Iraq is a mosaic of religions and ethnicities. For this reason, this country’s fate is to live together or fight each other. Its complexity has always been resolved by force or the brutality of power. An example is Sunni Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, which occurred from 1979 to 2003. He was a persecutor of the Shiite and he was also an exterminator of the Kurds within their ancestral lands. Saddam banned John Paul II from making a pilgrimage to the land of Abraham, which is Iraq. However, Pope Wojtyla had opposed American and Western wars against Saddam, by seeing them as a premise of the clash of religion and civilization between the Western world and Islam.
Pope Francis argues he is carrying out his predecessor's journey because the Iraqi people cannot wait. They waited for peace from Western liberation and they found themselves in a shattered state, by experiencing in this way the violence of the self-styled Islamic State of Daesh, behind which there were shadowy backers. The Iraqi people waited for democracy and security but they encountered anarchy. How many lives were lost during these two decades of war, terrorism, and instability! All of these brought many refugees and pain!
Francis responded to the expectations of Iraqi men and women by visiting the country even though many individuals advised him to not go. In fact, this is not a time when leaders make official visits. Furthermore, Iraq is not safe. Nevertheless, the Pope felt he had to visit this extreme periphery that does not have peace, a Church of new martyrs, and a millennial faithfulness to the Gospel. Nowadays, many persons risk their lives in Iraq. Raghed Ghanni, a young Chaldean priest studying in Rome, could have stayed in Italy, but he returned to his homeland where he was murdered in 2007. He claimed that "without the Eucharist, Christians cannot live in Iraq”. Thus, he celebrated it until his death in Mosul where he was killed by the Islamic terrorists.
The Pope took his lead from the Syro-Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, where 48 Christians were murdered in a terrorist attack in 2010. Today, he prays in Mosul, which is the former capital of the caliphate, where Christians (at least 6,000) were driven away and churches were destroyed (along with religious buildings that were held by jihadist-resistant Muslims).
Martyrs represent the seed of life for the Church and for Iraq. This is the faith of the Church. Therefore, the Pope does not come for revenge; he does not accuse Islam as some Christians of East and West do. The Gospel leads to a culture of peace, which is the idea of living together in order to free people from the logic of clashing diversities. Unfortunately, this reasoning of conflict has turned into arrogant and violent tribalism, which is reaching its peak in Iraq.
During some historical seasons, Iraq partially experienced the idea of living together. For instance, there were 120,000 Jews for a millennium until 1948. There were still even two thousand in Saddam's time (they were harassed by him). Furthermore, the last rabbi died in 1996. Subsequently, the Yazidis (who housed the persecuted Christians during World War I) were in turn exterminated by the Daesh. There were also many Christians: nearly 1.5 million on the eve of the Gulf War, and now there are only 300,000.
Despite the 1,200 Christians that were killed in recent times, Chaldean Patriarch Sako has not adopted a victim-blaming attitude. However, he claimed that "the world and history do not stop due to the tragedy that we are currently experiencing". Francis comes to confirm that Christians can be the beginning of a peaceful future. The respect and sympathy with which the Pope was greeted by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, who is the highest Shiite authority, shows how Francis is regarded as a man of unity and peace. Dialogue is the real force that builds the future in this land where gun brutality has failed.
The Pope's trip to Iraq even reveals to us – as we are accustomed to his presence, and perhaps we are attentive to the affairs of the "lesser Vatican" -- the value of his ministry. The history of the world is touched and changed by the weak and humble power of the Gospel. Additionally, Francis' trace in Iraq demonstrates how the provincial irrelevance and avarice of European Christians are a choice of little courage. Instead - we see it these days - a world, which is so lost, needs the Gospel. By looking at Francis, a person feels that history is being made in Iraq.
In the desert of Ur, where there are no walls, the Pope asked himself and us this question: "From where can the path of peace begin again? From the renunciation of having enemies." He then continued with a series of suggestions, which were preceded by a solemn and challenging “It is up to us...". Believers of every religion and country cannot remain inert or irrelevant, walk on their own, pursue their own interests, or resign themselves to evil. Francis’ motto, which is "It is up to us . . .", also resonates in our consciences, in our cities, and in our churches.
Andrea Riccardi
