So much rest on Pope Francis’ shoulders. So much hope is pinned on his historic trip to Iraq.
If there is a tremendous terrorist threat, add the formidable pressure of uplifting spirits in a war-torn country. And a raging pandemic. On Friday, the pope goes to a country where ISIS did not so long ago try to eliminate Christians. He will visit ruined places, he will visit places that have historical significance for Christians, and some of his stops will be both.
“In every part of the country that Pope Francis is going to visit, there are scars – scars of war, loss, trauma,” Mina Al-Oraibi, editor-in-chief of The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi, wrote in her newspaper last week. . “Today, Iraq is a battlefield fighting terrorism, corruption, COVID-19, militias and foreign intervention to weaken the country at all levels. Despite these wars, or perhaps in spite of them, the pope has decided to launch a four-day start. take a journey that will allow him to cross the country and strengthen the historical and natural place of Christians in Iraq and the Arab world. ‘
ANTI-VAX AT THE VATICAN? YOU WILL KEEP YOUR WORK
For an 84-year-old man who lost part of a lung when he was 21, it’s a business.
Pope Francis will be the first pope to visit Iraq. He was vaccinated and the journalists who accompanied him did the same, but people were not on the ground. Vaccines in Iraq have yet to be rolled out. The Pope Nuncio in Baghdad – the Holy See’s ambassador to the country – has just come down with COVID-19. He was the main person on the ground for this trip.
In terms of health risks, as well as security, the pope’s visit to Iraq has been in the balance for some time. Thirty-two people were killed in a twin suicide bombing in Baghdad in January. The pope presses on.
“I am a pastor of people who suffer,” he said.
POSTMARK HOLOCAUST WARNS ANOTHER SUICIDE POSSIBLE
The pope will have to give up his beloved Popemobile for safety reasons, but that has not dampened the anticipation on the ground. The preparations for the trip are documented day by day. As Al-Oraibi noted, relatively few dignitaries visit Iraq, and if they do, it is often kept secret until they are on the ground. They are likely to stay in the Green Zone or other fortified areas. By contrast, the Vatican published the pope’s itinerary early on.
He visits Our Lady of Salvation Church, which was hit by six suicide bombers in 2010. He visits Mosul, which took over ISIS in 2014 and lasted until 2017, and where the terrorist organization wreaked havoc, destroyed or damaged valuable property, among others, a group of churches – Syrian Catholics, Syrian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Chaldean Catholics – locally known as Church Square. ISIS used the property to interrogate people, put them in jail and for administrative work.
The pope will visit what is left of the connection, and the symbolism will be powerful. Father Raed Adel is the last priest to live in Mosul.
“This website was used by ISIS’s religious police as a mainstay,” Adel said. “A center of the IS leadership. So it’s an important issue, the pope’s visit to this site which was the central administrative center of the Islamic State. This is where the Islamic State said ‘we will go to Rome go, occupy Rome and cut off the pope’s head. ‘
The Christian community in Iraq is only a fifth of the size it was when the war began in 2003. Optimists hope the pope’s visit will help lure back exiled Christians.
KHASHOGGI’s FIANCEE CALLS TO PUNISH SAUDI CROWN PRINCE ‘WITHOUT DELAY’
One woman in Baghdad put it this way: ‘This visit gives us hope to continue our country and our country despite the suffering we have experienced, the murder, kidnapping, massacre of Christians and churches and theft of [Christian-owned] property that continues to this day, “said Aklas Bahnam.” But this visit will encourage many of us Christians abroad to be optimistic and hope that they will be able to return. “
The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church said it would take more than a papal visit to bring Christians back en masse.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Christians, [the Pope] will encourage them to persevere, to persevere and also to rebuild trust with their neighbors, “said Louis Raphael I Sako. Encouraging people to come back is not his job. It is the government’s job to create good conditions for them, security and also jobs, and so on. Maybe some people will come back when the circumstances are normal, and life is fair, and the dignity. And that can only be when Iraq has a democratic regime and is also based on citizenship and on separating religion from the state. ‘
Planners do their best to ensure that social distance is taken away and that some church services will be small. But apparently 10,000 people have signed up for an event planned for a stadium in Erbil, which raises fears of a well-intentioned and necessary event that will become a super-distributor event.
In addition to Erbil, the Holy Father will visit Ur, who is apparently the birthplace of Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and he will visit the holiest city for the Shiites, Najaf. If ever there was a trip that was meant to take the steam out of sectarianism, then it is. One Iraqi expressed the hope that this sincere visit to reconciliation would improve the perception of Christians among other communities in Iraq.