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Vatican (AFP)
Pope Francis is making an unprecedented visit to Iraq from March 5-8, on his first trip abroad since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, to include the city of Mosul.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement: “At the invitation of the Republic of Iraq and the local Catholic Church, Pope Francis will make an apostolic visit to the mentioned country from March 5 to 8, 2021, and will visit Baghdad and the Plain of Ur associated with the memory of Abraham and the city of Erbil, as well as Mosul and Qaraqosh in the Plain of Nineveh. “
Baghdad welcomed the Pope’s “historic” visit, considering it a “message of peace to Iraq and the entire region,” the Iraqi Foreign Ministry confirmed in a statement. The Islamic State had occupied the Nineveh Plain between 2014 and 2017. Christians in this region of northern Iraq in large numbers have not returned to their homes since then because tensions between armed groups remain high and infrastructure remains at risk. much of it destroyed.
No foreign official has visited Mosul in more than five years.
Until 2003, Iraq, which had a Shiite Muslim majority, had 1.5 million Christians. Today, their number has decreased to 300 to 400 thousand, according to the non-governmental organization “Hammurabi” that defends the rights of the Christian minority in Iraq.
Before the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic, Pope Francis clearly expressed his intention to visit Iraq, which faces many challenges and has suffered from wars for decades.
He announced his desire to visit this country in 2020 while welcoming participants to the Eastern Churches Aid Business Authority meeting in June 2019.
In January 2020, the Pope received Iraqi President Barham Salih at the Vatican.
The late Pope John Paul II had intended to visit Iraq in December 1999, but the project did not materialize after negotiations with the late President Saddam Hussein.
– surprising announcement –
The Vatican said that “the program of visits will be published later to take into account the evolution of the health situation in the world.”
The department that handles the pope’s trips abroad had suspended its work until further notice in recent months.
The announcement of the visit came suddenly from the Pope, who celebrates his 84th birthday on December 17, after he again banned gatherings of believers in the Vatican to prevent the spread of the virus.
In 2019, Pope Francis made a record number of visits abroad to 11 countries on four continents, ending in Thailand and Japan in November.
His only announced 2020 visit to Malta, which focused on the migrant issue, was canceled due to the pandemic.
On October 3, the Pope visited Assisi in central Italy on his first trip outside of Rome since the pandemic. However, there was no meeting with the crowd to sign a new pastoral letter dedicated to the theme of “brotherhood.” His visit to Iraq would allow the Pope to reaffirm his commitment to dialogue with Muslims.
In February 2019, Pope Francis signed a “Document on Human Brotherhood” in Abu Dhabi with Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb. In it, we denounce religious extremism and support for terrorists.
In an October peace address in Rome to a group of spiritual leaders representing all religions, the Pope said that “religions are at the service of peace.”
© 2020 AFP
