After a controversial Iraqi figure claimed to have met with Pope Francis, the Vatican explained that he was only one of many people with whom the Pontiff exchanged a few words after his regular Wednesday public audience.
Iraqi Christians have struggled since the Nineveh plains, their historic homeland of rolling hills dotted with wheat and barley fields, were wrested back from Islamic State extremists six years ago. Many Christians have given up and left for Europe, Australia or the United States. Now the shrinking religious minority that was also violently targeted by al-Qaida before the rise of IS has been rocked by yet another crisis in the form of a political showdown between two influential Christian figures — a Vatican-appointed cardinal and a militia leader, with land and influence at the core of the drama.