The sacristy, a tiny room next to the altar, is full of bad memories. Dozens of believers took refuge here when terrorists besieged the church. Many were shot or killed by grenades, leaving bloodstained handprints on the walls. Natiq, as well as his wife and child, were among them.
Today, the Church of Our Lady of the Redemption is decorated with the engraved names of those murdered on that day – 51 congregants and two priests.
Anwar was partially blinded by the attack, his right arm badly injured.
With half closed eyes, he gazes at a new addition to the church: a white throne, positioned beneath a towering collage of the parish’s martyrs. Pope Francis will speak here when he arrives in Iraq on Friday.
‘I am very happy. I am very, very happy, ”Anwar said, looking ahead to the visit. Despite his lavish words, the concierge looks a bit brash. “I want to tell him to take care of us,” he added, “because the state doesn’t take care of us.”
But Anwar will not be among the small group of church members to greet the Pope here on his historic visit. The pandemic is keeping crowds at bay.
The vast majority of Christians in Iraq will watch the tour – a Pope’s first to Iraq – on television. A full curfew is imposed for the duration of the trip.
These rigorous measures have been taken to mitigate the risks of the visit, considered Pope Francis’s most dangerous journey to date, both due to a nationwide spike in coronavirus cases and an increase in violence in the war-ravaged area. country.
“Pope Francis coming to Iraq emphasizes the significance of our country to believers around the world,” said a senior official in the president’s office. “It is also a confirmation of that [the] The Pope’s support for peace in Iraq, a testament to the reverence of Christians in Iraq.
“This visit comes at a challenging time for Iraq, but we are taking all necessary precautions against the coronavirus,” said the official.
The trip, announced last December, was widely expected to be canceled.
The country’s Covid-19 wave is also continuing unabated – last weekend, the Vatican’s own envoy to Iraq, Mitja Leskovar, tested positive for the virus.
Yet the Pope insists he will not abandon the Iraqis.
At the end of a general audience on Wednesday, the Pope made no mention of the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, but said, “For some time now, I wanted to meet those people who suffered so much and meet that tortured Church.”
“The people of Iraq are waiting for us. They were waiting for St. Pope John Paul II, who was not allowed to go,” he said, referring to a planned trip in 2000 that was canceled after a break in talks between the Vatican. and then President Saddam Hussein. “The people cannot be abandoned a second time. Let’s pray that this journey can be done properly.”
The Vatican called the trip “an act of love.”
“All precautions have been taken from a health standpoint,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told journalists on Tuesday. “The best way to interpret the journey is as an act of love; it is a gesture of love from the Pope to the people of this country who need it.”
That is a message that is true for many Iraqis.
In addition to Our Lady of Salvation, Pope Francis will visit several other locations linked to some of Iraq’s worst tragedies in its decades of unrest, including Mosul, the largest city occupied and ravaged by ISIS.
He will also hold a meeting in a cathedral in the city of Qaraqosh, a Christian majority city in the north. ISIS has converted the courtyard of the Immaculate Conception Church into a shooting range. They set the contents of the church on fire, blackened the interior and destroyed the statues. ISIS members piled up the Church’s Bibles, books, and prayer books and set them on fire. A large black spot remains in the courtyard, marking the spot where they were burned.
The Christians in Iraq want the Pope to take care of their wounds. But they also hope the trip will underscore the plight of their dwindling community. Before the US invasion in 2003, there were 1.5 million Christians in the country. According to prominent Christian clergy, about 80% of them have now fled the country.
“What scares me is that during this period no one has asked what we lost, for example,” Bashar Warda, Chaldean archbishop of the northern city of Erbil, told CNN. “We have a diminishing number of Mandeans, and now the Yazidis, Christians.
“They don’t care,” he said, referring to Baghdad’s political elite. “Because they didn’t care when we lost the Jewish community in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. And this cycle is on.”
Sabah Zeitoun moved to Sweden some 21 years ago, which is now home to a large Arab Christian community. He is back in Erbil for a visit, and extended his trip to be here for the Pope’s tour.
He believes those who left the country have disappeared forever. “I don’t think anyone will return from Europe,” said the 65-year-old. “That would be difficult.”
Zeitoun served as a soldier for eight years during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. It was deployed to Kuwait during the invasion of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
When he returned, he opened a liquor store in Mosul. In 2000, he said he had been arrested and held for three days for keeping his shop open five minutes after the country’s legally permitted closing time. That was the point when he decided to leave Iraq.
‘A Mission of Peace’
In a bustling cafe in Baghdad, a young engineer and a political scientist are in deep conversation about the Pope’s visit. The conversation between the two young Shia Muslims started as a joke about the three-day lockdown, but quickly grew into a conversation about the regional implications of the trip.
“People, both Christians and Muslims, see the Pope as a man of peace,” said political scientist Mumen Tariq, 30. “This visit gives Iraq a new role on the world stage.”
There is surprising hope in their view of the political situation in Iraq. “The Pope’s visit comes at a very important time,” said engineer Mohammed Al-Khadayyar. “He comes to the grave of ISIS, and what will hopefully mark the beginning of the page of peace. He will push us to move away from regional fault lines and into a place of moderation.”
When asked if they were disturbed by the state’s preventive shutdown, Tariq said, “We are willing to spend three days, a week, 10 days, or even a month in lockdown if the Pope’s mission is one of peace. is. ”
Back at the Church of Salvation, a handful of congregants decorate the courtyard manger in preparation for the visit. Two veiled Shia women ask to enter the church, but are stopped for security reasons. Deacon Louis Climis explains that Muslims regularly come here to pray.
A nun complains that the Pope is not scheduled to visit a small museum set up in the church quarters to commemorate the massacre, but the rest of the congregation is eager to rein in their hopes for the upcoming visit.
“The Iraqi Christian wants to tell the Pope that we are sick and that we need medicine,” explains Climis, who also survived the massacre. “We need guidance because we are in a jungle, a jungle ruled by political monsters.”
The massacre deepened caretaker Anwar’s Christian faith but eroded his faith in Iraqi authorities.
For years he compiled papers asking for compensation from the government for his injuries, as he had to give up his career as a carpenter after the attack. Then one day, he stopped seeking government reparations.
“I put the papers in a pile and doused them with alcohol,” Anwar said, reenacting the scene with his hands. “And then I set them on fire.”
CNN’s Delia Gallagher contributed to this report from Rome. CNN’s Arwa Damon and Aqeel Najm contributed to this report from Baghdad.