In a historic first, Pope to visit conflict-torn Iraq on Friday
Pope Francis is to arrive on Friday for the firstever papal visit to conflict-torn Iraq, aiming to encourage the dwindling Christian community to remain in their ancient homeland, and broaden his outreach to Islam.
Among the most extraordinary moments of the trip will be his one-on-one meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highly reclusive cleric.
Despite a second deadly wave of coronavirus infections, renewed violence and notoriously poor public services, Pope Francis is fulfilling the dream of a predecessor, late pope John Paul II, by visiting Iraq.
Amid war, the country’s Christian community — one of the world’s oldest — has fallen from 1.5 million in 2003 to just 400,000 today.
The 84-year-old pontiff, who will be on his first foreign trip since the start of the pandemic, plans to voice solidarity with them and the rest of Iraq’s 40 million people during a packed three-day visit.
From central Baghdad to Najaf, welcome banners featuring his image and Arabic title “Baba Al Vatican” already dot the streets.
“The pope’s message is that the Church stands beside those who suffer,” said Najeeb Michaeel, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of the northen city of Mosul.
“He will have powerful words for Iraq, where crimes against humanity have been committed.”
Iraq’s Christian community is one of the oldest and most diverse in the world, with Chaldeans and other Catholics making up around half, along with Armenian Orthodox, Protestants and others.
By 2003, when the US-led invasion toppled then-dictator Saddam Hussein, Christians made up around six per cent of Iraq’s 25 million people.
But even as sectarian violence pushed members of the minority to flee, the national population surged, further diluting Christians to just one percent, according to William Warda, co-founder of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organisation.
Most were concentrated in the northern province of Nineveh, where many still speak a dialect of Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.
In 2014, militants from the Daesh group seized control of Nineveh, rampaging through Christian towns and telling residents: convert or die. —