Iranian author’s suggestion for Pope

Your Holiness the Pope, you too can, like Christ, bring about the greatest miracle of peace of the twenty-first century in reality.

With greetings, humility, and salutations to you, the successor of the great Christ,

I have a strange and real proposal for you.

If only, in this century full of war, killing, and the neglect of spirituality by the youth, you would seize this historic opportunity of your courageous trip to Lebanon, so that all of us—Muslims, Christians, followers of Judaism, and even nonbelievers—may kneel before your humane action as the continuator of the great and peace-seeking Christ.

It is enough that you continue to speak of the path of Christ not only beside the massive gatherings in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, but also put it into practice elsewhere, so that all of us—religious and nonreligious—may once again truly regain faith in the existence of miracles even in the present time. Just as you certainly believe in the Holy Book, in which the great and sacred Christ, to bring the people of his time to faith, raised the dead and healed the blind, and in this path—meant to turn people toward his God—was even willing to give his life and, according to your Christian belief, be crucified and taste the pain of iron nails, you too should create your miracle of today. This experience has, before, yielded a deeply humane and miraculous result in Lebanon.

In 1975, during the Lebanese civil wars among various Muslim, Christian, communist, and Palestinian groups, a Shiite cleric named Imam Musa al-Sadr, in the midst of the battlefield, announced a sit-in and hunger strike in the Al-Safaa Mosque in Beirut, declaring that he would not leave this mosque under fire until the killing and fighting among these groups ended and a real ceasefire was declared. At the beginning of his action, he uttered words that all the people of the world had expected to hear and see from you in the Vatican’s press statements during these more than two years of war:

“All day yesterday and last night, the complaints of men and the cries of orphans and widows reached my ears. Despite having made every effort and having not closed my eyes for a moment, the shelling did not stop, and the situation grew worse. At two o’clock in the afternoon, I decided to stage a sit-in and to fast. I have with me no provisions except the Book of God and a little water, and I will remain here either until I am martyred or until the country returns to its natural state. I bid farewell to my mother, my wife, and my children, and I came here to pray and ask God to save the homeland.”

And thus, out of respect for him, they stopped the war. I am certain that you too are ready to use your prestige to save innocent people: when you set foot in Lebanon, remain there until the war and crimes against this land are truly stopped, and do not leave. Christ’s miracle two thousand years ago was bringing the dead back to life and giving sight to the blind, but your miracle in the twenty-first century can, in reality, be far more contemporary and far more moving for the people of the world: preventing the killing of the living and preventing the crippling of children and women in Lebanon. I suggest that if you intend to strengthen faith and belief in the existence of God and His messenger Christ, you forgo staying in the magnificent palace of the Vatican for a few months and, by remaining in Lebanon, practically prove to all of us—Muslims, Jews, atheists, and even Christians of weak faith—that Christ’s miracles for peace are possible even in the twenty-first century.

Otherwise, I will join the logic of my Rabbi friend, who is a Jewish peace-seekers in America, in his debate with atheists when he said: “Regarding that mistaken god you have in your mind and fight with, and do not believe in—I also do not believe in him.” Now, on this trip, the God of Christ has entrusted you with the same authority that Christ entrusted to his good disciple Peter:   

“Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”

Your Excellency, the honorable Pope Leo,

The people of the world have heard many words about faith from the mouths of ISIL in the name of Islam, from Netanyahu in the name of Judaism, and from Trump in the name of Christianity. But regardless of belief, religion, or doctrine, all of us in the world today are looking to your practical miracle in Lebanon to strengthen our faith.
You can certainly restore to us—the people of the world—the true faith and peace-seeking spirit of Christ through your action.

With apologies for the frankness and boldness of this request
(One person on behalf of all peace-loving people of the world, regardless of any religion, race, or political affiliation) 

By Habib Ahmadzadeh