Pope Francis trip to Iraq made him the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church to ever visit the country

 

      “I AM WITH YOU IN YOUR SUFFERING AND PAIN.”

Remember that “HOPE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN HATRED, PEACE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN WAR.”

The words of Pope Francis during his visit to Iraq, March 5-7, 2021 - the first trip by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church to Iraq.

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Ur was an important city of ancient Mesopotamia in what today is modern day Iraq. The site is 6,000 years old. According to Biblical tradition it was named after the man who founded the first settlement there.

Why would Pope Francis who is 84 years old attend an inter-religious prayer at the ancient archeological site of Ur in Iraq? Because the ancient site is the traditional birthplace of Abraham. Not only is Abraham revered by Christians, but also by Jews and by Muslims. Abraham is the patriarch, the father of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths, the monotheistic religions.

Pope Francis expressed the view that the “common bond should serve as inspiration in a world that too often finds itself divided.”

“Francis held firm in his desire to visit the long-suffering and fading Christian community in the war-torn nation (Iraq), despite concerns about the coronavirus and a precarious security situation.”  

When he landed there on Friday, March 5, 2021 Pope Francis made “his first foreign trip since the outbreak of the pandemic more than a year ago.”  Making the trip to Iraq made him the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church to ever visit the country.

Busloads of people went to the International Airport in Baghdad to await him.

On his arrival he was greeted by Iraq President Barham Salih.  Later that same day he went to Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, “the site of a 2010 Qaeda attack that accelerated an exodus of Christians from Iraq.”

The visit to the church was the beginning of a “three-day whirlwind tour of Iraq.” The Christian population in Iraq is “one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.” Christians have been in Iraq from the first century AD, a BBC report stated. During the last years of Saddam Hussein’s rule there were about 1.5 million Christians. Now there are about 1/3 of that number.

Many people greeted Pope Francis as he arrived at the Church, Marc Santora writes in the New York Times, March 6, 2021. There have been Christians in Iraq since the 1^st Century AD.

On Saturday Pope Francis visited Ur ‘where he specifically condemned the persecution of the Yazidis.’ They are an ethnic minority group and one of the oldest religions in the world.

Another religious group is the Sabean Mandean - a monotheistic faith that “shares some elements with Christianity and has John the Baptist as its central prophet.”

But Abraham’s Jewish descendants are no longer in the country.

Between 2003 and 2010 “more than half of the Christians in Iraq left their country.”

In 2014 the expansion of Islamic State or ISIS caused even more Christians to leave. Today they “constitute little more than one percent of the population.”

The meeting on Saturday (March 6) between Pope Francis and 90 year old Muslim cleric the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani “ran longer than expected.”  Ayatollah al-Sistani believes in a separation between politics and religion “he is in some ways an ideal interlocutor for Francis: holy, credible and powerful. His decisions carry weight.” the report by Jason Horowitz and Jane Arraf in the New York Times said.

On Sunday March 7, 2021, Pope Francis went to Irbil, then to Mosul where he visited Church Square.

The Middle Eastern news outlet ‘The National’ reports that “A cross erected on Church Square in honor of the Pope’s visit was crafted from wooden chairs rescued from churches across the region.”  

There are churches from four of Iraq’s Christian denominations in and around Mosul’s Church Square..

The damaged churches are in the middle of Mosul’s Old City.

The Pope went on to Qaraqosh, where he prayed at the ancient Church of the Immaculate Conception “which was once torched by IS and has now been restored.”  Qaraqosh has the largest Christian population in Iraq. He met with Christians there before he returned to Irbil for an outdoor Mass at a soccer stadium.

As he celebrated Mass in Irbil the Pope said Iraq would remain in his heart. A BBC report said, “thousands of people attended the service.”

“Iraq’s Christian population was once a vibrant community of various Christian rites” the article explains.  “But it has been culled by persecution, a devastating decade of war after the US invasion in 2003 and the decimation at the brutal hands of the Islamic State from 2014 – 2017.”

Many of the country’s surviving Christians have fled to Canada, Jordan, Turkey, and the United States. For Christians in Iraq the Pope’s coming to bear witness to their suffering is a powerful show of solidarity.”

On his last day in Iraq Pope Francis “drove through the stadium in an open vehicle” while in the streets “thousands of people holding flowers and olive branches” stood waiting to see him.”

It was here in Erbil that Pope Francis spoke the uplifting words to the crowds that gathered to see him “hope is more powerful than hatred, peace is more powerful than war.” he said.

On Sunday Omar Polis had been waiting for three hours to see Pope Francis. In the article by Jane Arraf and Jason Horowitz he said to them: “The pope’s visit is a gift for all of us. The only thing we are looking for is the hope of living peacefully like brothers in this country.”

Yes indeed, Omar, not only in your country, but in the world. Peace is what we need. #suffering #pain #hope #powerful  #hatred #peace #war #pope #francis #iraq 

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