Pope Francis visits Iraq, challenges for his security – Asia – International

For the first time in history, a The pope will visit Iraq starting Friday to comfort the Christian minority decimated by conflict and the harshness of life and to reach, in a spectacular gesture, Shiite Islam.

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In the cradle of Christianity, which the wars have left without blood and which is still marked by the violence of the Islamic State (IS) group, Pope Francis will meet with the highest religious authority dPart of the Shiite world, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, in Najaf, south of Baghdad.

It is also the first voyage of the sovereign pontiff since the beginning of the year covid-19 pandemic, after he was vaccinated, like the crowd of journalists and clergymen who accompany him. During his three-day visit, The 84-year-old Argentine pope will visit a diverse but small Christian minority to a minimum 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 trip is historic: by Monday, the pontiff will visit a cathedral that was the scene of a 2010 hostage-taking in Baghdad, Ur, in the southern desert of Iraq, Najaf and the churches destroyed by ISIS in Mosul (north).

bye Bye will cover approximately 1,650 kilometers mainly by plane. During his trip, welcome messages and calls for coexistence were posted. Roads have been paved, security checkpoints have been installed and renovations have been carried out in places that have never been included in official visiting programs.

“The pope’s message is to say that the Church is on the side of those who suffer,” Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul and Aqra, Najeeb Michaeel, told AFP. “The Pope will send 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 most diverse, in which the Chaldeans -Catholics-, the Orthodox Armenians and Protestants stand out.

In the days of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein (1979-2003) there were about 1.5 million Christians, about 6% of Iraqis. But today there are no more than 400,000, 1% of the population, estimates William Warda of Hammurabi, a local minority NGO.

(You may be interested in: Places Francisco will visit in Iraq)

Before exile, most Christians were in the province of Nineveh, whose capital is Mosul. Here, the showcases and prayer books are in modern Aramaic.

The cradle of exile

When IS jihadists occupied Mosul in 2014, Pope Francis supported the international military campaign to strengthen Iraqi forces. Then he said he wants to go and support Christians in Iraq.

In 2019, the pontifical sovereign condemned the bloody repression of a popular uprising against the power to which he was particularly shaken. Baghdad and southern Iraq. In this southern region, the pope will go on Saturday to Ur, where patriarch Abraham was born, according to tradition.

But Iraq was already in the Vatican’s mind just before the arrival of Pope Francis.

In 2000, Saddam Hussein threw a pitcher of cold water at the last minute on the hopes 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 often confessional violence.

covid-19 delayed the trip, but neither the closure, imposed throughout his visit, nor the announcement that The Vatican ambassador to Baghdad tested positive for Coronavirus They changed the program. The only incident is that the pope will be without crowds.

Retired to a Vatican monastery since his resignation eight years ago, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI considered this trip to be “very important” but also “dangerous”, both for security reasons and as a result of covid.

Several Vatican security teams visited Iraq, the scene of intense geopolitical tensions, to organize security. The provincial commissions are in charge of protecting the pope’s circuit. On 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 return to Islam. In 2019, in the United Arab Emirates, he signed with Sheikh Ahmed al Tayeb, the imam of Azhar, the highest institution of Sunni Islam, a document that encourages dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

In Iraq, Pope Francis will meet with Shiites, most of them Iraq, but the world’s minority – 200 million of the 1.8 billion Muslims – when he meets Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

For Governor Najaf, Louai al-Yasseri, it is a “historic visit” while Sistani, although physically invisible, has become a compass for the last three decades. Shiites in Iraq and the rest of 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 DESIGN
* With information from AFP