The Pope’s trip to Iraq: “It is a courageous gesture, but perhaps also a whim”

ROMA – Father Luis Escalante is an Argentinian diocesan priest who knows Iraq a lot, a country marked by fire by decades of war, religious sectarianism and the barbarism of the fundamentalist group Islamic State (IS). He was ordained in La Plata, but lived for 12 years in Italy, where he was pastor of the Church of Sant’Antoninino in Poggio Mirteto, a town north of that capital. For these things of fate and to speak English and Italian well, he is also a postulator of three causes of beatification of the Christian martyrs – the Catholic Chaldeans – murdered in Iraq by Islamic fundamentalism. To prepare for these causes, which are already very advanced, In recent years, this priest has visited Iraq several times, absorbing one of the main themes of the Pope’s trip: the persecution and tribulations of the decimated Christian minority in Iraq. In 1947, there were 4.4 million Christians, a pre-Islamic presence, in Mesopotamia since the time of the apostle Saint Thomas, 12% of the population; Due to wars, economic disasters and the rise of fundamentalism, they are now between 400,000 and 300,000.

In dialogue with THE NATION, Escalante, 55 years old, considered very courageous the Pope’s trip to Iraq in the midst of the pandemic and an explosive context at the political level, but also “a whim”. “It’s a courageous gesture because there was probably no worse time to go to Iraq, he has everything against him, but it continues … But maybe it’s also a whim, that leaves yes or yes, at the same time as a concrete gesture of love to go and see Christians ”, he assured.

Can this historic visit of the Pope serve to bring Iraq out of the well in which it finds itself? “I hope so, although Iraq has a problem: it is the battlefield of a war that others are waging”He said, also defining this trip as very “political”, given the meeting that the Pope will have on Saturday in Najaf, the holy city of the Shia Muslim majority, with its supreme leader, Ayatollah Al Sistani, which suggests Cardinal Louis Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldeans of Iraq, in an attempt to reconcile two long-standing enemy factions and improve relations with the Christian minority.

What do Christians expect? “Christians today cry, demanding that a homeland that is denied to them be recognized and that their rights, which are enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, be recognized.. They demand human rights for all, citizenship for all. They hope to take this into account, that the Pope speaks in their favor, because the argument is not the Gospel, it is human rights, but we must not forget that it is a state visit. … Christians are reduced to the minimum vital and they wait for the mercy of God, ”Escalante assured. “I hope that God acts in the Holy Father so that he puts the words, the gestures so that they feel that they are important, that he comes to see them”, he added.

The first cause of beatification in which Escalante worked is linked to the virtual beheading of a 72-year-old Catholic Chaldean nun, Cécile Moshe, which occurred in Baghdad in August 2002.. “It was a horrible murder, she almost cut her throat with a kitchen knife … It was when Saddam Hussein was still in power (1979-2003), when the Christian minority, paradoxically, lived much calmer” , He said.

The second cause, with an episode that occurred in June 2007, before the arrival of the fundamentalist terrorist group Islamic State (IS) on the outskirts of Mosul, in northern Iraq, the massacre of a priest, Ragheed Ganni and three lay people, sub-deacons, Basman Daoud, Waheed Isho and Ghassan Bidawid, all very young. “It was a liberated area. “I cannot close the house of God,” the priest, who had been trained in Rome, told them when the terrorists broke into two cars and shot them. The assassins have never been arrested, but they present themselves as a terrorist group that will unite with ISIS, ”said Escalante, who stressed that an atmosphere of rejection of Christians already prevailed at the time. anyway. “The cause of the martyrdom of the four is based on the eyewitness testimony of the wife of one of the sub-deacons, who is now a refugee in Australia, who survived because the terrorists believed she had killed her,” he said. -he adds.

The third cause has to do with the violent deaths of 48 people, including two priests, a one month pregnant woman, entire families and children, in the terrible fundamentalist attack on the Syrian Catholic cathedral in Baghdad on Sunday 31st. October. 2010, in full mass. Tomorrow afternoon, the Pope will visit the scene of this crime, when there will be, in a restored and rededicated cathedral, a meeting with the local clergy, during which he will pay homage.

“The terrorists blew themselves up inside the cathedral after a four-hour seizure. The day after the attack, two-thirds of the Diocese of Baghdad left Iraq. Terrorists have been very successful in destroying ChristianityEscalante denounced, which did not hide, however, its deep disappointment that the beatification will not take place during the trip. “The cause of these 48 martyrs began in February 2019 and ended in October of the same year, very quickly, in view of the eventual journey. Humanly, it is impossible to reconstruct the 48 life stories of these people in a destroyed country like Iraq, but it was clear that all 48 died as martyrs. And the truth is that we are hurt because that would have been the moment of beatification, but the Holy See did not care, ”he lamented. And he blamed the delay on the scandal that hit the Congregation for the Causes of Saints with the defenestration of its former leader, Cardinal Angelo Becciu.

Escalante predicted, finally, that beyond the dangers implicit in the historic visit of the Pope, all will be well and it will be a success for Jorge Bergoglio. “Iraqis have prayed a lot that nothing will happen, there is a lot of prayer for peace. It is true that there are many risks, we do not know today what is happening in Iraq, there are services, drones, but it is up to the Iraqi government to cut the cod … I think nothing is going to happen because it is not in the best interest of the Iraqi government to do an about-face. And that the Pope will get credit ”.

More information