Pope to meet top cleric in Iraq during first-ever papal visit

Baghdad - Meeting between religious figures reported to be a 'private visit' and 'without formalities'.

Pope Francis is to meet top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani during the first-ever papal visit to Iraq in March, a senior Catholic cleric told AFP on Thursday.

Louis Sako, patriarch of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic Church, said it would be a “private visit” between the two religious figures “without formalities.”

Sako said he hoped the two figures would sign the document on “human fraternity for world peace,” an inter-religious text condemning extremism that Pope Francis signed with the leading Sunni cleric, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, in 2019.

Pope Francis is set to be in Iraq from March 5 to 8, with visits planned to the capital Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and Ur, where Prophet Abraham is said to have been born.