Pope in Iraq: Peace begins with the decision to have no enemies

UR, Iraq, March 6, 2021 - Traveling to the birthplace of Abraham, Pope Francis urged believers to demonstrate their faith in the one God and father of all by accepting others as brothers and sisters. From a setting on a dusty hill overlooking the archaeological dig at Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, some 16 kilometers from present-day Nasiriyah, Pope Francis called on representatives of the country´s religious communities to denounce all violence committed in the name of God and to work together to rebuild their country.

Pope Francis arrived in the ancient Iraqi desert city of Ur after a 45-minute meeting earlier in the morning in Najaf with 90-year-old Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the most authoritative figures in Shiite Islam.

At the large interfaith gathering afterwards, with the Ziggurat of Ur, a partially reconstructed Bronze Age pagan temple, visible in the mist, Pope Francis insisted that when Jews, Christians and Muslims make pilgrimages to the birthplace of Abraham, they are returning home, to the place that reminds them that they are brothers and sisters.

Representatives of Iraq´s Shiite Muslim majority, its Sunni Muslim community, Christians, Yazidis and the Mandaeans, a group that claims to be older than Christianity and venerates St. John the Baptist, joined Pope Francis in Ur.

Pope Francis: Hostility, violence are betrayals of religion.

"From this place, where faith was born, from the land of our father Abraham, let us affirm that God is merciful and that the greatest blasphemy is to profane his name by hating our brothers and sisters," Pope Francis said, asking representatives to drop enmities.

"Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion", Pope Francis insisted.

Farmon Kakay, a member of a delegation from Iraq´s small Kaka´i community, a pre-Islamic religion and an ethnic group related to the Yazidis, told the Catholic News Agency (CNS), "Seeing His Holiness is great news for me. We want Pope Francis to bring a message to the government to respect us."

Faiza Foad, a Zoroastrian from Kirkuk, was similarly hopeful that Pope Francis´ visit would move the government and Iraqi society as a whole to greater recognition of religious freedom for all.

Wearing a white dress trimmed in gold and decorated with sequins, Foad told Catholic News Agency that although his religion is not an "Abrahamic faith," participating in the gathering was a sign that all people are members of the one human family.

In fact, Rafah Husein Baher, a Mandaean, told Pope Francis that "together we subsisted through the ruins of war on the same soil. Our blood mingled; together we tasted the bitterness of the embargo; we have the same identity."

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and until the Islamic State group´s reign of terror, "injustice afflicted all Iraqis," he told the pope. "Terrorism violated our dignity with impudence. Many countries, without conscience, classified our passports as worthless, observing our wounds with indifference."

Just as Abraham set out from Ur and became patriarch of a multitude of believers in the one God, Pope Francis said, those believers must return to Abraham, recognize each other as brothers and set out to share the news that God loves every person he created.

Pope Francis: the way to peace is to have no enemies.

"We believers cannot remain silent when terrorism abuses religion," Pope Francis said. "Indeed, we are unambiguously called to dispel all misunderstandings. Let us not allow the light of heaven to be overshadowed by the clouds of hatred."

Called like Abraham to trust in God and to set out on the paths he indicates, believers must "leave behind those bonds and attachments which, by keeping us locked into our groups, prevent us from welcoming God´s boundless love and from seeing others as our brothers and sisters," said Pope Francis

No individual or group can live in peace or achieve progress alone, he said. "Isolation will not save us." Nor is the answer "an arms race or the erection of walls," Pope Francis said. "Nor is the idolatry of money because it closes us in on ourselves and creates chasms of inequality."

[Video broadcast with Pope Francis´ interreligious meeting from the ruins of the ancient city of UR in Iraq]

The path to peace, he said, begins with "the decision not to have enemies," the Pope said. "It means spending less money on weapons and more on food, education and health care. It means affirming the value of every human life, including the lives of the unborn, the elderly, migrants and all others," Pope Francis said from the ruins of UR City in Iraq.

Pope Francis in Iraq.