Pope to hold mass in Erbil during visit to Iraq, Kurdistan Region

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Pope Francis will hold mass in Erbil’s Franso Hariri Stadium on March 7 during a visit to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, the Vatican has confirmed. 

The papal visit is the first of its kind to Iraq.

According to the official itinerary published by the Vatican on Monday, the pope will hold mass in Erbil following visits to Mosul and Qaraqosh, in the Nineveh plains, earlier in the day.

Alongside visits to Baghdad and the Plain of Ur, Pope Francis also will meet in Najaf with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, during his visit from March 5-8.

In Baghdad, he will hold mass at the city’s Our Lady of Salvation cathedral, which was hit by a deadly attack in 2010 that killed dozens of worshippers.

Pope Francis has  previously expressed his hopes of visiting Iraq.

Doubt was thrown on the March trip over the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of thousands of Iraqis.

"I think constantly of Iraq – where I want to go next year – in the hope that it can face the future through the peaceful and shared pursuit of the common good on the part of all elements of society, including the religious, and not fall back into hostilities sparked by the simmering conflicts of the regional powers," he said in a statement in June 2019. 

This will be the first visit of a Catholic pontiff to the country, after Pope St. John Paul II failed to visit the country in 1999.

The pope's visit comes at a time when only a few hundred thousand Christians are left in the country.

Only 400,000 are estimated to remain in the country, down from 1.5 million in 2003.

Several waves of violence since the US-led invasion, including Islamic State (ISIS) brutality have led many from the religious minority to flee the country. Others have moved for economic reasons.