Writing as someone who's lived and worked in the Middle East, I very much doubt the significant impact will last weeks, never mind generations.
No doubt it's a nice morale boost for the Chaldean Catholics, and it will temporarily bring attention to the plight of Christian minorities in the Middle East, which is always welcome. But on a practical level it'll do virtually nothing to improve the remnants of the Church of the East, the Syriac Oriental Orthodox, Melkite Eastern Orthodox, or Armenians who also have a presence in the country; and even for the Chaldean Catholics, I sincerely doubt there'll be much long-term benefit beyond the temporary short-term morale boost and media attention.
No doubt Catholics in the rest of the world will feel pleased with themselves for a week or two, but the long-term demographic decline of Iraq's historical Christian communities will go on unabated.
And the Mandaeans and Yazidis? Well, they're not even Christian, so who's going to notice.
Old Tyrannia wrote:I will admit that I didn't know previously that the largest Christian church in Iraq was in communion with Rome until I looked it up just now
Only because the Catholic Church was up to its usual divide and conquer shenanigans in the Middle East and - more through the luck of internecine internal Assyrian politicking than actual goodwill towards Eastern Christians - for once ended up on the winning side. The Chaldean Catholics and Church of the East used to be one and the same church, until a series of difficult to track or explain schisms from the early modern period onwards led to some of the patriarchal lines deciding that attempting to gain recognition for their position from Rome would bolster their position against their erstwhile co-religionists. This Catholic-supported strife played a significant role in the catastrophic weakening of the Church of the East's position in what later became Iraq.
The history is particularly complex, but there has been one deeply ironic outcome: what's now the majority pro-Rome Chaldean Catholic Church is mainly formed out of what was, until the early 19th century, the traditionalist line that refused union with Rome, while what's now the minority traditionalist Assyrian Church of the East is mainly formed out of what was, until the same period, the pro-Catholic unity line (though there are so many schisms and counter-schisms that it's very difficult to keep track).