Three English Editorials addressing Pope Francis’s Visit To Iraq/مقالات ثلاثة بالإنكليزية تتناول زيارة البابا فرنسيس للعراق/Pope Francis’ visit to give hope and comfort to Iraqis of all faiths/Pope Francis can help all Arabs, not just Christians/Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq shows how love will ultimately prevail
Pope Francis’ visit to give hope and comfort to Iraqis of all faiths Francesco Bongarrà and Robert Edwards/Arab News/March 04/2021 فرنسيسكو بونغارا وروبرت ادواردز: زيارة البابا فرنسيس للعراق تعطي الأمل والرضاء لكل العراقيين
Pope Francis can help all Arabs, not just Christians Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Arab News/March 04/2021 حسين عبدالله: بإمكان قداسة البابا فرنسيس مسعدة العرب وليس المسيحيين فقط
Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq shows how love will ultimately prevail Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/March 04/2021 دانيا قليلات خطيب: زيارة البابا فرنسيس للعراق تبين بأن السلام في النهاية هو من يسود
***** Pope Francis’ visit to give hope and comfort to Iraqis of all faiths Francesco Bongarrà and Robert Edwards/Arab News/March 04/2021 فرنسيسكو بونغارا وروبرت ادواردز: زيارة البابا فرنسيس للعراق تعطي الأمل والرضاء لكل العراقيين
The first pontiff ever to set foot in Iraq will meet church leaders and members of the country’s dwindling Christian minority
Francis will visit the shrine city of Najaf and meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiite Muslims
ROME: Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, will become the first pontiff ever to set foot in Iraq, where he hopes to encourage the dwindling Christian community to remain in their ancient homeland while also extending a hand of friendship to the Islamic world.
The three-day “pilgrimage” comes despite a recent spike in coronavirus cases in Iraq and an upsurge in violence. Francis arrives just days after a rocket attack on the Ain al-Assad base in Iraq’s western desert, which hosts US-led coalition troops.
One civilian contractor was killed in Wednesday’s barrage, which the US has blamed on Iran-backed militias. Benedict XVI, who resigned as pontiff eight years ago, warned in an interview on Monday that the visit is “a dangerous trip: for reasons of security and for coronavirus.”
Confirming the visit was still going ahead in his weekly address on Wednesday, Francis said: “For a long time I have wanted to meet these people who have suffered so much. I ask you to accompany this apostolic journey with your prayers so that it may take place in the best possible way and bear the hoped-for fruits.
“The Iraqi people are waiting for us, they were waiting for Saint John Paul II, who was forbidden to go. One cannot disappoint a people for the second time. Let us pray that this journey will be successful.”
This is Francis’ first trip abroad in about 15 months due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent restrictions on movement. Although the 84-year-old Argentine pontiff and his entourage have all been vaccinated against COVID-19, no such inoculation campaign has taken place in Iraq. The majority of the country will be under strict lockdown during his visit and movement between provinces will be restricted.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the pope said he would be traveling in an armored vehicle — not his usual white ‘popemobile’ — and that he would not be meeting crowds, except those attending Mass in the northern Kurdish city of Erbil on Sunday.
“This is a particular situation, that’s why the transports will all be in a closed vehicle, meaning it will be complicated to see the pope on the streets,” Matteo Brunei, the spokesman, said in a press briefing attended by Arab News. “There will be a number of meetings but none will be more than a few hundred people.”
Francis touches down in Baghdad on Friday, where he will be welcomed at the airport by Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, the Iraqi prime minister, in the first meeting between a pope and an Iraqi PM since 2008.
He will then head to the presidential palace for a private meeting with President Barham Salih, who will introduce him to local political and religious authorities. Salih has met the pope in Rome on two occasions: the first time on Nov. 24, 2018, and against on Jan. 25 last year.
In the afternoon, Francis will meet with the Christian community at the Syrian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, where at least 47 Christians died in a Daesh attack in 2010. At the church, restored in 2012, he will be welcomed by Patriarch Joseph Younan.
Perhaps the most keenly anticipated leg of the visit falls on Saturday, when Francis travels to Najaf, the shrine city where Imam Ali, the fourth Islamic caliph, is buried. Here Francis will meet with the 90-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites.
Francis became the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula two years ago when he met with Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, in Abu Dhabi. There, the two faith leaders signed a document on “human fraternity for world peace” and issued a joint call for freedom of belief.
* Distance Pope Francis will cover within Iraq by plane and helicopter.
Saturday’s visit to Najaf will be the first face-to-face meeting between a Catholic pontiff and a Shiite ayatollah. The meeting at Al-Sistani’s modest home is billed as “a courtesy visit” — so no joint declaration is expected, although a verbal statement is likely. It will nevertheless mark a symbolic moment whereby the pope extends a hand of friendship to the other main branch of Islam.
There are significant geopolitical undertones, however. Al-Sistani is widely seen as a counterweight to Iran’s influence in Iraq and among Shiites as a whole. By meeting with him, Francis is effectively recognizing Sistani as the pre-eminent voice of Shiite Islam over his powerful rival, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Al-Sistani commands immense respect among Iraq’s Shiite majority. Thousands of young men heeded his 2014 fatwa to take up arms against Daesh when the group made lightning advances in the country’s north. His sermons, often delivered through representatives, can have far-reaching political consequences.
A show of solidarity from Al-Sistani now might also give Iraq’s Christians a measure of protection from Iraq’s marauding Shiite militias, which have terrorized Christian families and prevented many from returning home from internal displacement.
Following his meeting with Al-Sistani, Francis will visit the ancient city of Ur in the present-day southern province of Dhi Qar, considered in the Bible to be Abraham’s birthplace.
There, an interreligious meeting is scheduled with representatives of all faiths present in Iraq, including the Yazidis — an ancient culture brought to brink of annihilation by Daesh fanatics when the militant group launched a campaign of slaughter and rape in their homeland of Sinjar in August 2014.
On Saturday afternoon, Francis will celebrate Mass in Baghdad’s Chaldean cathedral — a first in the Chaldean rite for a pontiff of the Catholic Church — together with Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldeans.
Pope Francis said in a video message on Thursday that he wants to be seen by the Iraqi people as a “penitent pilgrim” asking God for “forgiveness and reconciliation after years of war and terrorism,” and for “consolation of hearts and the healing of wounds.” More here.
On Sunday Francis will then reach Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where he will be welcomed by the autonomous region’s President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani. Although security is far better in Erbil compared to other Iraqi cities, Western targets came under rocket attack there in mid-February.
The Sunni Muslim-majority Kurdistan Region has long been considered a sanctuary for Iraq’s persecuted ethno-religious minorities. During the war with Daesh, tens of thousands of Christians and Yazidis fled to hastily built displacement camps behind Peshmerga lines. Slow reconstruction efforts and ongoing security concerns have left many waiting impatiently to return.
From Erbil, Francis will fly by helicopter to Nineveh’s provincial capital Mosul, which from 2014 to 2017 was the de facto capital of Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate. Huge areas of the once flourishing commercial hub were leveled in the US-led coalition’s flight to reclaim the city, and many of its precious religious artifacts were vandalized by Daesh fanatics.
Here Francis will pray to honor the victims in the Square of the Four Churches — Syro-Catholic, Syriac Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Chaldean. Francis will be welcomed there by Mosul’s Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa and the local governor.
He will then fly by helicopter to Qaraqosh, a Christian-majority city where on Aug. 6-7, 2014, about 45,000 people were expelled by Daesh hordes. He will say the Angelus Sunday prayer in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was badly damaged by Daesh and used as a shooting range.
Mass at Franso Hariri stadium in Erbil will be Francis’ last appointment in Iraq. He is then scheduled to fly back to Rome from Baghdad on Monday.
Pope Francis can help all Arabs, not just Christians Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Arab News/March 04/2021 حسين عبدالله: بإمكان قداسة البابا فرنسيس مسعدة العرب وليس المسيحيين فقط
Violence, banditry and demographic change imposed by Iran’s militias in Iraq on Christian towns, which were once dominated and terrorized by Daesh, have become so widespread and alarming that they prompted Pope Francis to plan a trip to Iraq — the first of its kind for a pontiff since the rise of Christianity more than two millennia ago.
Once a thriving community of 1.5 million people living across the country, Iraqi Christians have been retreating to the northwestern province of Nineveh, which has historically been one of the most diverse areas in the region and home to a few ancient communities, including Aramaic speakers. Most historians believe that Jesus spoke Aramaic.
Between 2014 and 2017, Daesh unleashed a wave of terror on all residents of Iraq’s northwest, but especially on non-Muslims. The terrorist group marked houses of Christians with the letter “N,” for Nazarene, and forced them either to convert to Islam or pay a poll tax. And those Christians were the lucky ones. Other minorities that were not considered to be among the “people of the book,” such as Yazidis, faced much harsher treatment, including the enslavement of their women.
The US led a global coalition that decimated Daesh, but Christians and other minorities still fear going back home because the power that succeeded Daesh, pro-Iran Shiite militias known collectively as Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi, has also been mistreating them. In a few towns, the Christians formed their own militias to fend off thuggery. But Christians lack the resources to man all their towns and neighborhoods, forcing many of them to remain displaced. And, while the Christians are away, Shiite militias have been stealing their property, either by forging deeds or by blackmailing Christians into selling at very low prices. The end result is that Iraqi Christians, whose number is now estimated at 150,000, are leaving the country in droves.
To empower these Christians and help them stay in their historic homeland, Pope Francis will visit Iraq, where he plans several stops, including at Qaraqosh — the biggest Christian city in the northwest — and at Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region. The pontiff will also visit Najaf, where he will meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. The two top clerics are expected to sign a document calling for peace, similar to the one the pope signed with his Sunni counterpart Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb during his trip to the UAE in 2019.
But Pope Francis’ Middle Eastern visits, designed to promote peace and coexistence, are not only symbolic. By meeting with Al-Sistani, the pontiff will technically recognize the Iraqi cleric as the top Shiite authority — a recognition that unsettles Al-Sistani’s rivals in Iran, especially Ali Khamenei, who, despite ruling the Iranian theocracy, lacks the religious pedigree required to overpower Najaf’s senior clerics. Perhaps Khamenei makes up for his lack of religious prominence with his Shiite militias and their violence.
Iran’s militias have alarmed Pope Francis not only in Iraq, but also in Lebanon, where the Maronite church is in communion with Rome, giving its patriarch, Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, the rank of cardinal and allowing him to vote whenever Catholicism chooses its pope. As Iran’s militia in Lebanon, Hezbollah, tightens its grip on the country, causing lawlessness and economic freefall, the number of Lebanese Christians has also dwindled, just like in Iraq. Hence the pope has impressed on Al-Rai to demand that UN resolutions pertaining to Lebanon be implemented, including the disbanding of Hezbollah and reviving of the 1949 truce with Israel.
Al-Rai’s position has not gone unnoticed with Hezbollah, whose mouthpiece described the patriarch, without naming him, as among “the worst clerics Lebanon has seen.” The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, also rebutted Al-Rai without naming him by saying that the patriarch’s demands were “unacceptable.” The irony is that Hezbollah’s regime of terror in Lebanon is built on the myth of protecting the Christians and safeguarding their rights — a falsehood peddled by President Michel Aoun, a Maronite who owes his job to the pro-Iran militia and thus toes Hezbollah’s line to the fullest.
Pope Francis seems to understand that the government model imposed by the Islamist government of Iran and its militias on Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen undermines the Christian natives of these countries and pushes them away from their ancestral lands.
So, for Levantine Christians to thrive and prosper, their states have to end their endless war and revolutionary rhetoric. This is the crux of the problem: Iran is trying to impose its model — where an unaccountable supreme leader and his militia have the upper hand over a weak president and an irrelevant state — on Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. The model failed in Iran, resulting in its isolation and loss of capital and investment. As the economy sunk, the regime doubled down on its populist revolutionary rhetoric and violence levels surged.
The pontiff’s Middle Eastern visits, designed to promote peace and coexistence, are not only symbolic.
And for Christians in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq to thrive and prosper, militias have to be disbanded and the state and its institutions — especially the judiciary — should enforce laws and justice. When the world regains its trust in the state, capital will flow back in, the economy will start growing, and all citizens, including Christians, will stay in their historic homeland and put off their migration plans.
Pope Francis gets it. He appears to understand that the survival of Levantine Christians requires that the Iran regime and its militias be rolled back, and that countries be restored to normality. In reaching out to his religious counterparts like Al-Sistani, the pontiff seems to be rallying whoever he can to push in the same direction against Iran’s mullahs. If this becomes reality, not only will Christians thank him, but all citizens of the Arab countries suffering uninvited Iranian intervention will do too.
*Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington bureau chief of Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai and a former visiting fellow at Chatham House in London.
Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq shows how love will ultimately prevail Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/March 04/2021 دانيا قليلات خطيب: زيارة البابا فرنسيس للعراق تبين بأن السلام في النهاية هو من يسود
Pope Francis is visiting Najaf, which will be a moment of great significance. Christians not only in Iraq, but all over the Arab world, are rejoicing. Since the eruption of the so-called Arab Spring and the turbulence that came with it, Christians have been among the most affected.
Christianity, which came out of Palestine, has been drained by wars and conflicts in the Arab world. The first hit that Christians received in Iraq came following the US invasion of 2003. Despite Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule, Christians as a minority posed no threat to him. To a certain extent, they were protected. However, the fall of the regime and the chaos that came after led to the rise of extremist groups. Those groups posed an existential threat to Christians in Iraq.
The West opened the doors of immigration to Christian Iraqis. This helped them as individuals, but not as a community inside Iraq. The Christian population started dwindling. This story repeated itself with the rise of Daesh following the withdrawal of US troops and the start of the Syrian conflict. The fundamentalist group started persecuting those it labeled as “infidels.” The pre-2003 1.5 million-strong population is estimated today to have dropped to just 300,000.
However, the visit of Pope Francis begins a new chapter not only for Christians in Iraq but for all Eastern Christians. It is a message that the world has not forgotten them. It is a show of support but also a call for resilience. The message is clear: Iraq is your home, hold on to it.
While the streets of Najaf are being groomed and flags of both Iraq and Vatican City are being erected, and while committees are being set up to organize the visit and make sure that everything is up to standard, some spoilers are taking umbrage. They feel resentment for several reasons. To start with, the pope visiting Najaf is international recognition that it is the supreme marjaeya, or reference point, for all Shiites. This tilts the balance in favor of Najaf as opposed to Qom. Some don’t want Iraq getting international attention because they want to keep it as their playing field. Iraq was the first Arab country to receive a call from new US President Joe Biden. And some simply don’t want to see the social cohesion message of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani panning out. Opponents of the pope’s visit have even gone to the extent of spreading rumors that Al-Sistani has COVID-19. However, such petty and sneaky acts do not seem to have deterred either the visitor or the host.
The pope’s imminent meeting with Al-Sistani shows support for the latter’s philosophy and his path
The pope’s imminent meeting with Al-Sistani shows support for the latter’s philosophy and his path. Al-Sistani represents co-existence with, acceptance of and respect for the “other.” It is one step ahead of tolerance. The visit falls in line with Al-Sistani’s line of thinking, which always seeks social cohesion and fights sectarianism, despite the immense pressure he has been placed under. For example, in the midst of a bloody Sunni-Shiite conflict, a group of Shiites came to him and referred to Sunnis as their brothers; he corrected them by saying: “Don’t say Sunnis are our brothers, they are ourselves.” This line of thinking is portrayed in a poster featuring Pope Francis and Al-Sistani with doves above their heads. The tagline says, “We are part of you and you are part of us.” This shows the centrality of the human element in Islam, where human dignity trumps the divisions that usually have political roots.
The London-based Al-Khoei Institute said the visit is a product of many years of inter-religious dialogue. And a scholar from the Hawza of Najaf said it will be of great significance to Iraq, which is the home of Abraham, the father of all prophets.
The visit is also of great importance to the Christians of the East. It is a message to them that they are an important and indigenous component of the social fabric of the Arab world; that Christianity came from the East and the East will always be its home; that there is a place for diversity and that diversity does not mean division; and that co-existence and respect will ultimately prevail. Haidar Al-Khoei, the foreign relations director at Al-Khoei Institute, said: “In 2014, when (Daesh) took over Mosul, there were 17 Christian students in the University of Mosul, today there are 863. (Daesh) were determined to destroy Iraq’s pluralism but Iraqis are more determined to preserve it.”
On Sunday, Pope Francis will stand in the remains of Al-Tahera Church in Mosul, which was decimated by Daesh. This symbolic act shows that love and clemency is stronger than hate and violence. In the end, Daesh withered away from Mosul, but love will prevail.
• Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese NGO focused on Track II. She is also an affiliate scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News’ point-of-view
