Hope and skepticism after historic papal visit

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Women and children lined the runway at Erbil’s International Airport on Sunday morning, armed with olive branches and Kurdish, Iraqi and Vatican flags. Helicopters droned overhead, then came quiet as an Iraqi Airways plane approached. The air was soon filled with noise once more as ululations and song met Pope Francis descending from the plane and stepping onto the runway’s red carpet.

Across the city, Father Karam Shamasha was preparing the final touches to the city’s Franso Hariri Stadium, where the Pope held holy mass for thousands of worshippers. 

The priest, a Tel Skof native, told Rudaw English he was “full of enthusiasm, happiness and pride at the wonderful works of God.” As Pope Francis met with Christians in Mosul and Qaraqosh, buses from as far north as Zakho had celebratory music pumping through them as they trundled into Erbil, where people lined the streets awaiting a glimpse of the pontiff, the first ever to visit Iraq or the Kurdistan Region. 

“Today is a big day… it may not come again for many years,” said Rody Sher, a project manager at the Catholic University of Erbil, before he gave the opening speech to the crowd awaiting Mass.

Pope Francis announced his visit to Iraq in December 2020. His trip, he told reporters on the way back to Rome, was inspired by Iraqi Yazidi activist and Nobel Laureate Nadia Murad, who survived the horrors of ISIS captivity and previously met the pontiff in Vatican City.

As the 84-year-old pope flew in from Qaraqosh, ululations grew louder and louder, reaching fever pitch as the helicopter carrying the pontiff circled overhead. Silence fell as the service began, broken only by the haunting voices of the choir singing in Arabic, Italian and Syriac, then applause as the pope praised Christians in Iraq, whose number continues to dwindle.

At the stadium, a statue of the Virgin Mary, hands broken by the Islamic State during their bloody reign in Nineveh, stood in a glass cage. After the mass ended, the crowd flocked to her feet, touching the glass before blessing themselves. Volunteers high on the joy of the day plucked flowers from the wreath beneath her and women pushed children towards the pope’s chair, prompting a priest and volunteers to form a protective circle around the seat. 

Among the crowd was 77-year-old Shireen from the town of Shaqlawa, sat close to the stage and wrapped, like many of the attendees, in a white scarf adorned with the face of the pope. As the ceremony came to an end, she got to her feet, waving an Iraqi flag enthusiastically and raising her palms to the darkened sky. 

“Baba, baba,” she said repeatedly. 

“Her dream was to go to Rome to meet the pope, but now he has come to Iraq,” her daughter Fadia said after the Mass. “For the past week, she has been asking when he is coming to Erbil.” 

“She lost her husband two and a half months ago and she was very sad, but the pope’s visit has made her forget the pain. She is happy again.”

The church for Chaldean Catholics like Rody and Shamasha is in communion with Rome, and is believed to make up the majority of Iraq’s Christians -- but there are other denominations in the country, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Armenian Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church, among others. 

“During the mass I was really amazed. Is this really happening in front of me right now?” Shamasha said from his village in Nineveh. “I thought of a lot of people who wished to be with us, but had to leave the country due to the difficult circumstances.”

“I was not very sure about what I should do.  Do I pray for my country, for all people, or do I pray for this great person who, despite his poor health, insisted that he be with us, insisted that he be a part of us, of our history and our existence, which has always been threatened and subject to persecution?”

More than one million Christians lived across Iraq before the United States invaded in 2003, Erbil’s Chaldean Archbishop Warda told Rudaw English last week; the community now numbers just 300,000. Decades of insurgent and terrorist violence have pushed many out of Iraq, to elsewhere in the Middle East and further afield. Back in Rome on Tuesday, Pope Francis appealed to Christians who have left Iraq, calling them to “keep the faith,” and return - if they can.

The question now is what difference, if any, the visit will make to those who remain. 

"I think that some things have changed, since the first moment he set foot on our land," said Shamasha. 

"All hearts were moved, expressing wonder and astonishment in front of this person who, with a simple smile, was able to give us confidence and hope that things are not always bad and sad. We felt, for a moment, that we are not living in a country where we are used to seeing and hearing about killing and destruction every day… here we are rejoicing and cheering and chanting with joy from the bottom of our hearts.”

The priest says the visit has created a new image of Iraq. 

"We hope that this image will not remain attached to the wall. Rather, this harmony, love, peace and brotherhood feelings will be transformed into reality and become a living reality."

In Mosul, the pontiff prayed for war victims among the rubble of ISIS destruction, where UNESCO is now trying to revive the spirit of the Old City, rebuilding churches and mosques torn down by the terror group. 

“I don’t think it will make much difference. But it was important. It is a reminder to the world that Mosul is still in ruins three and a half years after its liberation,” said Ali al-Baroodi, a university teacher and photographer from the city.

The visit, amid an ongoing pandemic, has also come at a time of fraught ties between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the federal government in Baghdad, making life hard for many Iraqis, not least Christians, who, like other civil servants in the Kurdistan Region, face months of salary delays, in villages that still lie partially destroyed. 

Government spokespeople told Rudaw the visit was a “salve on Iraqi wounds,” while Kadhimi hopes the visit can be used as a development project, promoting “religious and historical tourism.” He also called for national dialogue soon after the visit.

Just a day after the pope's departure, it seemed like Iraq had gone straight back to where it had been before. Trees lining the streets of Mosul were uprooted, replanted only after uproar from locals. The same night, an explosion hit a bridge near a pilgrim site in Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district, killing one woman and injuring several others. 

On Wednesday, unknown gunmen assassinated Jaseb Hattab, the outspoken father of a missing activist, who had accused Iran-backed militias of kidnapping his son. He now joins more than 600 people killed since Iraq’s protest movement began in October 2019.  

Hattab’s photo appeared in a now-deleted tweet by the EU Ambassador to Iraq Martin Huth on Thursday. It read with a grim reminder of the violence that continues to plague Iraq’s streets, despite the calls for peace Pope Francis carried with him. 

“Pope gone. Back to normal?”