Violence committed in the name of God ‘the greatest blasphemy’ – Pope Francis

Pope Francis arrives to meet with Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in Najaf, Iraq, on March 6, 2021 (Vatican Media / Handout via Reuters).

UR, Iraq – Pope Francis walked down a narrow alley in the holy city of Najav to hold a historic meeting with Iraq’s top Shiite cleric and visited the birthplace of Prophet Abraham on Saturday to condemn the violence in the name of God as “the greatest blasphemy”.

Interfaith events, one in a dusty, urbanized city and the other on a desert plain 200 km (125 miles) away, reinforced the main theme of the Pope’s risky trip to Iraq: that the country has suffered too much. , and the killing has often been sectarian.

“From this place, where faith was born, from the land of our father Abraham, let us affirm that God is merciful and that the greatest blasphemy is to profane his name by hating our brothers and sisters,” Francis said in the ancient site of Ur where he was born. Abraham.

With the desert wind blowing his white cassock, Francis, seated with Muslim, Christian and Yazidi leaders, spoke in full view of the city’s 4,000-year-old archaeological excavation comprising a pyramid-style Ziggurat, a residential complex, temples and palaces. .

Hours earlier in Najaf, Francis met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a visit that sent a strong signal for interfaith dialogue and coexistence.

The 2003 US invasion plunged Iraq into years of sectarian conflict. Security has improved since the defeat of the Islamic State in 2017, but Iraq remains a setting for global and regional reckoning, especially a bitter rivalry between the United States and Iran that has played out on Iraqi soil.

Sistani, 90, is one of the most influential figures in Shiite Islam, both inside and outside Iraq, and his meeting was the first between a pope and such an important Shiite cleric.

The meeting took place in the humble house that Sistani has rented for decades, near the golden-domed shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf. Francis had to walk about 30 meters down an alley to reach it after leaving his car.

The pope’s visit to Iraq has been heavily guarded by security and the roads his convoy traveled on Saturday were closed to traffic. In some places along the routes, vans with machine guns and even tanks were parked.

After the meeting, Sistani called on world religious leaders to hold the great powers accountable and for wisdom and sense to prevail over war. He added that Christians should live like all Iraqis in peace and coexistence.

A meeting of religions

Although Abraham is considered the father of Christians, Muslims, and Jews, no Jewish representative was present at the interfaith event in Ur.

In 1947, a year before the birth of Israel, the Jewish community in Iraq numbered around 150,000. Now your numbers are in simple figures.

A local Church official said the Jews were contacted and invited, but the situation for them was “complicated”, especially since they do not have a structured community. However, similar past events in predominantly Muslim countries have been attended by a high-ranking foreign Jewish figure.

“Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion,” the pope said in Ur.

“We believers cannot keep quiet when terrorism abuses religion; in fact, we are called unambiguously to dispel all misunderstandings, “he said.

Islamic State militants, who tried to establish a caliphate covering several countries, devastated northern Iraq between 2014 and 2017, killing both Christians and Muslims who opposed the insurgents.

Iraq’s Christian community, one of the oldest in the world, has been particularly devastated, falling to around 300,000 from around 1.5 million before the US invasion and the brutal militant Islamist violence that followed.

‘A triumph of virtue’

In Ur, Francis praised young Muslims for helping Christians repair their churches “when terrorism invaded the north of this beloved country.”

Rafah Hussein Baher, a member of the ancient little Sabean Mandaean religion, thanked the Pope for making the trip despite the many problems in the country, including an increase in COVID-19 cases and a recent series of rocket attacks. and suicide bombs.

“His visit signifies a triumph of virtue, it is a symbol of appreciation for Iraqis. Blessed is he who uproots fear from souls,” Baher said.

Later, in a homily at a service on Saturday night in the Chaldean Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Baghdad, Francis again paid tribute to “those of our brothers and sisters who here also have suffered prejudice and indignities, mistreatment and persecution by the name of Jesus ”.

The coronavirus restrictions limited the number of people allowed into the church to about 100, but included the country’s president, the foreign minister and the speaker of the house of parliament, all Muslim.

The pope, whose visit to Iraq began on Friday, travels to the north of Mosul on Sunday, a former stronghold of the Islamic State, where churches and other buildings still bear the scars of the conflict.

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