Julio Algañaraz
03/01/2021 18:01
Clarín.com
World
Updated 03/01/2021 18:01
Pope Francis begins on Friday the most dangerous and uncertain journey of his eight-year pontificate, challenging ISIS terrorists and the new wave of the coronavirus that punishes Iraq, which will
infect some
of those who want to see him and receive his blessing.
The 33rd.
The journey of his nearly eight-year pontificate is the most difficult because it involves
a challenge to
ISIS
terrorists
, defeated militarily but
still in operations
.
Francis will visit Iraq with a renewed message of peace between Friday the 5th and Monday the 8th. He never took so many risks.
The apostolic tour is also the most uncertain because the Pope, already immunized with two vaccines, will visit six cities touring what was old Mesopotamia from north to south.
The thousands of people who want to see and greet him will inevitably suffer infections because the second wave of the virus multiplies and has already caused 700,000 infected and 17,300 deaths.
Terrorist violence and
pestilence
are two enormous challenges, much more if they are added, but the patriarch of Chaldean Catholics, Raphael Sako, said that Francis "is
very stubborn
, he will not cancel the trip and he will bless us."
Francis will visit Iraq with a renewed message of peace between Friday the 5th and Monday the 8th. He never took so many risks.
The preparations are painstaking.
The government made a special request that Jorge Bergoglio, 84, could not refuse.
He agreed to travel through Iraq aboard
an armored car
for the first time on his apostolic tours.
Until now he always refused.
The trip will cover 1,650 kilometers that in large part the Argentine Pope
will do by plane
.
You will move a lot, rest very little, and strain your right leg with painful sciatica.
Bergoglio also challenges himself on this trip, the first he has made after a year in which he had to get off the apostolic tours due to the pandemic that even deserted the Vatican itself, due to anti-Covid-19 security measures.
The first pontiff to set foot on Iraq
The first pontiff to set foot on Iraq, one of the most important cradles of human civilization, where writing was born and the Mesopotamian civilization was consolidated between the Euphrates and the Tigris, is already almost a champion if he manages to return alive to the Vatican without being designated as responsible for a deadly increase in the epidemic.
CASES
0.000.00000.000
per million inhab.
Xxxxx
DEATHS
00,0000,000
per million inhab.
Source:
Johns Hopkins
Chart:
Flourish
|
Infographic:
Clarín
For some scientists, the challenge to Covid-19 is "a bad idea" that
will pay the crowds
that move to cheer it, although the government tries to contain the danger of an untimely outbreak of the pestilence.
He wants at all costs the presence of the Pope, who would reinforce the internal balance of power and give him international luster.
The ambassador (nuncio) the Pope in Iraq, the Slovenian Monsignor Mitja Lekovar, Slovenian, 51 years old, inspected the places of the tour of the Argentine pontiff and returned to Baghdad in time to
fall infected
by the pandemic.
They are curing him, well insulated.
Doctors say her symptoms are "mild" - many believe this is
a bad omen
.
What is Francisco looking for?
Above all, console and encourage what remains of what was one of the largest Catholic communities in the Middle East.
There were
a million and a half Chaldeans
at the time of the dictator Saddam Hussein, until he was overthrown in 2003 with the North American invasion that occupied the country and ended up claiming the trophy of Saddam
humiliated by hanging.
What is Francisco looking for?
Above all, console and encourage what remains of what was one of the largest Catholic communities in the Middle East.
Thus began the tumultuous birth of DAESH, ISIS, which raged against Christians.
It is estimated that of that million and a half
there are between 200 and 400 thousand
in Iraq, who could not escape like the others.
Francis wants to avoid the exodus, to start a reconciliation process that in his trip will culminate in the holy city of Najaf with the
meeting with Al-Sistani,
the patriarch of the Shiites.
Shiites are 200 million of the 1.3 billion that populate the Arab world and periodically fight wars with the Sunni majority.
Two years ago the Pope from Rome went to Abu Dhabi and signed a historic joint document with the most important figure in the Sunni world:
Ahmad al Tayed.
If the meeting with Patriarch Al Sistani concludes in similar terms, Bergoglio will have achieved
a great triumph
, consolidating the final phase of his pontificate.
And it consolidates it in the face of its
internal enemies
, who are having a bad time due to the outrage committed by former President Donald Trump and the arrival of the Democratic successor Joe Biden, a Catholic of Irish origin, a personal friend of the pontiff, have contributed to cool the warrior spirits of the ultraconservatives who sought to threaten a schism and control the next conclave that will elect Francisco's successor.
The pandemic helped Bergoglio, immobilized the Church from within.
If things go wrong, the importance that he himself sought from the challenge-trip to Iraq will turn against him and he will have to face another internal storm.
If Bergoglio
returns unscathed
from the adventure in Iraq, this will be a good card in his favor in the internal struggle.
If on top of that he does very well with the patriarch of the Shiites in Najaf, he will be able to seek an agreement from positions of strength with the conservatives of the Church based in the United States, who haunt him for the future.
If things go wrong, the importance that he himself sought from the challenge-trip to Iraq
will turn against him
and he will have to face another internal storm.
Wherever you look at it, this is a journey of exceptional importance.
From the beginning on Friday he will meet the Catholic religious in the Syrian Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation, which a group of terrorists from DAESH (the name of ISIS)
attacked a decade ago,
killing 58 Catholics.
On Saturday Francis will arrive in Najaf for his historic meeting with Ayatollah Al-Sistani, the highest authority of the Shiites in Iraq, where they form the majority of the 40 million inhabitants.
This will be the crucial moment of the tour, because it completes the program of understanding with Muslims that began in Cairo and Abu Dhabi, where he signed the historic document of dialogue with the great imam of Al Azhar, Ahmad al Tayeb, the highest point of reference. of Sunni Muslims.
It is not known whether a similar historical document will be signed at the Al-Sistani encounter.
An Iraqi soldier walks past a mural of the Pope in Baghdad.
Photo: AP
Another appointment with history will be the visit to the ancient city of Ur, considered the home of Abraham, the common prophet of Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Abraham is considered
the father of monotheism.
Near Ur is Nasiriyah, a city where
six protesters
protesting against the government
died
last Friday
.
On Sunday Francis will visit Erbil, Mosul and Qaraqosh.
Mosul is a
martyr city for Christians
who suffered retaliation from DAESH terrorism, forcing
the largest historic flight
of Chaldean Catholics from Iraq.
In the country, the coronavirus epidemic has imposed
partial quarantines
that include the closure of all religious temples.
It is expected that the events that the Pope
will
preside over
will not be massive
, but the meeting with Chaldean Catholics in Erbil can gather a crowd of ten thousand people, including many Muslims who will be attracted by the character Pope.
On Monday 8 Bergoglio will return to Rome where the pestilence also reigns, with Italy in
a tragic week
that will conclude with a total of
one hundred thousand deaths
in a year of pandemic.
Vatican, correspondent
ap
