“I came as a pilgrim for the peace and a repentant asking for forgiveness,” Pope Francis told Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi after arriving in Baghdad on March 5 on the first-ever papal trip to Iraq.
Francis described his trip as “long-awaited and desired visit” to Iraq, the “cradle of civilization closely linked through the Patriarch Abraham and a number of the prophets to the history of salvation and to the great religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”