VATICAN - Pope Francis' gratitude for his trip to Iraq: "Muslims invite Christians to return, and rebuild churches and mosques together"

Wednesday, 10 March 2021 pope francis   dialogue   area crisis   sectaniarism   refugees   fratelli tutti  

VaticanNews

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - The Muslim residents of Mosul invite their Christian fellow citizens to return "to rebuild churches and mosques together". This is the image that Pope Francis sees as the seed of the rebirth of this martyred city and all of Iraq after years of wars, invasions and terror. At the general audience on March 10th, he said, looking back on his trip to Iraq: "In the past few days, the Lord allowed me to visit Iraq, carrying out a project of Saint John Paul II. Never before has a Pope been in the land of Abraham. Providence willed that this should happen now, as a sign of hope, after years of war and terrorism, and during a severe pandemic". Pope Francis recalled the "unforgettable" meeting with the Great Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, who received him in his residence in Najaf, and focused on the "penitential" sense regarding this pilgrimage: "IIcould not draw near to that tortured people, to that martyr-Church", explained the Successor of Peter "without taking upon myself, in the name of the Catholic Church, the cross they have been carrying for years; a huge cross, like the one placed at the entrance of Qaraqosh. I felt it particularly seeing the wounds still open from the destruction, and even more so when meeting and hearing the testimony of those who survived the violence, persecution, exile… And at the same time", added the Pope "I saw around me the joy of welcoming Christ’s messenger; I saw the hope of being open to a horizon of peace and fraternity, summed up in Jesus’s words that were the motto of the Visit: 'you are all my brothers' ". A hope that the Pope said he found also "in the many greetings and testimonies, in the hymns and gestures of the people. I read it on the luminous faces of the young people and in the vivacious eyes of the elderly. People stood waiting for the Pope for 5 hours, even women with children in their arms. They waited and there was hope in their eyes".
The Bishop of Rome recalled the meeting in the Syriac-Catholic Cathedral of Baghdad, where a terrorist attack killed the faithful gathered for the celebration of Mass in 2010. "The Church in Iraq", the Pope stressed, "is a martyr Church. And in that church that bears an inscription in stone the memory of those martyrs, joy resounded in that encounter. My amazement at being in their midst mingled with their joy at having the Pope among them". Visiting Mosul and Quaraqosh, still marked by the devastation following the invasion of Islamic State militias, the Pope recalled "the flight of thousands and thousands of inhabitants, among them many Christians of a variety of confessions and other persecuted minorities, especially the Yazidi" caused by the jihadist occupation. "The ancient identity of these cities has been ruined. Now the Pope added "they are trying hard to rebuild. The Muslims are inviting the Christians to return and together they are restoring churches and mosques. Fraternity is there. And let us continue to pray for them, our sorely tried brothers and sisters, so they might have the strength to start over".
Referring to the recent past in Iraq, Pope Francis recalled "Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization" and "Baghdad is a city of primary importance. For centuries, it housed the richest library in the world. And what destroyed it? War. War is always that monster that transforms itself with the change of epochs and continues to devour humanity. But the response to war is not another war; the response to weapons is not other weapons. And I asked myself: who was selling the weapons to the terrorists? Who sells weapons today to the terrorists – which are causing massacres in other areas, let’s think of Africa, for example? It is a question that I would like someone to answer. The response is not war, but the response is fraternity". The Pope also spoke about the interfaith meeting in Ur where the prophet Abraham "received God's call about four thousand years ago". Abraham, Pope Francis continued, "is our father in the faith because he listened to God’s voice that promised him a descendant. He left everything and departed. God is faithful to His promises and guides our steps toward peace still today. He guides the steps of those who journey on Earth with their gaze turned toward Heaven. And in Ur – standing together under those luminous heavens, the same heavens that our father Abraham saw, we, his descendants – the phrase you are all brothers and sisters seemed to resound once again". (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 10/3/2021)


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