Pope Francis waves at faithfuls from the window of the apostolic palace overlooking St.Peter's square during his Angelus prayer on August 15, 2020 at the Vatican [TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images]
Ishtartv.com
– middleeastmonitor.com
January 31, 2021
Pope Francis is set for an
historic meeting with Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, during a trip to Iraq planned for March, the patriarch of Iraq's
Chaldean Catholic Church said on Thursday, Reuters reported.
The visit, which eluded Francis's
predecessors, takes place amid deteriorating security in some parts of Iraq and
after the first big suicide bombing in Baghdad for three years.
The programme for the March 5-8
trip, announced at a news conference by Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, who is a
Catholic cardinal and head of Iraq's biggest Christian denomination, will
include Masses in Baghdad and the northern city of Erbil.
The pope will visit the former
Islamic State stronghold of Mosul which has a significant Christian minority,
and the ruins of ancient Ur in southern Iraq, revered as the birthplace of
Abraham, father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Francis said in an interview
broadcast on Jan. 10 that his Iraq trip might be cancelled because of the
coronavirus pandemic, but it now appears that preparations are going ahead,
including vaccinations for potential participants.
In meeting the 90-year-old
Sistani, Francis will hold talks with one of the most important figures in
Shi'ite Islam, both within Iraq and beyond.
Sistani commands a vast following
among Iraq's Shi'ite majority and huge influence over politics and public
opinion. His edicts sent Iraqis to the polls for the first free elections after
dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled, rallied the country to fight Islamic State
in 2017 and ousted an Iraqi government during mass demonstrations in 2019.
Francis has visited predominately
Muslim countries including Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, the
United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian territories, using those trips to call
for inter-religious dialogue.
Iraq is trying to recover from
the destruction caused by the campaign to defeat Islamic State, and beset by
economic hardship after a fall in oil prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Iraq has been home to Christian
communities for centuries. Hundreds of thousands of Christians fled sectarian
violence after the fall of Saddam or were driven out when Islamic State
captured much of the north in 2014.
But hundreds of thousands
remained, divided among a number of denominations, with the largest being
Chaldean Catholics, who practice an ancient Syriac rite and are loyal to the
pope. Since Islamic State was driven from the north in 2017, Christians have
largely recovered the freedom of worship.
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