Intervention of Mons. Rabban AL-QAS, Bishop Amadiyah of the Chaldeans (IRAQ)

The ancient and glorious Assyrian-Chaldean Church was, in the early centuries and until the establishment of the Islamic Ummah, a great evangelizer. Our heartfelt desire is that Christians should be strengthened to become witnesses to the Resurrection of the Lord. Their testimony and presence will also be a service for non-Christians.
For this reason we need today to re-evangelize our Christians and, above all, those who no longer take part in the life of the Church.
The statistics, whatever they might say about the quality of faith, give a maximum Sunday Mass attendance of 20%. Many young people no longer partake of the Sacraments or do so only perfunctorily. This already seems to be a sign that is calling us to take action before it is too late. We need to return to an explicit announcement in the ways that the Lord is showing to be valid for modern times, followed, necessarily, by a permanent formation.
To renew the faith of Christians and ensure their lives and joy are contagious, we need our communities to show the signs of faith already indicated by Jesus: “You must love one another just as I have loved you. It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognize you as my disciples”. This love can appear in a concrete way through a new evangelization that creates communities that are suited to men, united not only by their ethnicity, but above all by the Word that is heard and accepted.
The attack that is coming from the West and the Muslim influx against the family, the possibility of divorce and emigration, the spread of contraceptives, the legalization of abortion, family planning or birth control, the spread and the business of pornography, all this leads to a new vision of the family. Here too large families are on the wain and the secular vision where man plans everything is dominant...
One important aspect, not dealt with very much in the document, is the mission of the Church in the new ecclesial realities. After the Council we will witness a flowering of charisms, fruits of the Holy Spirit, as the Church has recognized.

[00091-02.02] [IN070] [Original text: Italian]