Pope Francis is going to meet Christians on Sunday March 7, on the third and last day of a historic visit to Iraq, in the north where the Islamic State (IS) organization had decreed its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in 2014.
His visit to Mosul, a historic commercial crossroads in the Middle East, is highly symbolic.
During the jihadist breakthrough, the Pope said he was ready to come to the displaced and other victims of war.
Sunday in Mosul, he will first recite a "prayer for the victims of the war", these thousands of Yazidis, Christians and Muslims murdered by the jihadists or fallen in combat to dislodge them from Iraq.
>> To read: The Pope prays to "walk from conflict to unity" in the Middle East, "in particular in Syria"
Seven years later, the sovereign pontiff will discover the ruins left behind by the jihadists driven out of Iraq in 2017, he who firmly denounced "the weapons", "the terrorism which abuses the religion" and "the intolerances" .
"We all hope that this visit will bode well for the Iraqi people. We hope that it will lead to better days", enthuses already with AFP Adnane Youssef, Christian from northern Iraq.
"This very important visit will cheer us up after years of difficulties, problems and wars", adds Father George Jahoula, while the Christian community in Iraq is withering away every year as people go into exile.
Law enforcement on alert
In this country of 40 million inhabitants, almost all Muslims, Christians are only 400,000 today, compared to 1.5 million before the American invasion in 2003.
In Mosul, whose old city is still a huge pile of rubble, the Pope will meet with all the Christian communities after taking their cause to the authorities in Baghdad.
>> To read: Ayatollah Sistani to Pope Francis: Christians in Iraq must live "in peace"
This is the day when bodyguards and law enforcement will be most alert.
Because if the visit of the Pope is historic, the security system deployed to welcome it is just as important.
The few kilometers that the Pope traveled by road were in armored cars.
For the majority of the 1,445 km of his route, which began on Friday afternoon, the Sovereign Pontiff is in a plane or a helicopter to fly over rather than cross areas where clandestine jihadist cells are still hiding.
And all this, in the midst of total confinement decreed until Monday - the Pope will leave Monday morning - in the face of Covid-19 contaminations which are reaching records in Iraq these days.
>> To read: "Let the guns be silent": Pope Francis' call for peace in Iraq
After Mosul, the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics will go to the emblematic locality of Qaraqosh, further east, where the al-Tahira church, which was burnt down by ISIS, has been fully restored. cleaned and redecorated for its coming.
Mass in a stadium in Erbil
Until the last moment, between rehearsals for the choirs, cleaning of the marble slabs of the churches and decorations installed in the streets, the inhabitants of Qaraqosh spared no effort.
It is there, in the plain of Nineveh, that most of the Christians of the country lived.
They fled their villages in 2014, finding refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Only a few tens of thousands of them have since returned.
The people of Qaraqosh hard at work
02:10
The words said to the Pope on Saturday by Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a great figure of Shiism in Iraq and beyond, ensuring that he works so that the Christians of Iraq live in “peace”, in “security” and with “all their constitutional rights ", could, however, provide them with heartwarming support.
Highlight of Sunday, the mass that the Pope is to celebrate in the afternoon in a stadium in Erbil in front of thousands of faithful.
Erbil is the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, which is considered a haven of peace in the middle of a war-torn Middle East.
Security and infrastructure are better there than in Baghdad or Mosul.
The pope, who loves walkabouts so much and has been deprived of them since his arrival in Iraq, will be able to find the faithful and probably greet them from the popemobile which has so far not been used.
Pope Francis' program
Pope Francis' program in Iraq is ambitious: Baghdad, Najaf, Ur, Mosul, Qaraqosh, Erbil.
From Friday to Monday, he will travel 1,445 km in a country marked by Iranian-American tensions still latent and a record number of Covid-19 contaminations.
The journey will take place in an armored car and without a walkabout while the helicopter or the Pope's plane will sometimes fly over areas where jihadists from the Islamic State organization are still present.
The Iraqis will have to follow him on television.
The bishop of Rome will begin Friday in Baghdad with a speech to the country's leaders, addressing the security or economic difficulties faced by the 40 million Iraqis.
The situation of the Christian minority will surely be mentioned.
He will then be received on Saturday in the holy city of Najaf by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest religious authority for many Shiites in Iraq and the world.
The Pope will then go to the ancient city of Ur, the birthplace, according to the Bible, of Patriarch Abraham, a character common to the three monotheistic religions.
He will pray there with Muslims, Yazidis and Saneans (pre-Christian monotheisms).
François will continue his journey on Sunday in the province of Nineveh (northern Iraq), the cradle of Iraqi Christians.
He will visit Mosul and Qaraqoch, two cities marked by destruction by the Islamic State group.
The Sovereign Pontiff will preside over an open-air mass on Sunday, in the presence of thousands of faithful, in Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
This Kurdish Muslim stronghold had opened its doors wide to hundreds of thousands of Christians, Yazidis and Muslims fleeing the jihadists.
With AFP
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