BAGHDAD (AP) – In Iraq’s holiest city, a Pope will meet with a revered Ayatollah and make history with a message of coexistence in a place ravaged by bitter divisions.
One is the chief pastor of the worldwide Catholic Church, the other a prominent figure in Shia Islam whose opinion has a strong influence on the Iraqi streets and beyond. Their meeting will reverberate in Iraq and even cross borders into neighboring, mostly Shia Iran.
Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani meet on Saturday for up to 40 minutes, some of the time alone, except for interpreters, in the modest home of the Shia cleric in the city of Najaf. Every detail was scrutinized beforehand during meticulous behind-the-scenes preparations that touched on everything from shoes to seating.
The geopolitical undertones weigh heavily on the rally, along with dual threats of a viral pandemic and ongoing tensions with rocket-firing Iranian-backed rogue groups.
For Iraq’s dwindling Christian minority, a show of solidarity from al-Sistani could help secure their place in Iraq after years of displacement – and, they hope, ease the intimidation of Shia militiamen against their community.
Iraqi government officials also see the symbolic power of the meeting, as does Tehran.
Al-Sistani, 90, has consistently been a counterbalance to Iran’s influence. With the meeting, Francis implicitly recognizes him as Shia Islam’s main interlocutor over its rival, Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. News of the meeting heightened the longstanding rivalry between Najaf’s Shia seminaries and the Iranian city of Qom, which is at the center of the Shia world.
“It will be a private visit with no precedent in history, and it will be unlike previous visits,” said a religious official in Najaf, who was involved in the planning.
For the Vatican, it was a meeting decades in the making, one that escaped Francis’s predecessors.
“Najaf did not make it easy,” said a Christian religious official close to the Vatican side’s schedule, on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the visit.
In December, Louis Sako, the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, told The Associated Press that the church was trying to arrange a meeting between Francis and the Ayatollah. It was included in the first draft of the program, “but when the (Vatican) delegation visited Najaf, there were problems,” he said without elaborating.
The church insisted.
“We know the importance and impact of Najaf in the Iraqi situation,” said Sako. What value would the Pope’s message of coexistence in Iraq have, they determined, if he did not seek the support of his most powerful and revered religious figure?
Sako finally confirmed the meeting in January, weeks after the Pope’s itinerary was put together.
Al-Sistani rarely weighs in on governance issues. If he did, it would have changed the course of Iraq’s modern history.
An edict of his gave many Iraqis reason to participate in the January 2005 elections, the first after the US-led invasion in 2003. His 2014 fatwa calling for able-bodied men to fight the Islamic State group did the ranks of Shia militias are increasing enormously. In 2019, as anti-government demonstrations gripped the country, his sermon led to the resignation of then Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.
The Vatican’s hope was that Francis would sign a document in which al-Sistani promised human brotherhood, just as he did with the influential great Imam of Sunni Islam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, based in Egypt.
The signature was one of many elements that the two sides negotiated at length. Ultimately, Shia religious officials in Najaf told the AP that a signing was not on the agenda and al-Sistani will issue an oral statement instead.
Every minute of Saturday’s gathering will likely unfold as carefully as a scripted play.
The 84-year-old Pope’s convoy will stop along Najaf’s busy column-lined Rasool Street, which culminates in the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the most revered locations in the world for Shias.
To the side is an alley too narrow for cars. Here Francis will walk the 30 meters to the modest house of al-Sistani, which the clergyman has rented for decades. At the entrance, al-Sistani’s influential son, Mohammed Ridha, waits to greet him.
Inside, and a few steps to the right, the Pope will come face to face with the Ayatollah.
Each will make a simple gesture of mutual respect.
Francis will take off his shoes before entering al-Sistani’s room.
Al-Sistani, who normally stays seated for visitors, will stand by the door to greet Francis and take him to an L-shaped blue sofa and invite him to take a seat.
“This has never happened before with a guest through His Eminence,” said a Najaf religious official.
He will hold out despite his fragile health, the religious officials said. Since he broke his thigh last year, the clergyman has been firmly inside. Francis is suffering from sciatica.
The Pope is offered tea.
“His Eminence will give His Holiness a message of peace and love for all mankind,” said the official.
Gifts are exchanged.
It is not clear what Najaf will bestow, but Francis will almost certainly provide al-Sistani with bound copies of his major writings, including his latest encyclical “Brothers All,” on the need for greater brotherhood among all peoples to bring about. a more peaceful, environmentally sustainable and just world.
So far, papal plans to visit Iraq have failed.
The late Pope John Paul II was unable to leave in 2000, when negotiations with the government of then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein failed.
One setback after another nearly sunk this one too.
Iraq fell to a second wave of the coronavirus last month, spurred by the new, more contagious strain that first broke out in the UK. At the same time, a wave of missile strikes resumed targeting the US presence in the country. The US has blamed Iran-affiliated militias.
Those same groups, strengthened after the al-Sistani fatwa, are accused of terrorizing Christians and preventing them from returning home. The Iraqi government and religious officials are concerned that these militias could launch rocket attacks in Baghdad or elsewhere to express their displeasure over al-Sistani’s meeting with Francis.
As Pope, Francis sits atop an official hierarchy that governs the Catholic Church. Al-Sistani’s position is more informal, based on tradition and reputation. He is considered one of the most prestigious Shia religious scholars in the world, the guiding light on the Najaf seminaries, and earns him worldwide respect.
Iran’s Khamenei and Qom seminaries compete for that prestige. Al-Sistani’s mindset opposes direct rule by clerics, the system in Iran, where Khamenei has the final say in all matters.
“The visit could upset some people and they could try to postpone or cancel the visit, I’m concerned,” said a second official in Najaf. “Who could be upset? Qom’s Hawza,” he said, using the Arabic term referring to the seminaries.
Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s chief justice, considered a potential presidential candidate or even Khamenei’s successor, was unsuccessful in his attempts to meet al-Sistani on a recent trip.
“This increased tension with the Iranians, as His Eminence did not see Raisi, but His Holiness the Pope will see,” the official said.
Politics and rivalries aside, almost everyone in Iraq’s multi-denominational fabric will have something to gain from the brief encounter.
“I see the Pope’s visit to Najaf as the culmination of a global movement in the Islamic Christian tradition to promote security and peace in our country,” Iraqi Culture Minister Hassan Nadhem recently told the press. “Because we still have a tendency towards violence and bigotry.”
Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.