BAGHDAD — Pope Francis on Friday began the first-ever papal trip to Iraq, landing in a country with an extraordinary biblical history but that is also experiencing a serious coronavirus outbreak and ongoing political turmoil.

Francis’s four-day visit is his first international trip since the start of the pandemic and marks a return to the globe-trotting diplomacy — especially to minority-Christian countries — that had been his hallmark. It amounts to a show of encouragement for a nation trying to recover from the chaos of a U.S.-led invasion and the brutality of the Islamic State, a group that once vowed to “conquer Rome.”

Some have questioned why he is choosing to make the trip now, given the multitude of threats. Militias are competing for power and launching rocket attacks. The Islamic State has been beaten back but not fully eliminated. And coronavirus cases have climbed higher and higher over the past month, prompting the Iraqi government to impose a curfew and other restrictions, including against religious gatherings.

But in choosing to travel in the face of the risks, to a country known foremost for its war scars and suffering, Francis has reassembled some of the ingredients that years earlier made his papacy feel so novel. He is traveling at a time when other global figures are staying put, attempting to preach reconciliation in a country where decades of efforts have failed.

Speaking briefly aboard the papal plane on the way to Baghdad, Francis called the trip “emblematic” and said he was duty-bound to visit a nation that has been “martyred for so many years.”

“I am happy to be traveling again,” the pope said.

The Vatican had said Francis’s events will include smaller crowds than unusual, as a way to decrease the risk of coronavirus transmission. But thousands nonetheless lined highway roads hoping to get a glimpse of the pope, and in closer proximity to the pontiff, who has been vaccinated, some of the safety measures seemed lax. Unmasked singers, crowded together, greeted Francis at the airport, as did Iraqi dignitaries lining a red carpet.

In his first remarks of the trip, at Iraq’s presidential palace, Francis provided a broad view of his hopes for society trying to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. He called not only for the equitable distribution of vaccines, but also — noting Iraq’s sectarian conflicts — said it was time for humanity to embrace “what unites us.”

“In this regard, the religious, cultural and ethnic diversity that has been a hallmark of Iraqi society for millennia is a precious resource on which to draw, not an obstacle to be eliminated,” the pope said.

Francis was expected to later speak to bishops and other religious figures at the Our Lady of Salvation Church, where in 2010 gunmen from an affiliate of al-Qaeda killed 58 people.

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Ok

The prophecy has been fulfilled.

"The head of God will visit Babylon, and their king and country men shall fall prostrate"

Contained in the lost papyrus of medieval Egypt about Ur.

Softly o.Mehmet Agva that shot Pope John Paul II comes to mind. In the minds of some knowledgeable Muslims, they are waiting for the time the Pope Will be beheaded inSt Peter's Basilica and Rome in warfare.
Antichristian, your view.?

Wish the Pope a safe trip.