Pope to meet Grand Ayatollah on scheduled visit to Iraq

Pope Francis is due to meet Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's highest Shiite Muslim authority, during his visit to the country in early March, two years after a rapprochement with the Grand Sunni imam of Al-Azhar.

This private meeting will be held at the residence of Ayatollah Sistani in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq told AFP. .

Aged 90 and guardian of Iraqi politics, Ali Sistani does not appear in public, very rarely receives visitors and delivers his sermons at weekly Friday prayers through one of his representatives.

Cardinal Sako said he hoped the two religious dignitaries would sign the document on human brotherhood for world peace, during Pope Francis historic visit to Iraq from March 5 to 8, an unprecedented move for a sovereign pontiff.

This document was concluded in February 2019 in Abu Dhabi by the Argentine Pope and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of the institution of Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar, based in Cairo.

Its signature by Ayatollah Sistani would mean the approval of the second greater community of Islam of this historic document, according to the cardinal.

This document calls in particular for freedom of belief and expression, for the protection of places of worship and boldly advocates full citizenship for discriminated minorities.

By going to the United Arab Emirates, Pope Francis was the first head of the Catholic Church to set foot in the Arabian Peninsula, which was the cradle of Islam.

Interfaith dialogue is at the heart of the visit to Iraq by the leader of the 1.3 billion Catholics. Christian and Shiite clergy say they have been discussing this issue for a long time, but some of their members warn that an agreement could require several meetings before being born.

The pope's trip could nevertheless be canceled, both because of the global health context and a possible outbreak of violence in Iraq, a country shaken for 40 years almost without interruption by conflicts.

If the visit goes as planned, the sovereign pontiff, recently vaccinated against Covid-19, will celebrate masses in Baghdad, in a cathedral targeted by a bloody attack in 2010, and in a stadium in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan (north), where many Christians are refugees who fled the abuses of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).

For these gatherings, precautions will be taken, Cardinal Sako said.

The Pope will also participate in an interfaith prayer in Ur (south), birthplace of Abraham, in the company of Shiite, Sunni, Yazidi and Sabaean dignitaries.

This visit is, according to the cardinal, a comfort and a hopenfor the Christians of Iraq, who represented 6% of the population in 2003 and are today less than 1% of the 40 million Iraqis, because of waves of exile at the mercy of violence and conflict.

He said, It's anarchy in Iraq, the official state is very weak, pleading to protect the citizenship of Christians, who say they are unprotected against the various armed groups in the country.

He said, revenge and the tribal system, it is the Middle Ages. If there is a dispute, it is necessary to make a lawsuit, not to launch a tribal revenge, he said of a gangrenous country by corruption and where guns are everywhere.

Since the American invasion which overthrew President Saddam Hussein (2003-2011), Christians claim to be victims of discrimination. The political and economic levers of the new power have been divided between the Shiites, the majority in Iraq, the Sunnis and the Kurds, the majority Sunnis.

The IS breakthrough of 2014 only added to the plight of Christians in Iraq, many have been forced into exile and thousands of families are still displaced.