Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Pope hopes to encourage Christians, build bridges to Muslims on historic visit to Iraq in March

byCNS
12 February 2021
Reading Time: 5 mins read
AA

Dialogues: Pope Francis greets Cardinal Louis Sako, the Baghdad-based patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, during a meeting with Chaldean Catholics at the Church of St. Simon the Tanner in Tbilisi, Georgia, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis plans to visit Iraq March 5-8, 2021.

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Dialogues: Pope Francis greets Cardinal Louis Sako, the Baghdad-based patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, during a meeting with Chaldean Catholics at the Church of St. Simon the Tanner in Tbilisi, Georgia, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis plans to visit Iraq March 5-8, 2021.

ON his historic visit to Iraq in March, Pope Francis hopes to encourage his Christian flock, badly bruised by sectarian conflict and brutal Islamic State attacks, while building further bridges to Muslims by extending fraternal peace.

The trip’s papal logo reflects this, depicting Pope Francis with Iraq’s notable Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a palm tree and a dove carrying an olive branch over the Vatican and Iraqi flags.

The motto: “You are all brothers,” is written in Arabic, Chaldean and Kurdish languages.

The first-ever papal visit to the biblical land of Iraq March 5-8 is significant.

For years, the pope has expressed his concerns publicly for the plight and persecution of Iraq’s Christians and its mosaic of many religious minorities, including the Yazidis, who have suffered at the hands of Islamic State militants and have been caught in the crosshairs of Sunni and Shiite Muslim violence.

Tensions persist between Iraq’s majority Shiite and minority Sunni Muslim communities, with the latter now feeling disenfranchised following the 2003 downfall of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim who marginalised Shiites for 24 years under his minority rule.

“I am the pastor of people who are suffering,” Pope Francis told Catholic News Service at the Vatican ahead of his visit.

Earlier, the pope said he hoped Iraq could “face the future through the peaceful and shared pursuit of the common good on the part of all elements of society, including the religious, and not fall back into hostilities sparked by the simmering conflicts of the regional powers.”

“The pope will come to say, ‘Enough, enough war, enough violence; seek peace and fraternity and the safeguarding of human dignity,’” Cardinal Louis Sako, the Baghdad-based patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, said.

The cardinal reportedly has worked for several years to see the pope’s trip to Iraq come to fruition.

Related Stories

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

Pope Francis “will bring us two things: comfort and hope, which have been denied to us until now,” Cardinal Sako said.

The majority of Iraq’s Christians belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church.

Others worship in the Syriac Catholic Church, while a modest number of belong to the Latin, Maronite, Greek, Coptic and Armenian churches.

There are also non-Catholic churches like the Assyrian Church and Protestant denominations.

Once numbering about 1.5 million, hundreds of thousands of Christians fled sectarian violence after Saddam’s ouster as churches in Baghdad were bombed, kidnappings took place, and other sectarian attacks erupted.

They either headed north or left the country altogether.

Christians were driven out of their ancestral homeland in the Ninevah Plain when Islamic State captured that region in 2014.

A record number of Christians fled due to their atrocities until its liberation in 2017.

Now, Christian numbers in Iraq have dwindled to about 150,000.

The uprooted Christian community, which claims an apostolic origin and still uses Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, is desperate to see its plight end.

Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Yousif Mirkis of Kirkuk estimates that between 40-45 per cent of the Christians “have returned to the some of their ancestral villages, particularly Qaraqosh”.

There, rebuilding of churches, homes and businesses is taking place mainly with funding from Catholic and other church institutions as well as the Hungarian and US governments, rather than from Baghdad.

For years, Cardinal Sako has lobbied the Iraqi government, dominated by majority Shiite Muslim politicians, to treat Christians and other minorities as equal citizens with equal rights.

He also hopes that Pope Francis’ message of peace and fraternity in Iraq will cap the pontiff’s interfaith outreach to the Muslim world in recent years, now by extending a hand to Shiite Muslims.

“When the head of the church speaks to the Muslim world, we Christians are shown appreciation and respect,” Cardinal Sako said.

A meeting for Pope Francis with one of Shiite Islam’s most authoritative figures, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is significant in the papal effort to embrace all of the Islamic world. The meeting has been confirmed by the Vatican.

Iraqi Dominican Father Ameer Jaje, an expert on Shiite relations, said a hope would be for Ayatollah al-Sistani to sign onto a document, “On Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” which calls for Christians and Muslims to work together for peace.

A highlight of Francis’ visit to the United Arab Emirates in February 2019 was the signing of the fraternity document together with Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar University and the top authority in Sunni Islam.

Father Jaje told CNS by phone from Baghdad that “the meeting will certainly take place in Najaf, where al-Sistani is based.”

The city is 100 miles south of Baghdad, a center of Shiite Islam’s spiritual and political power as well as a pilgrimage site for Shiite adherents.

Long considered a force for stability despite his age of 90, Ayatollah al-Sistani’s loyalty is toward Iraq, as opposed to some co-religionists who look to Iran for backing.

He supports the separation of religion and state affairs.

In 2017 he also urged all Iraqis, regardless of their religious affiliation or ethnicity, to fight to get rid of Islamic State on behalf of their country.

Observers believe the pope’s meeting with the ayatollah could be highly symbolic for Iraqis, but especially Christians, for whom the encounter could turn a page in their country’s often fraught interfaith relations.

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Long-serving priest Fr Pat Dowd has died, to be remembered at funeral Mass next Thursday

Next Post

Marriage is a triumphant rite even if we fail to understand each other

CNS

Related Posts

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies
QLD

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

20 May 2022
Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition
QLD

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

20 May 2022
Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning
QLD

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Next Post
Bride and groom walking over a bridge

Marriage is a triumphant rite even if we fail to understand each other

Message for Lent encourages Catholics to care for those affected by pandemic

Campaign to overhaul aged care services and funding

Popular News

  • Pregnant woman

    Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Answering God’s invitation to us all

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies
QLD

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

by Joe Higgins
20 May 2022
0

BRISBANE grandmother Gwendoline Grant has clocked up 15,000 hours cuddling and caring for sick and premature babies...

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

20 May 2022
Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

19 May 2022
Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

19 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping