A pope will visit the country of Iraq, finally

My next two columns will be covering the background and actual visit of Pope Francis to Iraq. Against significant risks posed by the coronavirus pandemic and security risks, Pope Francis is determined to visit Iraq from March 5-8. He will finally fulfill the long-awaited desire by his two predecessors to visit this country that hails as the birthplace of the great Patriarch Abraham in the ancient city of Ur, thus the birthplace of the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He is going, as he stated, “to console and encourage” the Catholics, Christians and other religious minorities, as well as the people of this majority Muslim country which has suffered greatly from war, terrorism and persecutions. In the face of recent rocket attacks in Erbil and suicide bombings in Baghdad and as the country experiences an unsettling rise in COVI-19 cases, with its minister of health warning last week that “Iraq has entered the most dangerous phase of the epidemic,” Pope Francis will accomplish what no other pope has been able to accomplish.
When asked why he insists on making such a dangerous trip, the pope responded, because “I am the pastor of people who are suffering.”
Pope John Paul II had planned to visit Ur during the Great Millennium of 2000 to kick off a series of visits he made to the Holy Land that year, but the much-anticipated visit was canceled after talks broke down with then-President Saddam Hussein. Pope Benedict also had a great desire to visit Iraq and was invited by the Iraqi government to visit, but security conditions became so bad that he could not make the trip.
Cardinal Louis Sako, the patriarch of Babylon, began asking Pope Francis to visit at the pope’s installation in 2013. “The pontiff said he looks forward to visiting our country, which is also where Abraham began his journey,” said Cardinal Sako. He added, “When I told him that our land had to endure 950 martyrs and 57 churches attacked, he said, ‘I feel pain for you.’”
He will certainly be visiting a Christian community in desperate need of being encouraged in the faith. Stephen Rasche explains in his book, “The Disappearing People: The Tragic Fate of Christians in the Middle East,” that prior to the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003, between 1.3 and 1.5 million Christians resided there. During the chaos that was unleashed by the war, that number was reduced to around 500,000 people prior to the rise of the Islamic State, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing as refugees and an estimated 1,000 people killed by Islamist militants.
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared a genocide against the country’s Christians in March 2016 and by most estimates, fewer than 250,000 Christians remain in the country today. Church leaders have been tortured, kidnapped and assassinated, and monasteries and churches have been systematically burned and destroyed. The Christians who remained say that they are often treated as second class citizens and many are still trying to get out of the country.
This trip comes after the signing of the historic document during Pope Francis’ visit to Abu Dhabi. This document on “Human Fraternity” called for all people of the world to find peaceful ways of living and working together for a better world. The Grand Iman who cosigned with the pope addressed Muslims by saying, “I would like to address my fellow Muslims in the East, my message to you is embrace your Christian brothers and sisters. They are your companions.”
It is hoped that the top Shite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Al-Husayni Al Sistani will sign on to the document, but even if he cannot for political reasons, at least he and the pope are scheduled to meet, an event historic in itself. This meeting is widely viewed as significant and major progress for both Shiite-Sunni and Muslim-Christian relations in Iraq.
Pope Francis has made it an earmark of his pontificate to intentionally visit several majority-Muslim counties, such as Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. He is expected, as he did in these former journeys, to continue his plea for pluralism, and to bridge the clash of civilizations. In his October 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, he wrote, “Isolation and withdrawal into one’s own interests are never the way to restore hope and bring about renewal. Rather, it is closeness; it is the culture of encounter. Isolation, no; closeness, yes. Culture clash, no; culture of encounter, yes.”
Let us pray for the safety of our Holy Father in Iraq. May he continue to be the troubadour of peace to the world with the success of the Apostle of Peace that he is!