Surrounded by sand and flanked by a tapestry of religious representatives in the city of Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, Pope Francis called on spiritual leaders to affirm that it’s blasphemy to use the name of God to justify hatred and that extremism is a betrayal of religion.
Pope Francis’s visit to Iraq is historic for many reasons, not least of which is Saturday’s meeting with the chief figure in Shia Islam, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Flanked by the pictures of 48 Iraqi martyrs, Pope Francis defined them as a reminder that inciting war and violence is incompatible with authentic religious teaching.
On his flight Friday to Baghdad for a March 5-8 historic visit to Iraq, Pope Francis told journalists that this is an “emblematic” trip and that is also a “duty” to visit this “land martyred for so many years.”
Ever since Iraq’s liberation from the Islamic State group in 2017, Nadine Maenza has noticed the world continues to pay less and less attention to the plight of the country’s Christians and other religious minorities.
During his first remarks in Iraq, Pope Francis said that the name of God can never be used “to justify acts of murder, exile, terrorism, and oppression” and that minorities cannot be treated as second class citizens.
Mr President, Members of Government and the Diplomatic Corps, Distinguished Authorities, Representatives of Civil Society, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am grateful for the opportunity to make this long-awaited and desired Apostolic Visit to the Republic of Iraq, and to come to this land, a cradle of civilization closely linked through the Patriarch Abraham and a number of the Prophets to the history of salvation and to the great religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, I embrace all of you with a father’s affection. I am grateful to the Lord who in his providence has made it possible for us to meet today. I thank His Beatitude Patriarch Ignace Youssif Younan and His Beatitude Cardinal Louis Sako for their words of welcome.
Pope Francis is set to become the first pontiff to set a foot in Iraq on March 5, when he lands in Baghdad after a four-hour trip from Rome.
Tomorrow Pope Francis leaves for Iraq, and in most of the Christian world it’ll be seen as a trip to honor the memory of a martyred Christian population that suffered unimaginable horrors under an ISIS occupation of the Nineveh Plains region of the country between 2014 and 2017.
