Two of the most influential faith leaders in the world reached across a religious divide on Saturday to promote peace and unity in a historic meeting.
Pope Francis, 84, the head of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, 90, the spiritual leader of most of the world’s Shia Muslims, talked for almost an hour during the first ever papal visit to Iraq, the pontiff’s first trip abroad since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sistani, dressed in black, “affirmed his concern that Christian citizens should live like all Iraqis in peace and security, and with their full constitutional rights”, according to a statement.
Francis, dressed in white, thanked Sistani for having “raised his voice in defence of the weakest and most persecuted” during some of the most violent times in Iraq’s recent history, the Vatican said.
Neither man wore a face mask during the intimate encounter at Sistani’s modest rented home in the holy city of Najaf,…