Pope Francis visits Iraqi Christians who have suffered under IS
Pope Francis, on his historic Iraq tour, visits on Sunday Christian communities that endured the brutality of the Islamic Condition group before jihadists’ “caliphate” was first defeated 3 years ago.
The 84-year-old, travelling under tight security, will lead a prayer “for the victims of the war” in Mosul, a historical crossroads whose centre was reduced to rubble by fierce fighting to oust IS.
“We believers can't be silent when terrorism abuses religion,” Francis explained at an interfaith service Saturday, one of the various stops on the 1st- ever papal go to to the war-scarred nation.
Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq as a “pilgrim of peace” aims to reassure the country’s ancient, but dwindling, Christian network and expand his dialogue with various other religions.
The first choice of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics on Saturday met Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric, the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who agreed that Iraq’s Christians will be able to live in “peace”.
“We all wish that this visit is a very good omen for the Iraqi persons,” Adnane Youssef, a good Christian from northern Iraq, told AFP. “We anticipation that it will bring about better days.”
The Christian community of Iraq, a Muslim-majority country of 40 million, has shrunk from 1.5 million before the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein to only 400,000 now, about one percent of the population.
“This very important visit will boost our morale after years of difficulties, problems and wars,” said an Iraqi Christian innovator, Father George Jahoula.
- Rebuilding efforts -
Back in 2014, when IS militants swept across 1 / 3 of Iraq, Pope Francis had said he was ready to come to meet up the displaced and different victims of war.
Seven years afterwards, after a stop early Sunday in the Kurdish north of Iraq, he'll see for himself the devastated Old City of Mosul and efforts to rebuild it.
Pope Francis may also go to Qaraqosh, further east found in the Nineveh Ordinary, which is among Iraq’s oldest Christian towns.
It had been largely destroyed in 2014 when IS rampaged through the region, but its occupants have trickled rear since 2017 and slowly worked in rebuilding their hometown.
To honour the pope, neighborhood artisans possess woven a good two-metre (6.5-feet) prayer shawl, or stole, with the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” prayers carefully
hand-stitched on golden thread on Syriac, a dialect of the language spoken by Jesus Christ that's still found in Qaraqosh.
- Holy mass in stadium -
Security will be extra-tight found in the north of Iraq, where state forces are still hunting IS remnants and sleeper cells.
Plenty of troops and police have already been deployed as the pope has criss-crossed the united states, taking planes, helicopters and armoured convoys to cover a lot more than 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) in-country.
The other major challenge may be the Covid-19 pandemic, as Iraq has been in the grip of another wave, with an archive greater than 5,000 cases per day.
Iraqi authorities have imposed lockdown methods to regulate crowds, but a large number of faithful are anticipated to flock to a stadium down the road Sunday in the northern town of Arbil to listen to the pope.
Arbil, the administrative centre of Iraq’s oil-rich northern Kurdish place, is a relative haven of balance and a location of refuge for many Christians who exactly fled IS.
Several thousand seats in the Franso Hariri stadium will be remaining empty in order to avoid creating a super-spreader event when Iraqis come to hear the Catholic leader, noted here as “Baba al-Vatican”, deliver the holy mass.
