Pope Francis: A spiritual leader who connected with the people of the Middle East

Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Zayed Sports City Stadium, Abu Dhabi in 2019. The pontiff's visits to the Middle East were more than pastoral – they were diplomatic. EPA

The news of Pope Francis’s death will be a source of profound sorrow not only for the world’s one billion Catholics but for all people of goodwill who shared the pontiff’s heartfelt opposition to poverty and injustice as well as his desire to build bridges with different faiths.

Indeed, Pope Francis’s 12-year papacy was one marked by many firsts. In March 2013, the Argentine became the first pontiff from the Americas. He was also the first Jesuit to lead the Catholic Church’s many followers. But in the Middle East he will be remembered primarily as the first Catholic leader to visit the Arabian Peninsula and the first to visit Iraq.

Pope Francis dies at age of 88

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Characteristically, that three-day visit in February 2019 was also defined by several firsts. More than 150,000 Catholics who live and work in the UAE queued for hours to get inside Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Sports City stadium to see the pope celebrate Mass in the Arab Gulf region for the first time. The day before, Pope Francis broke new ground by joining the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Dr Ahmed Al Tayeb, in signing the Human Fraternity Document at the Founder's Memorial in the capital.

Although these were historic steps, they were about much more than generating a feel-good factor. Francis, as head of one the world’s oldest institutions, understood very well the fault lines of religion and politics that run through the Middle East. He spoke passionately about the violent persecution that endangered many Christian communities across the region, and established an unprecedented level of engagement between the Middle East and the Holy See.

President Sheikh Mohamed and Pope Francis exchange gifts at the Vatican. AP

Pope Francis and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, during a welcome ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi in 2019. Getty Images

Pope Francis arrives to celebrate Mass at Zayed Sport City on February 5, 2019 in Abu Dhabi. Getty images

Pope Francis, surrounded by shells of destroyed churches, leads a prayer for the victims of war at Hosh Al Bieaa Church Square, in Mosul, Iraq, March 7, 2021. AP

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi with Pope Francis during a welcome ceremony at Baghdad International Airport, in Baghdad, Iraq March 5, 2021. Reuters

Pope Francis reacts during a meeting with Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in the Sakhir Palace during his apostolic journey, south of Manama, Bahrain, November 3, 2022. Reuters

Pope Francis prays by the Western Wall on May 26, 2014 in Jerusalem, Israel. Getty Images

Pope Francis’s visits to the region were more than pastoral – they were diplomatic. In March 2021, a three-day trip to Iraq saw the pontiff pray amid the ruins of four churches in Mosul, the northern city that was subject to a three-year reign of terror by ISIS. Speaking later to The National, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans and head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, said the level of respect towards Christians increased immensely after the pope’s visit. Iraq’s government went on to establish March 6 as a National Day of Tolerance and Coexistence following the pope’s historic encounter in Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani.

In November the following year, Pope Francis returned to the Gulf on a milestone visit to Bahrain, underlining his support for respect, dialogue and tolerance among the communities of the Middle East. He also lent the Vatican’s considerable diplomatic weight to one of the region’s most intractable problems – the Palestine-Israel conflict. Five years before his journey to the UAE, Pope Francis visited the Holy Land where called for a two-state solution and invited leaders from both sides to attend the Vatican for peace talks. His feelings about the loss of life in Gaza were clear: “This is cruelty, this is not war,” he told Vatican cardinals in an address last December.

Christian Palestinians attend mass for the late Pope Francis at the Holy Family Church in the Old City of Gaza. AP

The special prayer followed the announcement by the Vatican that Pope Francis had died at the age of 88. Reuters

Only 1,000 Christians live in overwhelmingly Muslim Gaza. AFP

Pope Francis had maintained close and consistent video contact the territory's small Christian community throughout the war with Israel. AFP

He would call Gaza's only Catholic church to see how people huddled there were coping. Reuters

His last call was on Saturday when he "asked us to pray and gave us a blessing and thanked us for all the service for peace,” said the Rev Gabriele Romanielli. AFP

In his final Mass, on Easter Sunday, Pope Francis once again called for a ceasefire in Gaza. AFP

"Pope Francis was like a shield for the Christians in Gaza," a parishioner said. "He was the fighter who was fighting for our rights and for our protection." AFP

Sadly, conflict continues to reign in Palestine, but Francis was a constant presence, even during its darkest days. His daily phone calls to Gaza’s small and beleaguered Catholic congregation were a demonstration of how much the Middle East featured in his papacy.

In recent weeks and during Easter – a profoundly spiritual time for many Christians – thousands of Catholics across the Arab world remembered Pope Francis in their prayers as the 88-year-old fought a serious respiratory illness. In Dubai, Father Michael Cardoz, who has served the Southern Vicariate of Arabia for 37 years and met Francis personally, described the pontiff as “a pope who walks the walk, and talks the talk”.

This is an apt description of a man characterised by integrity and possessed of deep religious learning. But his time in the Middle East also showed him to be someone who understood the power of his office and the need to use it for good. Pope Francis was the first pontiff to visit Arabia; let’s hope that he is not the last.