Pope Francis will visit Iraq and promote interfaith dialogue

In the primary visit to Iraq, Pope Francis plans to emphasize the difficulty of Iraq’s Christian populace and advance interfaith dialogue. 

On Monday, the Vatican issued the itinerary of Pope Francis’ March visit to Iraq. The timetable, loaded with meetings and events with political and religious figures the nation, aimed at two missions, talks on the nation’s decreasing Christian populace and promoting interfaith discourse. 

This will be Pope Francis’s first trip after the Covid pandemic. He will be landing in Baghdad International Airport amid an uprise in new coronavirus cases that have been reported in the country, the developing impact of armed groups, and a couple of shellings in Baghdad have been declared by the Islamic State. 

The Catholic head states that now is an ideal opportunity to visit the oldest Christian communities on the planet. 

Two years back, Francis had announced his desire to visit Iraq by 2020; however, the plan was postponed due to a coronavirus outbreak.

So when Francis again declared to visit Iraq in 2021, groups were at first doubtful as the virus kept on the nation. The Iraqi Health Ministry announced 1,660 new cases on Saturday. However, the pope believes there is currently an open door to push forward with this visit. 

On March 5, Pope Francis will land in Baghdad preceding he will head out to Nasiriya, Najaf, Mosul, Erbil to meet with the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali-Husaymi Al-Sistani in Najaf and the Iraqi President Barham Salih as well as local clerics and bishops. He will also be attending the mass at the Chaldean Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Baghdad. 

Pope will be holding a prayer service especially for the individuals who have lost their lives when the radical extremists took control over the area.