Pope Francis participates in a memorial prayer on March 7, 2021, at Hosh al-Bieaa, the church square, in Mosul, Iraq, for the victims of the ISIS war. Syriac Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Chaldean Catholic churches were all destroyed in the war between 2014 and 2017. Photo: CNS/Paul Haring
When Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope in 1978 taking the name John Paul II, he joked with the Roman crowd that the cardinals had called him da un paese lontano – from a faraway country. After all, the Archbishop of Krakow had come from behind the ‘iron curtain’ and was the first non-Italian Pope since…
Michael Kelly
