Pope crosses Iraq through corona-IS risk

Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq on the 5th to 8th is a’dangerous trip’. This is because the pope’s age, the deterioration of Corona 19 in Iraq, and the threat of security and terrorism are three negative factors.

The time difference between the Vatican and Iraq is 2 hours, the distance is about 3000 km, and the flight time is about 4 hours and 10 minutes. For the 84-year-old Pope, born in 1936, the schedule of overseas visits is inevitably a burden. Moreover, even if the Pope received a second dose of the Corona 19 vaccine, the situation of Corona 19 in Iraq is serious. According to Waldometer, a global statistics website, more than 723,000 confirmed cases and more than 13,500 deaths were reported by the 7th. In the Middle East, the damage is second only to Iran. The daily number of confirmed cases was 5043 on the 4th, 5127 on the 5th, and 4068 on the 6th, respectively.

The security situation in Iraq is also not easy. On February 15, a US military base near the international airport in Erbil, a Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, was attacked by a rocket bomb, killing a foreigner belonging to a US contractor and wounding at least 14 people, including one American soldier. On February 20, a remnant of the extremist armed Islamic State (IS) attacked security forces in a place called Tamiyah, about 35 km north of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, killing five IS militants and two Iraqi security forces.

Why did Pope Francis take this risk to visit Iraq? Let’s look at the Pope’s schedule. The Pope began the official schedule by visiting Baghdad and meeting the Iraqi President and Prime Minister. After visiting the Eastern Catholic Church in Baghdad, he visited Ur, the city of Sumer, an ancient country. Ur is considered the birthplace of Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Pope’s visit to Ur is of great significance to the Abrahamic religions of the same roots, calling for peace by communicating without conflict with each other.

According to the Vatican News, on the 6th (local time), the Pope visited Najaf, Iraq and met Ayatollah Ali Alsistani (90), an Islamic Shiite leader. This is the first time that the Catholic Pope has met a high-ranking Shi’ite priest. Foreign media reported that it is a historical meeting that builds a bridge between Christianity and Islam. The northern genetic city of Mosul, the Pope’s next visit, was a metropolitan city that was rare in the Middle East, boasting ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity and coexistence.

Looking at the Pope’s past and this schedule together, the purpose of the visit becomes clearer. Pope Francis has traveled around the world since his imprisonment on March 13, 2013, emphasizing love, tolerance, and coexistence. Major visited countries included Catholic and Christian countries, as well as Islamic and Buddhist countries and communist one-party dictatorships where religions are virtually disappearing. The Pope’s first overseas visit in 2013 was in Brazil, which was promised when he was former Benedict XVI. In 2014, they visited Israel, Jordan and Palestine. It is an area with a minority of Christianity. It was also that year I visited Korea.

In 2015, they visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, following the Buddhist country of Sri Lanka and the Catholic country of the Philippines. In addition, while visiting the United States, he also visited Cuba, a communist country. In 2017, they visited Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh, which attracted worldwide attention after the expulsion of the Rohingya after Egypt. In 2019, a mass was held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is a Muslim country but has multi-religious and multicultural foreign immigrants.

It is the will of the Pope that people of different religions and values ​​should seek coexistence and peace while communicating and communicating. This visit is also interpreted to be to touch the hearts of believers who have been persecuted in Iraq and to spread the meaning of peace and coexistence.

In-Taek Chae International Reporter [email protected]