First papal visit to Iraq will go ahead despite risks, says Francis
THE Pope has said he will go ahead with a historic visit to Iraq this week because “the people cannot be let down for a second time”.
Fears rose that Pope Francis might cancel the trip as the latest in a series of rocket strikes hit an airbase hosting US and Iraqi troops yesterday.
At least 10 unguided rockets hit the Ain al-assad air base in western Iraq, leading to the death of a civilian contractor who suffered a heart attack. It was the third fatality in less than a month from similar attacks.
The Pope said that he was determined to make the three-day trip – the first papal visit to Iraq – because a previous visit by John Paul II was cancelled for security reasons in 2000.
“The day after tomorrow, God willing, I will go to Iraq for a three-day pilgrimage,” the 84-year-old announced in his weekly address at the Vatican. “For a long time I have wanted to meet these people who have suffered so much.”
The visit is seen as hugely significant for the country’s Christian community of 400,000 who have suffered persecution and violence from Islamic extremists in recent years. Barham Saleh, Iraq’s president, officially invited the Pope to visit in July 2019, hoping it would help the country “heal” after years of strife.
Given the dangers, the Iraqi government is insisting the Pope rides in an armoured car, and is deploying 10,000 police and soldiers to the security detail.
“It is a very courageous trip given all the risks involved,” Gerard O’connell, a Vatican expert in Rome, told The Daily Telegraph. “He’s walking into the unknown. But he has always said that his life is in the hands of God. He’s not worried about his personal security.”
But some have criticised the decision to travel in the middle of a pandemic.
“I think it’s reckless to go now,” said Robert Mickens, a long-time Vatican observer and the editor of La Croix International, a Catholic news website.
“Why not wait until the summer, when virus infections tend to go down? The Vatican has waited 20 years for this trip, waiting another three months wouldn’t make much difference.
“It’s just too dicey at this point – not just for the Pope, but for the big entourage of journalists and Vatican officials that he is dragging along with him.”
The Pope, his 20-member entourage and more than 70 reporters on the papal plane would all have been vaccinated against Covid-19, officials said.
The trip will include visits to Baghdad, Mosul and Erbil, where he will hold a mass for up to 10,000 people at a sports stadium. But Iraq only began its vaccination campaign on Tuesday, and experts fear the prospect of a largescale public event can only increase the risk of transmission in a country which has already recorded 704,000 Covid-19 cases and 13,500 deaths.
Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesman, defended the visit as “an act of love for this land, for its people and for its Christians”.