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On the third day of his historic visit to the country, Pope Francis has stopped in northern Iraq, a region once occupied by Islamic State militants.
ISIS fighters took control of it in 2014, looting and destroying the area’s old churches. Christians started returning to the area only after the bloodthirsty group was defeated in 2017.
The Pope’s planned mass at an Irbil football stadium with the participation of at least 10,000 people has raised fears that the ritual could turn into a coronavirus super-spread. Iraq has seen a sharp rise in infections in the past month, and along with concerns about the Pope’s safety, this is considered one of the most dangerous trips for the Holy Father. The 84-year-old head of the Catholic Church and his entourage have all been vaccinated, while Iraq itself received the first doses of the vaccine just last week. The pope earlier had a historic meeting with Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a moment that was seen as a powerful call for coexistence in a country ravaged by sectarianism and violence.
The Pope’s meeting in the southern holy city of Najaf during his quick and dangerous tour of Iraq marked the first time a Catholic church leader had met such a high-ranking Shiite cleric. The pope has visited several predominantly Muslim countries, including Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian territories, using these trips as a call for interfaith dialogue.
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