VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage to Iraq in March, pandemic conditions permitting, the Vatican said Monday, in announcing what would be the pontiff's first trip abroad in more than a year.
The Vatican said Francis had accepted invitations from the Iraqi government from the local Catholic church.
It wasn't immediately clear if the pope would travel if he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19 before the trip.
In mid-2019, Francis told Catholic aid agencies that he planned on traveling to Iraq in 2020.
While then ailing, he had wanted to go to Iraq in 1999, but, according to the Vatican, the pilgrimage never happened because then-dictator Saddam Hussein postponed it.