Iraq: Pope Francis holds historic meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf

Iraq this Saturday will be the theater of an unprecedented meeting: the Pope Francisco, head of 1.3 billion Catholics in the world, will be received by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest religious authority of the Shiites, a branch of Islam.

After meeting with the Catholic clergy upon arrival on Friday at Baghdad, the Papa An 84-year-old Argentine reaches out to Shiite Islam by visiting the 90-year-old dignitary – who never appears in public – at his modest home in the holy city of Najaf, 200 km south of Baghdad.

The two men will speak for about an hour in a “private” visit, two years after the Pope Francisco signed with the great Imam Al Azhar, an institution of Sunni Islam in Egypt, a “Document on human brotherhood.”

Neither the press nor other guests will attend the closed-door meeting scheduled for 06:00 GMT, but this stage in the papal program is already a source of pride for many Shiites in a country that for 40 years has experienced conflicts and crises and war. bloody civilian between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

“Another dimension”

“We are proud of what this visit represents (…) it will give another dimension to the holy city”, Shiite cleric Mohamed Ali Bahr al-Ouloum tells AFP.

Upon getting off the plane, the sovereign pontiff will be able to read the huge poster with a call for dialogue placed at the airport on the occasion of his visit.

“Men are of two types: their brothers in faith or their equals in humanity”says the poster, which quotes Imam Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and founder of Shi’ism who is buried in the holy city.

The great ayatola Ali Sistani it is the highest authority for most of the 200 million Shiites in the world – a minority among the 1.8 billion Muslims. His only religious rival is Iran’s supreme guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Let the weapons be silent,” the pope claims during his historic visit to Iraq

An Iranian national, the great ayatola Sistani has stood for decades as a guarantor of the independence of Iraq and he runs a theological school that advocates the withdrawal of religious from politics – they must limit themselves to advising – contrary to the Qom school in Iran.

“The theological school of Najaf it is more secular than that of Qom, which is more religious, ”recalls Spanish Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Najaf, he assures, “gives more weight to the social aspect”.

“Foreign interests”

The Grand Ayatollah in fact influenced to bring down the government that young protesters denounced for months in 2019, fed up with seeing their country fall into corruption and mismanagement.

The Pope, like the Grand Ayatollah, are two religious personalities who often make political comments. But the two wisely weigh their words.

Once again, the pope peppered his speech to the Iraqi authorities with allusions to the situation in the country, caught between its two great allies, the United States and Iran.

“That partisan interests cease, these foreign interests that are disinterested in the local population”, implored Francisco.

The Pope’s visit – under strong security measures – takes place in the midst of a total confinement of the population after the increase in cases of covid-19 that already rises to more than 5,000 daily.

The pope was vaccinated before the trip, but it is unknown whether the office of the grand ayatollah has done the same.

After Najaf, Francisco he plans to visit the city of Ur, in the south, where according to tradition the patriarch Abraham was born.

There, he will pray with Shiite, Sunni, Yazidi and Sabean dignitaries.