Archbishop Jean Benjamin Sleiman of Baghdad will speak about the plight of Christians in Iraq and the Middle East at 4 p.m. Monday (July 26) in the University of Notre Dame Law School courtroom.p. Archbishop Sleiman, a 58-year-old Carmelite priest who became archbishop of Baghdad in January 2001, is in the United States to attend a conference in Chicago sponsored by the Carmelite Institute. A native of Lebanon, he speaks six languages and holds doctoral degrees in theology from the Institut Catholique in Paris and in anthropology from the Sorbonne.p. A critic of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, Archbishop Sleiman recently told an interviewer that while Saddam Husseins regime was dreadful, “war creates other problems, new problems. It creates hate, it creates (resentment) of others by destroying things, and many times war destroys souls and minds.”p. Estimates of the number of Iraqi Christians vary, but it is widely believed that they represent some 3 percent of the population, or from 600,000 to 800,000 people.p. _Contact: Paolo Carozza, associate professor of law, at (574) 631-4128 or pcarozza@nd.edu _ p.
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