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Pope Francis traveled to Iraq on Friday, making him the first Catholic archbishop to travel to the Middle East. The Catholic archbishop visited Iraq, which was inhabited mainly by Shiite Muslims, despite security and epidemiological concerns. Their years-planned path has so far been hampered by conflicts in the region. The Pope did not make an apostolic visit to any country for fifteen months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Catholic archbishop said he will visit the area ravaged by war and terrorism as a pilgrim of hope, “asking for comfort and healing of wounds.”At the airport, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadimi received the Pope. Hundreds of people gathered on both sides of the road to the airport to greet the Catholic Archbishop. The streets of Baghdad were filled with photos of the Pope and the flags of the Vatican. However, the usual hustle and bustle was missed because curfew restrictions were in effect until Sunday night.
Thousands of people are guarded by the Pope’s security and, as a result of his visit, new checkpoints have been established in the Iraqi capital.
Upon his arrival, Pope Francis will meet with representatives of political life at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, and then with bishops, priests and monks at the Syrian Catholic cathedral that bears the name of Our Lady. Baghdad’s largest Christian church was the target of an assassination by the international terrorist organization al-Qaeda in 2010, killing 58 people in the attack.
The Catholic archbishop will visit the southern part of the country on Saturday: the Shiite, known as the Shiite religious and political center and the second largest Muslim pilgrimage site after Mecca, will be received by Pope Ali as-Sistani, the leader more influential of the local Shiites. Sistani has spoken out repeatedly in recent years in favor of maintaining Christian communities in Iraq.
On Sunday, Pope Francis will visit the cities of the Nineveh Plateau in northern Kurdistan, Iraq. In the main square of Mosul, pray for the victims of the war. Visit Karakos and Erbíl, in the latter’s stadium he says mass in front of ten thousand people. Pope Francis will return to the Vatican on Monday.
There were nearly five million Christians living in Iraq in 1947, falling to 1.4 million in 2003 and a few hundred thousand in 2015. In Iraq, now with a population of 38 million, official figures put the number of Christians at 590,000, with 122 Catholic parishes and 19 bishops serving in the country. (MTI)
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