Pope Francis will travel to Iraq in 2021

The Vatican announced on Monday that Pope Francis will travel to Iraq in March 2021. He will be the first Pope to visit the country, which is still recovering from the devastation inflicted by the Islamic State.

The four-day papal trip to Iraq March 5-8 will include stops in Baghdad, Erbil and Mosul. It will be the pope's first international trip in over a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Pope Francis' visit to Iraq comes at the request of the Republic of Iraq and the local Catholic Church, director of the Holy See Press Office Matteo Bruni told reporters on December 7.

During the trip, the pope will visit the Christian communities of the Nineveh Plain, devastated by the Islamic State from 2014 to 2016, which caused Christians to flee the region. Pope Francis has repeatedly expressed his closeness to these persecuted Christian communities and his desire to visit Iraq.

In recent years, security concerns have prevented the pope from fulfilling his desire to visit Iraq.

Pope Francis said in 2019 that he wanted to visit Iraq in 2020, however the Vatican confirmed before the coronavirus outbreak in Italy that no papal trip to Iraq would take place this year.

Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, visited Iraq over the Christmas period in 2018 and concluded that the country was still unsure of a papal visit at the time.

The official program for the pope's first scheduled apostolic journey since the beginning of the pandemic will be published at a later date and "will take into consideration the evolution of the global health emergency," Bruni said.

The pope will visit the plain of Ur in southern Iraq, which the Bible remembers as the birthplace of Abraham. He will also visit the city of Qaraqosh, in northern Iraq, where Christians are working to rebuild thousands of homes and four churches damaged by the Islamic State.

The president of Iraq, Barham Salih, welcomed the news of the papal visit, writing on Twitter on December 7: "Pope Francis' trip to Mesopotamia - the cradle of civilization, the birthplace of Abraham, father of the faithful - will be a message of peace to Iraqis of all religions and serve to affirm our common values ​​of justice and dignity “.

Christianity has been present in the Nineveh plain in Iraq - between Mosul and Iraqi Kurdistan - since the first century.

While many Christians who fled the Islamic State attack in 2014 did not return to their homes, those who returned tried to face the challenges of reconstruction with hope and strength, a Chaldean Catholic priest, Fr. Karam Shamasha told CNA in November.

Six years after the invasion of the Islamic State, Iraq faces difficult economic problems along with the physical and psychological damage caused by the conflict, the priest explained.

“We are trying to heal this wound created by ISIS. Our families are strong; they defended the faith. But they need someone to say, “You have done very well, but you have to continue your mission,” he said.