Pope preaches forgiveness amid ruins of churches
QARAQOSH, Iraq — Pope Francis urged Iraq’s Christians on Sunday to forgive the injustices against them by Muslim extremists and to rebuild as he visited the wrecked shells of churches and met ecstatic crowds in the community’s historic heartland, which was nearly erased by the Islamic State group’s horrific reign.
“Fraternity is more durable than fratricide, hope is more powerful than hatred, peace more powerful than war,” the pontiff said during prayers for the dead in the city of Mosul, with the call for tolerance that has been the central message of his fourday visit to Iraq.
The traditionally Christian towns dotting the Nineveh Plains of the north emptied out in 2014 as Christians — as well as many Muslims — fled the Islamic State group’s onslaught. Only a few have returned to their homes since the defeat of the militants was declared four years ago, and the rest remain scattered elsewhere in Iraq or abroad.
Bells rang out for the pope’s arrival in the town of Qaraqosh.
“The road to a full recovery may still be long, but I ask you, please, not to grow discouraged,” Francis told a packed Church of the Immaculate Conception. “What is needed is the ability to forgive, but also the courage not to give up.”
The Qaraqosh church has been extensively renovated after being vandalized by militants during their takeover of the town, making it a symbol of recovery efforts.
Iraq’s Christian population has dwindled from around 1.5 million before the 2003 U.S.led invasion that plunged the country into chaos to just a few hundred thousand today.
Francis took to a red carpeted stage in Mosul on his first stop of the day, surrounded by the grey hollowedout shells of four churches — Syriac Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Chaldean — nearly destroyed in the war to oust Islamic State fighters from the city.
It was a scene that would have been unimaginable years earlier. Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, was at the heart of the Islamic State’s “caliphate” and witnessed the worst of the group’s rule inflicted on Muslims, Christians and others, including beheadings and mass killings.
He deviated from his prepared speech to emphasize the plight of Iraq’s Yazidi minority, which was subjected to mass killings, abductions and sexual slavery.
Throughout his fourday visit, Francis has delivered a message of religious tolerance to Muslim leaders, including in a historic meeting Saturday with Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali alSistani.
Francis wrapped up the day with a Mass at a stadium in Irbil in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. An estimated 10,000 people erupted in cheers when he arrived.