Pope Francis promotes tolerance on his visit to Ur in Iraq

 Pope Francis is a huge religious figure who holds a lot of influence and power over a huge section of the society. Pope recently concluded his historic visit to Iraq, which was a three-day affair, where he promoted hope, peace and fraternity among people.

It was a jam packed trip for Pope as he visited a lot of historic places and different cities especially Ur where Jews, Christians and Muslims have a common belief unit as they unite to preach common patriarch Abraham.  He gave a strong statement from the city when he denounced extremism as a “betrayal of religion.”

Francis visited the ruins of Ur in Southern Iraq and stressed on the enforcement of peace and inter-religious tolerance. On his first visit to the country, the religious figure spread the message in all sections of the religion as well as the ethnic divisions. This is after Iraq is witnessing not only political turmoil as well some religious difficulties.

He addressed the congregation, a group that included religious minorities which were persecuted under the Islamic States group’s three-year horrendous rule on the Northern Iraq region. He said while addressing them We believers cannot be silent when terrorism abuses religion.” “This is true religiosity: to worship God and to love our neighbor”, he added.

He also urged both the major communities--Muslim and Christian--to sideline the animosities between them and come together to benefit the region and take forward a belief that takes people’s life as the top priority.

“All its ethnic and religious communities have suffered. In particular, I would like to mention the Yazidi community, which has mourned the deaths of many men and witnessed thousands of women, girls and children kidnapped, sold as slaves, subjected to physical violence and forced conversions," he said.

Most of all, Francis credited the authorities and civilians who put in a lot of effort to bring the country together after the ISIS attack, which especially affected the Northern part. A lot of historical sites, churches and monasteries were destroyed after ISIS took over the region. He encouraged young Muslims and all those who came forward to volunteer in this effort saying that it was only with the contribution of these people that mosques and churches could be restored once again.

The 45-minute speech called out for cooperation between religious groups to take the region to new heights. The meeting was held at the historic city of Najaf and even 90-year old al-Sistani also made an appearance.

After the Pope, al-Sistani also thanked him for making an effort to travel all the way to najaf and spoke in line with him saying that all Christians in Iraq should live like every other Iraqi with security and peace guaranteeing constitutional rights.