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At the beginning of March, Pope Francis wants to travel to Iraq; Whether it will work will likely remain uncertain in light of the pandemic and the security situation. The visit, scheduled for March 5-8, is a fragile country, ravaged by war and wounded religious communities. It is the unfulfilled dream of John Paul II in the year 2000: to make a pilgrimage to Ur in Chaldea, to the homeland of Abraham, whom Jews, Christians and Muslims venerate as their ancestral father.
An interfaith gathering is planned for March 6 at this historic site in the southern Iraqi desert, Kathpress reports. In the ruins of the stepped temple of Ur, which the biblical patriarch may have seen 4,000 years ago, representatives of Islam and the churches, but also Jews, Yazidis and Mandaeans, are supposed to gather to pray. They all relate to Abraham in some way; all are trapped in a long history of rivalry and violence.
There is no less symbolic power when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani receives the Pope in Najaf. The 90-year-old Shiite scholar embodies Iraq’s moral authority. In conflicts he worked for moderation and de-escalation; During protests against mismanagement and corruption in the fall of 2019, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the government, he supported the protesters. It acts as a kind of breakwater against the Shiite populist forces in the country, such as the leader of the Muqtada al-Sadr militia. It is said that he had a good relationship with the Chaldean Catholic patriarch Louis Raphael I. Sako.
Encounter as an important bridge
Although al-Sistani does not hold a position comparable to that of the Pope, the meeting builds an important bridge between the Catholic Church and Shiite Islam, which has around 200 billion believers around the world. Regarding the role of religion in the state and society, Francis and the Grand Ayatollah show related points of view. After the announcement of their next meeting, it was speculated that the two might sign a call for interfaith work for peace, namely the “Document on the Brotherhood of All Peoples,” which the Pope presented in 2019 with the Sunni Grand Imam. Ahmad al-Tayyeb in Abu Dhabi would have. More recently, however, the Iraqi government said there would be no “signature or agreement” in Najaf.
The second day of the program focuses on the terror of the “Islamic State” and the suffering of Christians in northern Iraq. Francis travels to the Sunni-majority metropolis of Mosul and the Christian city of Qaraqosh. From there, tens of thousands fled terrorist militias in 2014; about half of the families returned.
The only incomplete Vatican visit plan so far calls for a speech by the Pope in Qaraqosh at the Syrian Catholic Church in al-Tahira; it was devastated by the Islamists. Before that, there will be a “prayer for war victims” in Mosul. The open wording suggests that one will consciously renounce a denominational distinction. The Yazidis, for example, suffered even more than the Christians from the expulsion and atrocities of the “Islamic State”.
Empowerment for some Iraqi actors
It is noteworthy that there is no explicitly ecumenical event. The Pope addresses his own Catholic faithful on the day of his arrival, March 5, with an address to clergy, religious and catechists at the Syrian Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad. In 2010, the church was the scene of a bloody terrorist attack in which 48 Christians were killed. The next day a mass is scheduled in the Chaldean cathedral in Baghdad, half a kilometer away. After stops in Mosul and Qaraqosh on March 7, the Pope holds a service at the Erbil stadium. The choice of location is determined by the protective measures against the crown.
Some Iraqi actors hope that the papal visit will strengthen their position in the still uncertain stabilization process of the country. First of all, this includes Patriarch Sako, who constantly emphasizes that Christians belong to Iraq and can also be heard abroad as the voice of Christians; This also includes President Barham Salih, a Sunni from Kurdistan, and non-partisan Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who has to hold the country together against huge social centrifugal forces, as well as the leaders of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in Erbil. .
The street protests with more than 600 dead were just a year ago. The IS is not yet defeated; an attack in central Baghdad in January killed 32 people. The number of reported corona infections has risen again sharply since late January. The Health Ministry recently spoke of an “extremely worrying” situation. There is a general curfew on the days of the Pope’s visit. If Francis arrives, he will have a delicate mission ahead of him, and not only from a religious point of view.
