Published on: Saturday, March 06, 2021
By: AFP
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi welcoming Pope Francis at Baghdad Airport.
BAGHDAD: Pope Francis landed in war-battered Iraq Friday on a first-ever papal visit, defying security fears and the pandemic to comfort one of the world’s oldest and most persecuted Christian communities.
The 84-year-old, who said he was travelling to Iraq as a “pilgrim of peace”, will also reach out to Shiite Muslims when he meets Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
The pope left Rome early Friday for the four-day trip, his first abroad since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which left the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics saying he felt “caged” inside the Vatican.
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