The 45-minute papal meeting in the holy city of Najaf with 90-year-old al-Sistani – who rarely appears in public – has been one of the most important summits between a pope and a leading Shia Muslim in recent years.
During the meeting, which was broadcast on Al-Iraqiya state television, al-Sistani thanked Francis for making the effort to travel to Najaf and told him that Christians in Iraq “like all Iraqis should live in security and peace, and with their full constitutional rights, “according to a statement issued by the Grand Ayatollah’s office.
The pope in turn thanked al-Sistani and the Shiite Muslim community for ‘[raising] his voice is in defense of the weakest and most persecuted, reaffirming the sanctity of human life and the importance of the unity of the Iraqi people, “according to a statement from the Holly Sea.
The pope also stressed the importance of cooperation and friendship between religious communities.
After Najaf, the pope travels to Nasiriya, where he holds an interfaith meeting on the plain of Ur, which is considered the birthplace of Abraham.
In Ur, the pope spoke about the violence that has plagued Iraq in recent years. “All its ethnic and religious communities have suffered. I would like to mention in particular the Yazidi community, which mourned the deaths of many men and saw thousands of women, girls and children abducted, sold as slaves, subjected to physical violence and forced conversions, ”he said.
In the speech, Francis also praised the recovery efforts in northern Iraq, where the ISIS terrorist destroyed historic sites, churches, monasteries and other places of worship. “I think of the young Muslim volunteers from Mosul, who helped restore churches and monasteries, build fraternal friendships on the rubble of hatred, and the Christians and Muslims who restore mosques and churches today,” he said.
The pope met in Baghdad on Friday, where he was met by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Francis later met clerics and other officials at a church in Baghdad where the bloody massacre took place in 2010.
Iraq has set a full evening clock for the fourth-day papal visit to reduce health and safety risks. Francis will leave Iraq on Monday.
Francis has met several times in the past with the leading Sunni cleric Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, and is co-signing a 2019 document promising ‘human brotherhood’ between world religions.
Tamara Qiblawi, Delia Gallagher and Aqeel Najm of CNN contributed to this article.