BAGHDAD (AP) – In Iraq’s holiest city, a pope will meet a reverent ayatollah and make history with a message of coexistence in a place plagued by bitter divisions.
One is the chief preacher of the worldwide Catholic Church, and the other a leading figure in Shiite Islam whose opinion prevails powerfully in the Iraqi street and beyond. Their encounter will resonate across Iraq, even crossing borders into neighboring, predominantly Shiite Iran.
Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani met on Saturday for a maximum of 40 minutes, partly alone except for interpreters, in the modest house of the Shiite cleric in the city of Najaf. Every detail was scrutinized ahead of time in careful behind-the-scenes preparations that touched everything from shoes to seats.
The geopolitical undertones weigh heavily on the meeting, coupled with twin threats of a viral pandemic and ongoing tensions with Iranian-backed gun groups with rockets.
For Iraq’s dwindling Christian minority, a show of solidarity by al-Sistani could help secure their place in Iraq after years of displacement – and, they hope, facilitate the intimidation of Shiite civilians against their community.
Iraqi government officials also see the symbolic power of the assembly – just like Tehran.
The 90-year-old al-Sistani was a constant counterweight to Iran’s influence. At the meeting, Francis implicitly acknowledged himself as the main speaker of Shiite Islam over his rival, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The news of the meeting heightened the long-running rivalry between the Shiite seminaries in Najaf and the city of Qom in Iran, which is the center of the Shiite world.
“It will be a private visit without a precedent in history, and it will not be equal to any previous visits,” said a religious official in Najaf, who was involved in the planning.
For the Vatican, it was an encounter decades in the making, one that eluded Francis’ predecessors.
“Najaf did not make it easy,” said a Vatican Christian official, who was close to the planning, saying on condition of anonymity because of the sweetness of the visit.
In December, Louis Sako, the patriarch of the Iraqi Catholic Church, told The Associated Press the church was trying to plan a meeting between Francis and the ayatollah. It was included in the first draft of the program, “but when the (Vatican) delegation visited Najaf, there were problems,” he said without elaborating.
The church continued to insist.
“We know how important Najaf is in the Iraqi situation,” Sako said. What value would the pope’s message of coexistence in Iraq have, they determined, if he did not seek the support of his most powerful and most respected religious figure?
Sako finally confirmed the meeting in January, weeks after the pope’s itinerary was compiled.
Al-Sistani rarely weighs in on management issues. If he had it, it would have changed the course of Iraq’s modern history.
An edict of his gave many Iraqis reason to run in the January 2005 election, the first after the US leadership of 2003. His fatwa in 2014 calling on former men to join the Islamic State group fighting, drove the ranks of Shiite militias on a large scale. In 2019, when protests against the government gripped the country, his sermon led to the resignation of then-Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.
The Vatican’s hope was that Francis would sign a document with al-Sistani promising human brotherhood, just as with the influential great imam of al-Azhar, the Sunni Islam, Ahmed el-Tayeb, in Egypt.
The signature was among many elements on which the two parties negotiated extensively. Finally, Shiite religious officials in Najaf told the AP that a signing was not on the agenda, and al-Sistani would rather issue a verbal statement.
Every minute of Saturday’s meeting is likely to unfold just as accurately as a stage play.
The 84-year-old pope’s convoy pulls along Najaf’s busy column-rich Rasool Street, which culminates in the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the most respected sites in the world for Shiites.
On the side, a street is too narrow for cars. Here Francis will walk the 30 meters to al-Sistani’s modest house, which the clergy have been renting for decades. The influential boy, Mohammed Ridha, will wait to greet him at the entrance.
Inside, and a few steps to the right, the pope will see the ayatollah face to face.
Each will make a simple gesture of mutual respect.
Francis will take off his shoes before entering al-Sistani’s room.
Al-Sistani, who usually sits for visitors, will greet Francis at the door and lead him to an L-shaped blue couch and invite him to sit down.
“This has never happened before through a gas with his gas,” said a religious official from Najaf.
He will stand despite his fragile health, religious officials said. Since his thigh was broken last year, the spiritual has been tightly locked inside. Francis suffers from sciatica.
The Pope will be offered tea.
“His Highness will give His Holiness a message of peace and love for all mankind,” the official said.
Gifts will be exchanged.
It is not clear what Najaf will donate, but Francis will almost certainly present al-Sistani with bound copies of his most important writings, including his latest encyclical ‘Brothers All’, on the need for greater brotherhood among all peoples a more peaceful, ecologically sustainable and just world.
Until now, the papal plans to visit Iraq have failed.
The late Pope John Paul II could not go in 2000, when negotiations with the government of then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein broke down.
One setback after another almost shot this one down as well.
Iraq fell to a second wave of coronavirus last month, spurred on by the new, more contagious tension that first erupted in the UK. At the same time, a spate of rocket attacks resumed on the US presence in the country. The US has blamed the militants who are in line with Iran.
The same groups, reinforced after al-Sistani’s fatwa, are accused of terrorizing Christians and preventing them from returning home. The Iraqi government and religious officials are concerned that these militias could carry out rocket attacks in Baghdad or elsewhere to express their displeasure over Al-Sistani’s meeting with Francis.
As pope, Francis sits at the top of an official hierarchy that governs the Catholic Church. Al-Sistani’s position is more informal, based on tradition and reputation. He is considered one of the most sought-after Shiite religious scientists in the world, who is the leading light at the Najaf seminaries, which deserves his worldwide respect.
Iran’s Khamenei and Qom seminars are vying for prestige. Al-Sistani’s line of thinking has been opposed to direct rule by clerics, the system that exists in Iran, where Khamenei has the final say in all matters.
‘The visit could possibly upset people and they could try to delay or cancel the visit. “I’m worried about that,” said a second official in Najaf. “Who can be upset? Qom’s Hawza, ” he said, using the Arabic term referred to in the seminars.
Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s chief justice, considered a potential presidential candidate or even successor to Khamenei, was unsuccessful in his attempts to meet al-Sistani on a recent trip.
“This increased the tension with the Iranians, because His Highness did not see Raisi, but His Holiness would see the Pope,” the official said.
Apart from politics and rivalry, almost everyone in Iraq’s multi-denominational structure will have something out of the ordinary.
“I see the pope’s visit to Najaf as the culmination of a worldwide movement in the Islamic-Christian tradition to promote security and peace in our country,” Iraqi Culture Minister Hassan Nadhem recently told the press. . “Because we are still prone to tendencies towards violence and intolerance.”
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Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.