Pope happy to land in Iraq on historic visit | Daily Express Online - Sabah s Leading News Portal dailyexpress.com.my - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailyexpress.com.my Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Pope Francis yesterday began a historic trip to war-battered Iraq, defying security fears and the COVID-19 pandemic to comfort one of the world’s oldest and most persecuted Christian communities.
The 84-year-old, who said he was making the first-ever papal visit to Iraq as a “pilgrim of peace,” would also reach out to Shiite Muslims when he meets Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
The pope left Rome early yesterday for the four-day journey, his first abroad since the onset of the pandemic, which left the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics saying he felt “caged” inside the Vatican.
While Francis has