The symbolic power of the papal visit to Iraq

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Popes have not always yearned for coexistence with the peoples living in what is now Iraq. Around 1263, Pope Urban IV issued a papal bull that cautiously welcomed Hulagu Khan, a Mongol warlord who the pope hoped would convert to Christianity. To the enthusiasm of onlookers in Christendom, Hulagu and his allies had sacked and slaughtered their way through some of the greatest cities of the Islamic world.