Mosul, a city in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains that’s both a crossroads of tolerance and a former stronghold of ISIS, did its best Sunday to show Pope Francis its former face, with a pristine red carpet and papal-white chairs that seemed made for the occasion.
Pope Francis told Iraqi Christians that when they suffer discrimination, persecution, or war, the Eight Beatitudes are addressed to them.
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.
The 1,200 Chaldean Catholic families who live in Arizona are thousands of miles from the land of their birth. On March 5, their hearts will turn toward their native Iraq.
On the same day that 10 rockets hit an air base in Iraq, Pope Francis said he had to travel to the country because he could not disappoint them.
When it seemed there was nothing “unprecedented” left for Pope Francis to accomplish, on March 5 he will embark in another historic first: A papal visit to Iraq, the birthplace of the biblical figure of Abraham.
Slovenian Archbishop Mitja Leskovar, the papal ambassador in Iraq, who was supposed to accompany Pope Francis during his March 5-8 visit to the land of the two rivers, tested positive for COVID-19 on Feb. 27 and is now in isolation
Days after Pope Francis appointed two women to major Vatican posts, he continued his female outreach by announcing the beatification of an Italian suffragette and by visiting an elderly Holocaust survivor.
Pope Francis accepted the resignations of 75-year-old Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, and 77-year-old Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and vicar for Vatican City State.
In a video message sent to the annual Religious Education Congress in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Pope Francis argued that the “commitment, strength and dedication” of all is needed to build a better tomorrow after a global pandemic that has impacted the lives of all people.
