BAGHDAD (AP) – Pope Francis opened the first papal visit to Iraq on Friday with an appeal for the country to protect its century-old diversity, urging Muslims to accept their Christian neighbors as a precious resource and asking the conflicting Christian community – – “although small as a mustard seed” – to persevere.
Francisco set aside the coronavirus pandemic and security concerns to resume his world papacy after a hiatus last year under the COVID-19 blockade in Vatican City. Its main goal over the weekend is to encourage Iraq’s shrinking Christian population, which has been violently persecuted by the Islamic State group and still faces discrimination from the Muslim majority, to stay and help rebuild the country devastated by wars and conflicts.
“Only if we learn to look beyond our differences and see ourselves as members of the same human family,” Francis told Iraqi officials in his welcoming speech, “will we be able to start an effective reconstruction process and leave it to future generations a better, more just and more humane world. ”
The 84-year-old pope wore a mask during the flight from Rome and on all his protocol visits, as well as his hosts. But the masks were removed when leaders sat down to talk, and social detachment and other health measures seemed negligent at the airport and on the streets of Baghdad, despite the worsening COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
The government is eager to show the relative stability it has achieved after the defeat of ISIS ‘caliphate. However, security measures were strict.
Francis, who loves to dive into the crowd and likes to travel in an open popemobile, was transported by Baghdad in an armored black BMWi750, flanked by rows of biker policemen. It is believed that this was the first time that Francis used a bulletproof car – both to protect it and to prevent the formation of crowds.
Iraqis, however, seemed eager to receive Francisco and the global attention his visit brought. Some lined up on the road to cheer up his entourage. Banners and posters in the center of Baghdad depicted Francisco with the slogan “We are all brothers”.
Some who hoped to get close were deeply disappointed by the heavy security cords.
“It was my great desire to meet the pope and pray for my sick daughter and pray that she would be healed. But that wish was not fulfilled, ”said Raad William Georges, a 52-year-old father of three, who said he was refused when he tried to see Francisco during his visit to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation, in the Karrada neighborhood.
“This opportunity will not be repeated,” he said sadly. “I will try tomorrow, I know it will not happen, but I will try.”
Francis told reporters aboard the papal plane that he was happy to resume his travels again and said it was particularly symbolic that his first trip was to Iraq, Abraham’s traditional birthplace, revered by Muslims, Christians and Jews.
“This is an emblematic journey,” he said. “It is also a duty to a land plagued by many years.”
Francis limped visibly during the afternoon in a sign that his sciatica nerve pain, which increased and forced him to cancel events recently, was possibly bothering him. He almost tripped up the steps of the cathedral and an aide had to help him.
In a pompous meeting with President Barham Salih in a palace within Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, Francisco said that Christians and other minorities in Iraq deserve the same rights and protections as the Shiite Muslim majority.
“Religious, cultural and ethnic diversity, which has been a hallmark of Iraqi society for millennia, is a precious resource to be used, not an obstacle to be eliminated,” he said. “Iraq today is called upon to show everyone, especially in the Middle East, that diversity, rather than giving rise to conflict, must lead to harmonious cooperation in the life of society.”
Salih, a member of Iraq’s Kurdish ethnic minority, echoed his appeal.
“The East cannot be imagined without Christians,” said Salih. “The continuing migration of Christians from the eastern countries will have dire consequences for the ability of people in the same region to live together.”
The visit to Iraq is in line with Francis’ longstanding effort to improve relations with the Muslim world, which has accelerated in recent years with his friendship with a leading Sunni cleric, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb. He will set a new record with his meeting on Saturday with Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a revered figure in Iraq and beyond.
In Iraq, the pontiff brings his call for tolerance to a country rich in ethnic and religious diversity, but deeply traumatized by hatred. Since the 2003 invasion of the United States that toppled Saddam Hussein, he has seen cruel sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunni Muslims, clashes and tensions between Arabs and Kurds and militant atrocities against minorities like Christians and Yazidis.
The few Christians who remain have persistent distrust of their Muslim neighbors and face discrimination that predates ISIS.
Iraqi Christians, whose presence here dates back almost to the time of Christ, belong to various rites and denominations, the Chaldean Catholic being the greatest, along with Syriac, Assyrian Catholics and several Orthodox churches. They have already constituted a sizeable minority in Iraq, estimated at around 1.4 million. But their numbers began to fall amid post-2003 turmoil, when Sunni militants used to attack Christians.
They received another blow when ISIS in 2014 swept across northern Iraq, including traditionally Christian cities on the plains of Nineveh. His extremist version of Islam forced residents to flee to the neighboring Kurdish region or elsewhere.
Few have returned – estimates suggest that there are fewer than 300,000 Christians still in Iraq and many of them remain displaced from their homes. Those who returned found houses and churches destroyed. Many are intimidated by Shiite militias controlling some areas.
There are practical struggles as well. Many Iraqi Christians are unable to find work and blame discriminatory practices in the public sector, Iraq’s largest employer. Public jobs have been controlled mainly by Shiite political elites.
For the pope, who has always traveled to places where Christians are a persecuted minority, beleaguered Christians in Iraq they are the epitome of the “martyred church” that he has admired since he was a young Jesuit looking to be a missionary in Asia.
In the Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation, Francis prayed and honored the victims of one of the worst massacres of Christians, the 2010 attack on the cathedral by Islamic militants that left 58 dead.
Speaking to the faithful, he urged Christians to persevere in Iraq to ensure that their Catholic community, “though small as a mustard seed, continues to enrich the life of society as a whole” – using an image found in both the Bible and the Koran .
On Sunday, Francis will honor the dead in a Mosul square surrounded by projectiles from destroyed churches and meet with the small Christian community that has returned to the city of Qaraqosh, where he will bless his church that was vandalized and used as a firing range by the IS.
Iraq is seeing a new peak in coronavirus infections, with most new cases being traced back to the highly contagious variant first identified in Britain. Francisco, the Vatican delegation and the traveling media were vaccinated; most Iraqis do not, raising questions about the potential of the trip to feed infections.
The Vatican and Iraqi authorities downplayed the threat and insisted that social detachment, crowd control and other health measures will be applied.
To some extent, yes, but that did not diminish the happiness of ordinary Iraqis – Christians and Muslims – that Francisco came to his home.
“We cannot express our joy because this is a historic event that we will continue to remember,” said Rafif Issa. “All Iraqis are happy, not just Christians. We hope it will be a blessed day for us and for all the Iraqi people ”.
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AP journalist Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed.