The trips of Pope Francis, in his eight years of pontificate, have been different from those of his predecessors because they have not been destined for the great Catholic centers of the world -Europe, South America and regions of Africa-, but he has traveled wherever the Christians are a minority. Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Korea. Now it is the turn of Iraq, in whose region of Ur it is believed that Abraham was born, considered the father of the three main monotheistic religions of the world, and is the current home of a Christian minority that is on the verge of extinction due to, among others reasons, to the persecution of radical groups such as the self-styled Islamic State. The horror that Yazidi children who were victims of the Islamic State still experience The pastoral journey, which began this Friday, will be the first after 15
months due to the pandemic.
During the tour through the streets of the Iraqi capital, hundreds of people went to the edges of the roads to see the convoy where the Argentine pontiff is traveling in an armored car. Pope francis IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES Caption, Some 10,000 people will guarantee the safety of the Supreme Pontiff. The visit, which will last 3 days, has been classified not only as high risk for security reasons (it is estimated that at least 10,000 people will be in charge of the security of the Supreme Pontiff), but also for health issues: since January, the cases of covid-19 have tripled in the country. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI himself pointed out the risks of the trip: "I think it is a very important trip ... Unfortunately it happens at a very difficult time, which also makes it a dangerous trip for security reasons and for covid. And then there is the unstable situation in Iraq. I will accompany Francisco with my prayers, "he told the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. Added to this uncertainty is the ten rocket attack on Wednesday against Iraqi military bases that housed US troops. Video title, Mosul: How Muslims and Christians work together to rebuild the Iraqi city Vatican spokesman Mateo Bruni pointed out that the intention of the trip, beyond the risk, is to show the pope's closeness to those threatened Christian communities. "It is a private trip, also for security, of course. But it is a gesture of love for that land, its people and the Christians. It is understood under that logic, which does not mean losing sight of what is being done," he noted . But what is the Christian community residing in Iraq that the Pope will visit and why is it on the brink of extinction?
The four-day trip, which includes an open-field mass on a soccer field, will have on its itinerary the cities of Baghdad, Mosul, Erbil, Najaf and Qaraqosh. Francisco, who had to postpone this trip, has always indicated his intention to visit the region: "I constantly think of Iraq, where I want to go next year, in the hope that that country can face the future through the peaceful and shared pursuit of the common good by all elements of society, including religious ones, and not back down in hostilities provoked by latent conflicts of regional powers, "he said during a 2019 hearing. And that reference to conflict has a clear indicator: from the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to 2019, the Iraqi Christian community has shrunk by 83%. From more than 1.5 million Christians to just 250,000. It is estimated that at least one million of them fled to Europe and the US due to internal conflicts caused by the invasion and others were displaced by Islamist groups. Cross with the flag of Iraq IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES Caption, The number of Christians in Iraq has dropped by 83% in recent years. And the most emphatic warning about its imminent extinction has been made several times by the Archbishop of Erbil - one of the cities that Francis will visit - the Reverend Bashar Warda. "Christianity in Iraq is one of the oldest, if not the oldest churches in the world, and it is dangerously close to extinction. Those of us who remain must be prepared to face martyrdom," Warda told the BBC in 2019. . The Christian presence in Iraq goes back almost to the same appearance of this religion in history: in fact, there are many more towns and places named in the Bible that are located in this country than are located in the so-called "Holy Land "from Israel and the Palestinian territories. Its starting point could be located in the 5th century, when the Council of Nicaea registered the presence of bishops from the Mesopotamian region. Then came the creation of the Eastern Church, with strong roots in the north of the country, and the establishment of the monastery of Saint Elias in the vicinity of present-day Mosul during the 6th century.
In an article for The Conversation, Ramazan Kılınç, professor of political science at the University of Nebraska, wrote that the majority of Iraqi Christians are ethnically Assyrian and belong to the Eastern Church, one of the three great branches of Eastern Christianity. "Their language for worship is a dialect of Aramaic, the language in which Christ supposedly spoke." See The Conversation article Professor Kılınç adds that the largest of these Assyrian communities belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church, which brings together more than two-thirds of all Christians living in Iraq. Since then, a struggle began to survive the constant religious and political persecutions, which have escalated in the last five years. Bishop Warda sums it up in a certainly controversial phrase: "There are a growing number of extremist groups who claim that the slaughter of Christians and Yazidis during these years helped spread Islam," said the Iraqi reverend. Praying women. IMAGE SOURCE, AFP Caption, There are about 250,000 Christians left in the country. Islamic State "We are trying to heal this wound created by the Islamic State," Father Karam Shamasha, one of the priests of the St. George Catholic Church, told Catholic News Agency last November in a Christian village about 30 kilometers north. from Mosul. "Our families are strong; they have stood up for the faith. But they need someone to tell them, 'You have done very well, but you must continue with your mission,'" Shamasha added. When the so-called Islamic State stormed in mid-2014 and invaded the city of Mosul, Christians were one of the groups most persecuted by radical Islamists. Following the group's initial assault, which displaced more than 125,000 Christians from their homelands, many leaders saw this as "the final existential struggle" for Iraqi Christianity.
"Our torturers confiscated our present, while seeking to erase our history and destroy our future," Warda said. The reverend notes that the destruction by the Islamic State was so devastating that now the survivors have no way to prove who they were and what they owned. "In Iraq there is no reparation for those who have lost property, homes and businesses. Tens of thousands of Christians have no way to prove that this has been their place of residence and that of their ancestors for thousands of years." Despite the dismantling of the caliphate established by the Islamic State and its influence has been considerably reduced, several cells remain active - there was an attack in Baghdad in January that left at least 32 dead - and are even a threat to the pontiff's trip, since they could plan an attack against him. "They are starting to lose relevance and that would put them back on top. Other groups may have some moral constraints. Islamic State does not have any," Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told the Wall Street Journal. In the aforementioned article in The Conversation, Professor Ramazan Kılınç indicates that between 2017 and 2019 the Donald Trump administration provided aid for US $ 300 million to rebuild the Critian cities and towns of the plains of Nineveh, northern Iraq, destroyed by the Islamic State .
Road to extinction But Catholic leaders in Iraq are aware that their demise could be close in the midst of this situation. Archbishop Warda has come to a bitter conclusion about what the future holds. "It is possible that we are facing our end in the land of our ancestors. We recognize it. At our end, the whole world faces a moment of truth," he said. Warda has been especially critical of the churches in Europe, which he believes have not strongly condemned the persecution for fear of being accused of Islamophobia. "Will a peaceful and innocent people be allowed to be persecuted and eliminated for their faith? And by not wanting to tell the truth to the persecutors, will the world be an accomplice of our elimination?" Pope Francis has been emphatic in saying that his trip is intended to prevent this from happening. "I am the pastor of people who suffer," the Pope told various media, last February. And Warda is hopeful that his visit can be a help on that path: "The Pope's visit will make so many people, especially Iraqis, notice that we have been here for many centuries," he recently told the Catholic Agency. News. "Christians have contributed a lot to this country."