Pope Francis explains his meeting with Ayatollah Ali Alsistani to reporters on his return flight after his visit to Iraq on the 8th (local time). AP=Yonhap News
Pope Francis, who visited Iraq for the first time in Catholic history in 2000, praised his meeting with an Islamic Shiite leader as “good for my soul.”
According to the Reuters news agency on the 8th (local time), the Pope made this announcement to the accompanying reporters in a private plane returning to Rome, Italy. From the 5th to the 8th, the Pope visited Iraq, a Middle Eastern country, to seek reconciliation between religions and to stop violence and extremism.
He met Shi’ite leader Ayatollah Ali Alsistani in private for 50 minutes in Najaf, the southern city of Najaf, the holy land of Islamic Shiites. This is the first time that the Catholic Pope has met a high-ranking Shi’ite priest.
Pope Pope told reporters about Alsistani that he was a great sage and that meeting with him was beneficial to my soul. The Pope told reporters that Alsistani has not welcomed visitors for political or cultural purposes in the past decade, and only those with religious motives have been met.
The Pope also explained, “It was a glorious meeting with Alsistani. He never got up to greet visitors, but he got up twice to greet me.”
During the meeting between the Pope and Alsistani, documents related to world peace were not written, a major foreign press reported. In this regard, the Pope said to the reporters, “There will be another step,” and expressed the intention of continuing dialogue with the Islamic side.
The Pope also criticized some Catholic conservatives who were concerned about putting other religions on the same line as Catholics and stressed that “we must move forward with other religions.”
Reporter Na Unchae [email protected]
