Ayatollah Sistani highlights Palestinians misery in meeting with Pope Francis

Pope Francis held a historic meeting with Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on Saturday, reported by Reuters.

Francis’s meeting in the holy southern city of Najaf, marked the first time a pope has met with such a senior Shi’ite cleric.

During the meeting Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani highlighted the misery of Palestinian people in the occupied territories of Palestine, according to a statment released on Saturday by the Office of His Eminence Ayatollah Sistani.

After his 55-minute meeting with Sistani, Francis headed to the ruins of ancient Ur in southern Iraq, revered as the birthplace of Abraham, father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He is scheduled to give a speech at an interreligious meeting.

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is one of the most important figures in Shi’ite Islam, both within Iraq and beyond.

Francis said he was making the trip to show solidarity with Iraq’s devastated Christian community of around 300,000, just one fifth of the number before the U.S. invasion in 2003 and the brutal Islamist militant violence that followed.