Baghdad, Iraq (Tuesday, July 12, 2016, Gaudium Press) There will be more than two hundred young Iraqi Christians who from all the dioceses of the Country will participate in the forthcoming World Youth Day (WYD), to be held in Krakow in late July. 
And in that context, during the Via Crucis, some of them will have the chance to recite the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic, Jesus’ language, before the Pope. “It will be an important moment for all of us, to be confirmed in faith and communion with the whole Church of Christ”, says to Agenzia Fides Chaldean Bishop Basel Salim Yaldo, who will accompany the young Iraqis in their trip to Poland with Archbishop Bashar Warda (at the head of the Chaldean archdiocese of Erbil), a dozen young priests and seven nuns.
The Iraqi youth who are preparing to participate in World Youth Day in Krakow come largely from the diocese of Baghdad, Kirkuk and Erbil. Among the latter, there are also some young people who live as refugees in the capital of the Autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan, after being forced to abandon the villages in the Nineveh Plain with their families. Young Iraqis prepared themselves for WYD in Krakow with some community meetings, and on July 19, before leaving for Poland, they will live together a day of prayers, songs and sacramental celebrations marked by the Jubilee of Mercy.
In Krakow, during the celebration of the Via Crucis, some of them will recite the prayer of the Our Father in Aramaic. “Celebrating the practice, with which the Church relives the Passion of Christ – said Bishop Basel Yaldo – we will also look at the suffering of our country in the light of the suffering of Jesus.
In those days Iraqi boys and girls will exchange the story of their experiences with young people from all over the world. And on our return, we will convene a national meeting where young people who were in Krakow will tell all their experience. So we can see for ourselves that one can live Christian hope and joyful communion with the whole Church, despite the difficult conditions we live in. So we will realize that there is no need to flee, emigrate, and that it is nice to live the gift of Christian joy in the places where we were born, and where we met Jesus, listening to the proclamation of the Gospel”.
Source Agenzia Fides
