More than 75 Michigan State University Chaldean Catholic students and interested guests gathered at St. John Church and Student Center for a discussion about Chaldean Catholic rite, faith and culture.Father Anthony Strouse, parochial vicar for the center, welcomed those attending and introduced the speakers, Father Andrew Seba and Paul Karmo, who are from St. Thomas Chaldean Catholic Parish, which has served the Metro Detroit community since 1992.
Father Seba spoke about the 125,000 Chaldean Catholics living in the Detroit area and their 11 churches. He said the Chaldean liturgy is similar to the Catholic Mass, but an Our Father is said at the beginning, the middle and the end. Family is a large part of their culture and they follow Catholic tradition, but have a patriarch as the head of their hierarchy. The Patriarch Louis Sako is the current Chaldean Catholic patriarch of Babylon and the head of the Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church since his election Feb. 1, 2013. The Chaldeans are from Northern Iraq and their Church was founded by St. Thomas the Apostle.
Students attending said they belong to the Chaldean American Students Association and their tradition has Lent beginning the Sunday prior to Ash Wednesday, so the season of Lent is a seven-week cycle. Many of them said they are the first in their family to attend college, as it is not common for 18-year-olds to leave home.
After the discussion, everyone attended Mass, which was concelebrated by Father Paul Erikson, Fathers Seba and Strouse, and Deacon Jim Kasprzak. During his homily, Father Seba said “In Bagdad, Christians are being martyred for their faith. The family will go to different churches in case there is a bombing, so they would not all die at once … we are the Church of martyrs.”
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