Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi hoped on Tuesday that peace would be achieved in Iraq, voicing Lebanon’s solidarity with the Iraqi people.He said after holding talks in Iraq with its Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi and Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan: “We look forward to collaborating with our Muslim brothers throughout the Islamic world to reject violence, intolerance, and mistrust.”
“This requires a commitment on the spiritual level and we hope politicians would work on achieving this through honest political work,” he said.
“Our visit to Iraq was an occasion to demonstrate the solidarity between the church in Lebanon and that in Iraq,” he continued.
For his part, Hashimi praised the first visit by a Maronite patriarch to Iraq, adding: “Iraqi society needs all of its sons, Muslims and Christians, to rise up once again.”
“Terrorism does not differentiate between Muslims and Christians, which therefore places us before a joint responsibility towards the country,” he noted.
On Monday, al-Rahi had criticized those who are seeking to “impoverish” Christians in the East.
“Those who were martyred were a sacrifice for our beloved Iraq to implement peace, justice, and stability,” he said during a mass on the first anniversary of the attack on Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad.
The patriarch arrived in Iraq on Monday on a two-day pastoral visit that will include talks with Iraqi officials.
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