ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan — The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, arrived in the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq just after 8 a.m. on March 7, on the last full day of his three-day visit to the country, touching down not far from where rockets had hit some three weeks before.

Awaiting him were top Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials and representatives of several religious denominations as well as many women and children, mostly in brightly colored traditional clothing, singing songs with “baba” (“pope”) featuring prominently.

Even though the country is safer now than it has been in many years, it is still subject to violent attacks by both Islamic State (IS) cells and “outlawed” armed groups often presumed to be acting at least partially out of sectarian motives.

Iraq as a whole is also still battling the coronavirus pandemic, as is most of the world. This was the pope’s first international trip since the beginning of the pandemic a year ago. The apostolic trip had been awaited by Iraq's Christians for decades, and he did not want to postpone it. In 2000, his predecessor had expressed the desire to visit Iraq, but in the end decided not to out of security concerns.