian strife.”
In 2023, Sako accused al-Kildani of seizing the property of Christians in northern Iraq — and several countries jumped in to support the patriarch’s claims.
Things escalated, in a fight over political influence, leadership of the Church in Iraq, and even control of property owned by the Chaldean Church, with Sako accusing al-Kildani of corruption, and of using political ties to claim control over Chaldean properties, while al-Kildani took Sako to court in a slander suit.
In July 2023, with the dispute in full swing, Iraq's president revoked a decree which officially recognized Sako as head of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, and the rightful trustee of its property.
The president claimed that the decree was revoked because it had no constitutional basis and should never have been issued — but Sako cried foul, accusing al-Kildani of using his political influence to outmuscle him, and to seize control of Church assets, by influencing the president’s office.
Patriarch Sako told The Pillar that year that “it is obvious that the militia group of Rayan Al-al-Kildani is pushing the president to [revoke the decree], aiming of intimidation against him, seizing the homes of Christians, and conspiring to take control of Church properties.”
“These politicians want to silence me and stop me from speaking up for human rights and dignity and to claim a state of citizenship, equality, and justice,” the cardinal added.
In protest of the situation, Sako moved from Baghdad to a self-imposed exile in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. This spring, he canceled major events and public festivities for Easter, in protest of the situation.
While Sako was out of Baghdad, al-Kildani seemed to taunt him — even arranging a brief, incidental meeting with Pope Francis in September 2023 — reportedly through the Iraqi embassy — and framing it in Iraq as a private personal audience.
Sako returned to Baghdad in April 2024, at the invitation of the country’s prime minister. After more than another month, he recieved a new decree recognizing his authority. Things seemed to be settling into a new normal.
But there was still unfinished business in the Chaldean Church. During Sako’s exile, the influential Archbishop of Erbil, Archbishop Bashar Warda, issued a statement which said that the revocation of the decree did not impact Sako’s status as patriarch, and that it would not “prejudice the religious or legal status” of Sako in Iraq.
Warda added that, despite the revocation of the decree, Sako continued to enjoy “the respect and appreciation of the presidency of the republic, as Patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq and the world.”
In the West, most Catholics took that as a statement of support for Sako. But from his exile in Kurdistan, the patriarch saw it differently.
According to sources in the Chaldean Church, Sako took Warda’s statement as a whitewashing of a political move he believed was an egregious attack on his leadership of the Church.
In an August 2024 statement, Sako called on Warda “to issue a statement denouncing the withdrawal of the decree.” Warda did not.
As tensions developed, Sako pulled back from a plan he had previously announced to retire from his office as patriarch — Sako turned 75 in July 2023.
Tension developed between Sako and Warda, while sources told The Pillar that the patriarch faced significant internal criticism within the Chaldean Church, by clerics who felt the patriarch’s political fight with al-Kildani had come to predominate his attention, amid other needs of the Iraqi Church, and that his exile to Kurdistan had been criticized as unnecessary among Chaldean prelates.
Still, after Sako eventually obtained a new decree recognizing him legally as the Chaldean patriarch, he called for a long-delayed deliberative synod of the Chaldean Church’s 26 bishops, which took place in July 2024.
But five bishops did not attend, including Warda.
Sources close to the dicastery say that Warda and the other bishops communicated in advance to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Eastern Catholic Churches that they would not be attending, reportedly saying they believed the meeting would not be productive because Sako would not be receptive to what they had to say about the state of the patriarchate, and also raising concern that Sako had been living outside of his diocese for nine months, a violation of the canonical residency requirement for diocesan bishops.
The month after the synod, Sako accused Warda publicly of being a “godfather” of al-Kildani’s political party, and stating that unless the five bishops apologized to the patriarch by Sept. 5, they would face canonical penalties, including even the possibility of excommunication.
The bishops did not apologize, and Sako soon said he referred the matter to a “higher authority.”
The case now appears to be pending at the Vatican’s Dicastery for Eastern Catholic Churches.
Sources in Iraq say the latest controversy is likely to color the Vatican’s read on the case involving Warda and the other Chaldean bishops — and could broaden calls for a Vatican review of Sako’s leadership of the Chaldean Church.
Some Chaldean clerics say that might lead the Vatican to move Sako toward retirement, especially as the cardinal has reportedly faced pushback from Chaldean bishops over his response to the controversy.
Sako himself has expressed confidence in the Vatican’s review of the situation.
I really wonder whether Leo needs to look at massaging the rules for Conclave secrecy. We don’t want it to be a free for all but at the same time I personally feel it’s not a good look to have all the cardinals essentially flouting the rules. Maybe make it so the vote counts are strictly secret but general info is ok? Because as I read the rules there have been a lot of violations since May 8th.
So if I'm understanding this correctly, he's saying that Iran hates him in particular so much that a group there did a sophisticated deep fake of a man that maybe 5 people out of a hundred generally aware of issues in Iraq would know at who knows how much cost and at a speed that would probably set a record.
Got it.
Pray for this man to learn humility and when to admit a mistake. O don't know if he should step down or not but this is a horrible look for a Church leader.