Amid the ruins of Mosul, Pope Francis calls for restoration

Pontiff ends historic trip with message of religious tolerance

After the Islamic State group (Isis) took control of Mosul seven years ago and declared it the capital of its caliphate, the terrorist group sought to strike fear deep into the West by vowing to conquer Rome.

But with Isis pushed from the city, it was Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, who yesterday came to Mosul. In an extraordinary moment on the last full day of the first papal trip to Iraq, Francis went to the wounded heart of the country, directly addressing the suffering, persecution and sectarian conflict that have torn the nation apart.

“Now Rome has come here,” Ghazwan Yousif Baho, a local priest who invited Francis to Mosul, said as he awaited the Pope’s arrival. “He will bring his blessing to spread peace and brotherhood. It’s the beginning of a new era.”

Francis is the first Pope to make the trip to Iraq. In doing so, he has sought to protect an ancient but battered and shrunken Christian community, build relations with the Muslim world and reassert himself on the global stage after being grounded for more than a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

After a prayer in Mosul for the dead, Francis went to the northern towns where many Christians live, visiting a church packed with jubilant — and often unmasked — faithful in Qaraqosh, home of the country’s largest Christian population.

He crossed into Iraqi Kurdistan in a long and heavily armed convoy protected by helicopters. It raced past sprawling refugee camps toward Erbil, where he ended the day celebrating a Mass for thousands in a stadium. There too, the flouting of social distancing restrictions raised concerns that the Pope’s efforts to be close to his flock might endanger them. But many Iraqi Christians have said the chance to draw comfort and healing after years of incalculable misery outweighed the risk of contagion.

The country’s trauma, and Francis’ efforts heal it, were on full display in Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city. The Pope arrived by helicopter. Below him, hollowed shells of mortared buildings and the rubble of houses stretched out like a vast quarry. Fighting between Islamic State militants and US-backed Iraqi forces essentially flattened the once-vibrant and diverse city, leaving thousands of civilians dead.

Francis spoke in a public square surrounded by the remains of four churches of different Christian denominations, all badly damaged or destroyed.

Children dressed in white and teenagers waving olive branches formed a corridor for the pope’s arrival, and a chorus in traditional dress ululated loudly.

“The real identity of this city is that of harmonious co-existence between people of different backgrounds and cultures,” Francis said, adding that the shrinking of the Christian population in Mosul — one of the oldest communities of its kind in the world — and across the Middle East did “incalculable harm not just to the individuals and communities concerned but also to the society they leave behind”.

“How cruel it is that this country, the cradle of civilisation, should have been afflicted by so barbarous a blow, with ancient places of worship destroyed,” Francis said. Thousands of Muslims, Christians and Yazidis, he said, “were cruelly annihilated by terrorism, and others forcibly displaced or killed”.

Mosul’s once-large Christian population dwindled to a few thousand in the years after the US-led invasion of 2003, and in 2014 Isis expelled those who remained. Only about 350 Christians have returned since Isis was driven out in 2017 — almost all of them to the more prosperous east side, which suffered far less damage.

“I especially welcome, then, your invitation to the Christian community to return to Mosul,” said Francis, who has praised young volunteers, Muslim and Christian, working to rebuild churches and mosques.

In his whirlwind trip, Francis has sought to make significant progress in tightening bonds between his church and the Muslim world. On Sunday, the country’s most powerful and reclusive Shiite, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, met with the Pope and released a statement stressing that Christian citizens deserved to “live like all Iraqis in security and peace and with full constitutional rights”.

Francis called for brotherhood at a Sunday meeting of minorities on the desert plains of Ur, which tradition holds is the homeland of Abraham, revered by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike.

Yesterday, the faithful in Qaraqosh, the largest town of the Ninevah Plains that are Iraq’s Christian heartland, lined the streets outside the al-Tahira Syriac Catholic Church, clapping and ululating as his vehicle approached.

Qaraqosh, just 30km from Mosul, was overtaken by Isis in 2014 and held for three years before being liberated by US-backed Iraqi forces. Its 50,000 residents fled when Isis arrived, and those who returned found burned and looted houses and badly damaged churches.

Isis had turned many homes into car-bomb factories — including that of Edison Stefo, a school principal who was among the parishioners waiting in the church.

He said he hoped the Pope’s visit would encourage Christians to return.