For the first time in history, a Pope will visit Iraq from Friday to comfort the Christian minority decimated by conflict and the harshness of life, and to reach out to Shia Islam in a spectacular gesture.
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In the cradle of Christianity, which has left wars bloodless and is still characterized by the violence of the Islamic State (IS) group, Pope Francis will meet the highest religious authority. D.The part of the Shia world, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, in Najaf, south of Baghdad.
It is also the sovereign Pope’s first voyage since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, after being vaccinated, like the multitude of journalists and clergy who accompany him. During his three-day visit, The 84-year-old Argentinian Pope visits a diverse but small Christian minority to lows amid a population of 40 million Iraqis exhausted after 40 years of wars and economic crises.
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The papal program is as ambitious as the journey is historical: until Monday, the Pope will visit a cathedral that in 2010 was the scene of a hostage situation in Baghdad, the city of Ur, in the southern desert of Iraq, Najaf and the churches destroyed by ISIS Mosul (north).
According to ‘AFP’, the Pope’s program includes a visit to a cathedral where a hostage situation took place almost 11 years ago.
The Daddy it will travel approximately 1,650 kilometers, mainly by air. Welcome messages and calls for coexistence have been posted throughout his journey. Roads have been paved, security checks have been installed, and renovation works have been carried out in places that had never been on official visit programs until now.
“The Pope’s message is to say that the Church is on the side of those who suffer,” the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul and Aqra, Najeeb Michaeel, told AFP.The Pope will deliver a strong message even here where crimes against humanity and genocide have been committedSays the prelate, who had to flee from the jihadists in Mosul.
Iraq’s Christian community is one of the oldest and one of the most diverse, in which the Chaldeans -Catholics-, the Orthodox and Protestant Armenians stand out.
In times of the dictatorship of Sadam Husein (1979-2003) there were about 1.5 million Christians, about 6% of Iraqis. But today there are no more than 400,000 left, 1% of the population, estimates William Warda of Hammurabi, a local minority NGO.
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For the exile, most of the Christians were in the province of Nineveh, whose capital is Mosul. Here are shop windows and prayer books in modern Aramaic.
Cradle of exile
When IS jihadists occupied Mosul in 2014, the Pope Francisco supported the international military campaign to strengthen Iraqi forces. Then he said he wanted to support the Christians in Iraq.
In 2019, the sovereign Pope condemned the bloody suppression of a popular uprising against power, mainly Baghdad and Southern Iraq. It is to this southern region that the Pope will go on Saturday, to Ur, where, according to tradition, the patriarch Abraham was born.
But Iraq was already on the Vatican’s mind, even before the arrival of Pope Francis.
In 2000, Saddam Hussein threw a pitcher of cold water at the last minute in the hope of John Paul II, who was counting on a pilgrimage to the country. Nineteen years later, the Patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, Louis Sako, received an official invitation from Iraqi President Barham Saleh to the Pope to “heal” the country of violence, often confession.
This is the first trip that Pope Francis has taken since the start of the pandemic.
Ammar Salih. EFE / Zaid Al-Obeidi. AFP
The COVID-19 delayed the trip, but neither the imprisonment, imposed for the entire duration of his visit, nor the announcement that Vatican Ambassador in Baghdad tested positive for Coronavirus They changed the program. The only case is, the Pope will not get crowds of baths.
Secluded in a Vatican monastery since his resignation eight years ago, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI rated this trip as “very important” but also “dangerous”, both for safety reasons and as a result of the covid
Several Vatican security teams have visited Iraq, the scene of vibrant geopolitical tensions, to organize security. Provincial committees are responsible for protecting the Pope’s circuit. Friday morning, the papal plane will land in Baghdad with about 150 people on board, half of them journalists.
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Pope Francis will contact Islam again. In 2019, he signed in the United Arab Emirates with Sheikh Ahmed al Tayeb, Imam of Al Azhar, the highest institution of Sunni Islam, a document encouraging dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
In Iraq, Pope Francis will meet the Shias, the majority in Iraq but the world’s minority – 200 million of the 1,800 million Muslims – when he meets the great Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
For the Governor of Najaf, Louai al-Yasseri, it is a ‘historic visit’, while Sistani, although physically invisible, has become a compass for Shias in Iraq and around the world“There is talk of a religious leader followed by 20% of the world’s population: his visit means a lot, his meeting with the Grand Ayatollah will have a huge impact.”
INTERNATIONAL SETUP
* With information from AFP