Hong Kong (SE): “He is a brave man to come under such circumstances. When we heard that we would see the pope, it was as if the world was reborn. Praise God.” 62-year-old Nadera Butrus Tobya, a survivor of the Islamic State invasion of Mosul in 2014, said in an npr.org report, reacting to the scheduled visit to Iraq of Pope Francis. The first-ever papal trip to Iraq is slated to begin on March 5 and will cover six cities including the war-torn Irbil, Mosul and Qaraqosh, where the pope will meet people now trying to rebuild their communities and churches.
The apostolic visit to Iraq, themed, You are all brothers, would be an act of faith and witness from 84-year-old pope who, braving the threats of Covid-19 and terrorism, chose to travel to a nation that boasts of having the roots of Christianity from the very beginnings of the Church.
“That message really needs to be heard loud and clear and taken to heart by everyone, Christians included,” said Jesuit Father Joseph Cassar, the Irbil-based country director for Jesuit Refugee Service, CNS reported.
‘Years, decades, of conflict and sectarian division have really wreaked havoc on Iraq’ destroying whole villages, but even more, tearing the social fabric ‘to shreds’
Father Joseph Cassar
“Years, decades, of conflict and sectarian division have really wreaked havoc on Iraq” destroying whole villages, but even more, tearing the social fabric “to shreds,” Father Cassar added.
It is difficult to know the exact number of Christians still living in Iraq because there has not been a full census since 1987. But according to some media reports, there were 1.5 million Christians living in Iraq in 2003, but after 18 years of war, the United States’ invasion of, the rise of Al Qaeda and Islamic State terrorism, there are less than 250,000 remain—an 80 per cent drop in less than two decades.
Today it is a wounded nation devastated by dictatorship, wars and civil wars. The latest terrorist attack in January at a Bagdad market killed at least 32 people and injured more than 100.
The papal visit is expected to bring a much needed message of peace, fraternity and solidarity. Pope Francis is due to meet Christian leaders in Bagdad and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the influential leader of Iraq’s Shiite Muslims, in Najaf and attend an interreligious meeting in Ur. He will celebrate Mass in Irbil and lead prayers in Mosul, before departing on March 8.
In 2010, militants burst into Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral in Baghdad, killed two priests and took about 150 hostages. Iraqi and American Special Forces burst in to free the hostages hours later, but the attack left dozens dead and the church scarred and bloodied. More than a decade later, the pope is scheduled to visit the same church.
After announcing his plans to visit Iraq in December, Pope Francis spoke to a group of Catholic charities about the objectives of his visit: “We must work to ensure that the Christian presence in these lands continue to be what it has always been: a sign of peace, progress, development and reconciliation between peoples.”
The schedule includes an interreligious meeting on the Plain of Ur, the site of the ancient city that scripture records as the birthplace of the patriarch, Abraham. These days, Ur is an archaeological site where visitors can tour the ziggurat and sunbaked ruins known as the House of Abraham.
Pope St. John Paul II had planned a visit to the site in 1999, but had to cancel it after the Vatican’s negotiations with Saddam Hussein failed.
“Pope Francis is truly a father because he really wants all human beings to be united—not only Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants—but he is broadening his embrace to include the Islamic world,” said Shahrzad Houshmand Zadeh, a Shiite Muslim theologian who has taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Michael La Civita, director of communications for the New York-based Catholic Near East Welfare Association, was reported by CNS as saying Iraqi Christians “very much understand that because of their identity, which is both ethnic and faith-based, they are at any given time subject to martyrdom because of their identity as followers of Jesus. Pope will be there to witness, to be in solidarity with this church of the martyrs.”
