Historical papal visit: Pope Francis is the first Catholic leader ever to visit Iraq. War and the Corona-pandemic could not stop the Catholic leader from travelling to the crises-ridden country. With his visit Pope Francis wants to encourage Iraqi Christians to stay. Whether he will succeed in his mission is doubtful.
This article was translated by Syriacpress.
By Alfred Hackensberger Correspondent for Die Welt
The papal plane from Rome landed at exactly 2pm. on Friday at Baghdad airport. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustapha al-Kadhimi waited on the red carpet to receive Pope Francis and lead him to the VIP lounge for the official welcome ceremony. From there, the motorcade drove through the Iraqi capital. From a bulletproof BMW Pope Francis greeted the cheering people standing on the roads.
First stop was the presidential palace of head of state Barham Salih. A flock of doves of peace rose to the sky. A military band was playing. Men in white kaftans and drawn sabers stood in line. Iraq rarely offers so much honor and splendor to a state guest. But with Pope Francis everything is a little bit different.
It is a historic visit. The country, shaken by wars, conflict, and crises, had sent several invitations to Rome in the past 20 years. Most recently in 2019. The Pope never came. But now the time has finally come. Pope Francis is the first Catholic leader ever to visit Iraq. And only because the determined 84-year-old Holy Father waived away all security concerns about the trip.
The Vatican, it is said, wanted to postpone the trip because Iraq is still a war zone. In January of this year, 32 people died in suicide bombings in Baghdad. Two weeks ago, there was an attack on a military base in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, which the Pope is also visiting.
Only last Wednesday did missiles hit a military base in western Iraq. All coinciding with the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic. Infection cases are increasing in Iraq. But Pope Francis affirmed before his departure: “I don’t want to disappoint the people. The Iraqis are waiting for us.”
The Catholic Church leader is known to do many things differently from his predecessors. He brushed aside the advice from his security apparatus. He has good reasons. With his “emblematic visit” he wants to give hope again to “a tormented country” and set an example of peace. “I come as a pilgrim, as a repentant pilgrim, to ask the Lord for forgiveness and reconciliation after years of war and terrorism, to ask God to give comfort to hearts and to heal wounds.” Pope Francis has set out to achieve interreligious dialogue in Iraq.
On Saturday, the Pope met Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Sistani in Najaf. From there he flew by helicopter to the plain of Ur. According to biblical tradition, this is the place of origin of Abraham. Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike refer to Abraham as their patriarch. In Ur, an interreligious meeting was held. Bringing religions together is a matter close to the heart of Pope Francis. Before his journey he emphasized: “Here and with you, Abraham began his journey thousands of years ago. Today, it is our responsibility, in the same spirit, to continue this journey by walking the path of peace together.”
Pope Francis, however, is primarily addressing Iraqi Christians. He wants to encourage them to stay. For years and of all places, more and more Christians have been leaving Iraq, once the cradle of Christian civilization. Most Christians emigrate to Europe. Now, Iraq is threatened with the exodus of all believers. Iraq has found no stability and peace since the American invasion in 2003. The Christian community, one of the oldest in the world, was hit particularly hard and the terror of radical Islamist groups pushed them into emigration.
First al-Qaida. Then the Islamic State
First there were the attacks by al-Qaeda whose terrorist squads attacked churches during mass. Then Islamic State (IS) emerged in 2014. Of the once 1.5 million Christians in Iraq, only between 150,000 and 250,000 remain today. “Most of them sit on packed suitcases,” says Simon Jacob from the Zentralrat der Orientalischen Christen in Deutschland, a platform for Oriental Christians in Germany. “The papal trip has great symbolic significance. But not more than that, if you ask the Christian citizens of Iraq.” The papal call to hope is well-meant, but Jacob believes that unless there is real security, civic equality and the prospect of self-government, no Christian would not be persuaded to stay, “let alone persuade someone to return from Europe to the Middle East,” Jacob adds.
Chairman of the Beth Nahrain Patriotic Union Joseph Yacoub Matti holds the same view. The party chairman talks to us in the Christian quarter of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, “It is a spiritual visit with a deep message for reconciliation between all ethnicities and religions. But we also need political reforms, social justice, and the development of federal structures.”
Yacoub Matti is thinking in particular of an autonomous administration in the Nineveh Plain. The region steeped in history, is predominantly inhabited by Christians. There are centuries-old churches and monasteries that were gruesomely visited by IS even years ago. The Muslim extremists ravaged churches and Christian symbols. The faces of images of saints, even lions and horses, were destroyed. This is one of the main reasons, the Pope is visiting not only the city of Mosul but also the small town of Qarakosh, one of the Christian towns hardest hit by IS terrorism.
Like many other Iraqis, politics is not the first thing that comes to David’s mind. He flew to Iraq with a group of friends from Berlin. “We just want to see the Pope,” says the young man, who originally comes from the Kurdistan Region. “It is a great honor when the Pope visits our country.” On Sunday, David and his friends want to attend mass in Erbil. 10,000 participants are expected in the football stadium. Along the roads that lead to the stadium, there are huge posters of the Pope. Everywhere the visit of the Catholic Church leader is a topic of discussion. “I’m really happy, and I don’t know anyone who is not,” says a Muslim taxi driver in Erbil. “I’m not a Christian, but the message is that all religions should stand together.”
You can follow Alfred Hackensberger via Twitter @hackensberger and on his blog.
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