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UR, Iraq – The first Pope Francis appeared at the modest residence of Iraq’s loneliest and most powerful Shiite religious cleric for a delicate and carefully negotiated summit. Hours later, he presided over a crowded stage of religious leaders on the windswept Plain of Ur, a vast and now arid expanse where worshipers believe that God revealed himself to the prophet Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions.
In both intimate and theatrical settings, in both concrete and symbolic gestures, Pope Francis on Saturday sought to protect his persecuted flock by forging closer ties between the Roman Catholic Church and the Muslim world, a mission that is a central theme of his papacy and from his historic trip to Iraq.
Meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf, Francis threaded a political needle, seeking an alliance with an extraordinarily influential Shiite cleric who, unlike his Iranian counterparts, believes that religion should not rule the state. .
In Ur, his speech, in view of a 4,000-year-old mud brick ziggurat with a temple dedicated to a moon god, added biblical and emotional resonance to the day.
The meetings, top church officials said, were two parts of the same piece.
“Of course they go together,” said Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state and second-highest-ranking official after the pope, in a brief interview.
“There is a direct link to what is happening here,” he said, pointing to the scene in Ur, “and the meeting with al-Sistani.”
Cardinal Parolin spoke as he finished a tour of the structure of what the faithful believe was Abraham’s home. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had it rebuilt with new brick walls and arches.
As he took the stage, Francis arrived from an airport in the provincial capital Nasiriyah, a hub for ongoing anti-government protests, past miles of explosive walls, Iraqi and Vatican flags hung from barbed wire fences, and loaded pickup trucks. with soldiers and mounted machine guns. He arrived on stage surrounded by AstroTurf and red carpets, a rapidly assembled bright spot on the desert plain, and stepped onto a stage.
“This blessed place brings us back to our origins,” Francis said, adding. “Looks like we’ve come home.”
Elders of some of Iraq’s vanishing religious minorities surrounded him, some talking about their difficulties.
“I am a wise Iraqi Mandean who has witnessed the flight of my children, brothers and relatives,” said Rafah Alhilali, whose monotheistic faith shares some elements with Christianity and has Saint John the Baptist as its central prophet.
Sheikh Faroq Khalil, a member of the Yazidi spiritual council, said Francis promised him that he would pray for the protection of his persecuted minority.
But some once vibrant communities had essentially disappeared from Iraq altogether, including Abraham’s Jewish descendants, and were absent from the gathering.
The Rev. Albert Hisham, coordinator of the Iraqi Catholic Church’s papal visit, said planners had reached out to some of the dozen Iraqi Jews they were able to identify but got no response.
There is fear among many Iraqi Christians, who as recently as the mid-20th century made up about 10 percent of the population, that they may face the same fate. Between 2003, the year of the US-led invasion, and 2010, more than half of Iraqi Christians left the country, leaving some 500,000 out of a maximum of as many as 1.4 million.
In 2014, the expansion of the Islamic State, or ISIS, led to more persecution and migration, and Christians today make up just over one percent of the population.
As the strong winds across the Ur Plains lifted the red carpets into the air and blew sand over a small crowd and several empty seats, Francis uttered a pure cry of peace and brotherly love. In doing so, he made a dream cherished by John Paul II come true, who had tried to come here 20 years ago and “cried”, Francisco has said, when political tensions forced him to cancel.
Francis argued that “the greatest blasphemy is to profane” the name of God “by hating our brothers and sisters.
“Hostility, extremism and violence are not born from a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion,” he added. “We believers cannot keep quiet when terrorism abuses religion; in fact, we are called unambiguously to dispel all misunderstandings. “
He referred to himself and others as “descendants of Abraham and representatives of different religions” and said that, as “the great Patriarch, we must take concrete action steps ”towards peace.
And Francisco’s confidants say that’s exactly what he’s been doing.
In 2019 in Abu Dhabi, Francis signed a joint declaration on human brotherhood with Sunni leaders from the Al-Azhar University and Mosque in Cairo, one of the main centers of Sunni Islamic learning. His efforts to add the Shiites to the equation by meeting with Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, a majority Shiite, upset some Sunni officials.
A senior Iraqi official said the pope agreed to a brief meeting on Friday that had not been previously scheduled with Mohammed al-Halbousi, the speaker of the Iraqi Parliament and a Sunni Muslim Arab, to allay the concerns of many in the sect that their concerns they were being ignored. t. Vatican officials confirmed Saturday night that the meeting took place.
But it was the Shiites who were the center of Francisco’s attention on Saturday and the impetus for his trip, officially under the theme “You are all brothers.”
“It is a way of rediscovering a deep sense of unity that must exist between these three religions and of the collaboration that must be created between members of these religions,” Cardinal Parolin said.
Najaf is the site of the tomb of Imam Ali, considered by Shiite Muslims as the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad. The sanctuary was closed to pilgrims for the first time in years due to the Pope’s visit.
The pope walked down an alley just wide enough for his entourage near the ayatollah’s house. Makeshift electrical cables hung from the houses, some with windows covered by bent metal bars. There were no cheers or chants. But in many ways, the meeting between Francis and Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric was one of the most critical aspects of the pontiff’s whirlwind tour of Iraq.
The two elders, Ayatollah Sistani, 90 years old and dressed in black robes, and Francisco, 84, in his white cassock, each the highest religious authority among his followers and both wearing socks, sat opposite each other in a small table adorned with a box of tissues. Neither man was photographed wearing a mask. Francis is vaccinated. Ayatollah Sistani is not. His office said he believes vaccination is religiously permitted, but did not want to jump in front of others.
The Vatican, in its statement on the meeting, said that the Pope had thanked the cleric “for speaking, together with the Shiite community, in defense of the most vulnerable and persecuted in the midst of violence and great difficulties.”
The visit pointed out to Shi’ite Muslim leaders that Christians must be respected.
Although Ayatollah Sistani was born in Iran, his pronouncements on Iraq carry great weight. He has been able to get the elections underway, and his withdrawal of support for the former prime minister of Iraq, whom he felt was failing the people, left the prime minister with no choice but to resign.
Ayatollah Sistani’s 2014 religious edict urging healthy men to join the security forces to fight the Islamic State group resulted in a recruiting boom for Shiite militias, many of them closely linked to Iran. But unlike his rival, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Sistani believes in a separation between politics and religion, as long as the policy does not break Islamic principles. In some way he is an ideal interlocutor for Francisco: holy, credible and powerful. Your decisions carry weight.
The meeting between the two religious leaders lasted longer than expected. A statement issued by Ayatollah Sistani’s office said the cleric had emphasized that Christian citizens deserve “to live like all Iraqis in security and peace and with full constitutional rights.”
Jason Horowitz reported from Ur, Jane Arraf from Erbil.
