-Caveat Lector-
Uh ... What was that about Saddam Hussein being the Great Beast?
Iraq Agrees To Receive Vatican Team
By AHMAD SAMI
.c The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Baghdad has agreed to a visit by Vatican officials this
month to prepare for the proposed pilgrimage to Iraq by Pope John Paul II,
the country's most senior Christian clergyman said Monday.
Rafael Bedaweed, the head of nearly 750,000 Iraqi Christians, said he
expected the pope to make his trip around Jan. 20.
It is the most definitive date reported yet for the visit, which has been
mired in uncertainty since last month, when the state media published a
scathing attack on the pope by several Iraqi scholars who said the pontiff
should not expect Muslims to cheer him. The government has yet to issue a
formal invitation.
The United States, Britain and Iraqi opposition figures have expressed fears
that President Saddam Hussein's government will use the visit to boost its
international standing after years of isolation.
Bedaweed, who met Vatican officials last month, said the pope was determined
to go ahead with the trip to Ur, the ancient Sumerian city believed to be the
birthplace of the biblical patriarch Abraham, revered by Christians, Muslims
and Jews.
The visit is part of a proposed tour of pilgrimage sites in the Middle East,
linked to the celebrations in 2000 when the church marks the start of
Christianity's third millennium.
A Vatican official who organizes the pope's foreign trips is expected to
arrive in Baghdad by mid-November, leading a delegation of other Vatican
officials, Bedaweed said. The visit has been approved by the government, he
added.
Government officials were not immediately available for comment.
Earlier Monday, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramdan downplayed the
significance of a visit by the pope. ``We welcome anyone who wants to visit
our country,'' he said when asked whether the government was keen to have the
pope in Iraq.
But Bedaweed, the Chaldean Catholic patriarch, said official talks about the
visit were going on between Iraq-based Nuncio Monsignor Giuseppe Lazarotto
and Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.
Asked whether John Paul will meet Saddam, Bedaweed said: ``There are
diplomatic relations between Iraq and the Vatican. So the pope is coming as
head of state. It's necessary that the pope visit our president.''
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