Bishops of the Baghdad-based Chaldean Catholic Church have broken a politically inspired deadlock of four months with the surprise election of a Rome-educated prelate as their new patriarch, the Vatican announced

Christian Century, Dec 27, 2003

* Bishops of the Baghdad-based Chaldean Catholic Church have broken a politically inspired deadlock of four months with the surprise election of a Rome-educated prelate as their new patriarch, the Vatican announced. Pope John Patti II urged them to build "a stable and free society" in Iraq.

The bishops on December 3 chose Archbishop Emmanuel Delly, 76, to succeed Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid, who died July 7 after a long illness at age 81. He will be known as Emmanuel III Delly, patriach of Babylon of the Chaldeans. The church, which uses an Eastern rite similar to that of Orthodox churches, has some 1.5 million members in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Canada and the U.S., including 65,000 in Michigan.