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Wants to proclaim a message of peace in Iraq: Pope Francis
Photo: KHALID AL-MOUSILY / REUTERS
Pope Francis is traveling again.
Despite Corona.
The 84-year-old is going on a four-day visit to Iraq this Friday.
The visit is spectacular - and not entirely safe, even if the pontiff has been vaccinated as a potential high-risk patient.
For Francis' first trip abroad since the beginning of the pandemic, the Vatican worked with the Iraqi authorities to develop a comprehensive security concept that should not give the virus a chance:
All members of the papal delegation have received two doses of vaccine and are also tested before arrival and departure.
At the final mass in a stadium in Erbil with up to 10,000 believers, safety distances and hygiene regulations should be observed.
Nevertheless, there is criticism: some fear that the Pope's appearances and meetings could turn into super-spreader events in view of the new rise in infections in Iraq.
Especially since it will not be easy to enforce the safety rules.
"The people of Iraq are waiting for us"
Even without the virus, the trip takes Pope Francis to a high-risk area.
Only on Wednesday did at least ten rockets hit an Iraqi military base that is shared by US troops.
The pontiff was undeterred.
"The people in Iraq are waiting for us," he announced a little later in a press release.
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Posters for the Pope: Francis will stay in Mesopotamia for four days
Photo: Ameer Al Mohammedaw / dpa
Francis' trip is the first ever Pope visit to Iraq.
His predecessor John Paul II had to give up his travel plans in 2000: the talks with the dictator Saddam Hussein broke off against the background of American-Iraqi tensions.
The journey is important in two ways:
It is a strong sign of solidarity with the shrinking Christian community in Iraq.
In addition, Pope Francis is continuing his dialogue with representatives of Muslims, which he began in Abu Dhabi in 2019.
There Pope Francis met the Grand Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyeb from the Egyptian Azhar University and signed a "document on fraternity among people for world peace and coexistence".
Azhar University is considered the most respected religious institution in Sunni Islam.
Symbolic political meeting with Grand Ayatollah Sistani
Now the pontiff is visiting the center of Shiite scholarship, Najaf, a city in southern Iraq.
There he will meet Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Sistani is the most important Shiite scholar in Iraq and an authority for many Muslims.
In Mosul the Pope will say a prayer for the victims of the war - for Muslims, Christians, Yazidis.
Francis will be the first Pope to make a pilgrimage to Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, to whom Jews, Christians and Muslims refer as the progenitor.
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Two religious authorities: Pope Francis and Ali al-Sistani
Photo: ALI NAJAFI / AFP
Christians in Iraq have suffered greatly in the recent past.
The terror regime of the "Islamic State" (IS) triggered a wave of refugees.
But Christians have already left the country en masse in the past two decades.
The threat from religious extremists began as a result of the American invasion of 2003. The poor security situation, targeted attacks on Christian institutions, the lack of government services and high unemployment have caused tens of thousands to emigrate since then.
Today a maximum of 400,000 Christians still live in Iraq - in 2003 it was 1.5 million
In 2003, depending on the estimate, around 1.5 million Christians were still living in Iraq; today there are said to be 200,000 to 400,000.
The Pope wants to celebrate services in the capital Baghdad, in the predominantly Kurdish city of Erbil in the north - and in the predominantly Christian city of Karakosch.
It is considered to be the cradle of Christianity in Iraq and has since been occupied by IS.
It is located 35 kilometers southeast of Mosul in the Nineveh plain.
Nowhere else in the country did so many Christians come together as here.
When the IS conquered the city in 2014, residents fled headlong.
Although IS was defeated three years later, Christians are only slowly returning to the city.
The majority of Shiite militias who led the fight against IS now control areas that have been recaptured.
Some Christians found their homes occupied by militiamen when they returned home.
In the absence of a state legal system, people are at the mercy of their arbitrariness.
There is still a lack of economic prospects.
"This visit by Pope Francis is very significant for us because the world will remember that there are Christians in Iraq," says Father Roni Salim Momika, 31, from Qaraqosh, who is expecting the Pope on Sunday at 11 am.
In the previous week, as a youth priest, he holds meetings in the city every evening.
He tells the youth of the Pope's attitude towards the poor and practices songs with them in his honor.
"When we were able to return to Qaraqosh at the end of 2017 and saw the rubble, we were deeply disturbed."
If you went through Qaraqosh in the summer of 2017, shortly after ISIS was defeated in the region, you saw a ghost town.
The IS men had undermined the city with around 30 tunnels through which they transported weapons and ammunition.
At that time there were still mattresses with crumpled blankets in dark hollows under which ISIS people had rested a short time before.
The IS fighters had left mines and workshops in Qaraqosh in which they had built bombs.
If you opened the door to the former city library on the roof of a seminary, you came across the ashes of thousands of burned books.
The houses were damaged by air strikes, roof trusses burned out, the bell tower of a church collapsed.
Destroyed by the fire of zealots: a religious script in Qaraqosh
Photo: Andy Spyra
In the church of Saint Behnam et Sara, once the most magnificent in town, broken pews and charred Bibles lay on the floor.
The baptismal font had turned black from a fire set by IS.
In the cemetery, IS had carelessly thrown corpses into burial chambers.
ISIS 'contempt for Christianity struck the residents deep in the marrow.
"When we were able to return to Qaraqosh at the end of 2017 and saw the rubble, we were deeply disturbed," says Priest Salim.
In the meantime, around 27,000 people are living in the city, which once had 55,000 inhabitants.
According to Roni Salim Momika, a large part was rebuilt with the help of the church.
There are small restaurants and a library that is receiving visitors again.
The restored Church of the Immaculate Conception, the mother church, shines in new splendor in anticipation of the distinguished guest.
90 percent of the churches could be repaired, says Salim.
He hopes that the world will now hear the name Qaraqosh and will learn about it from the last center of the Syrian Catholic Church in the country.
“Thousands will be waiting for the Pope.
He feels our pain.
We hope he brings us peace.
Words can hardly express what his visit means to us. "
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