With a message of peace and tolerance, Pope Francis arrives in Egypt today, where he will meet with the highest world authority of Sunni Islam, among other religious and political dignitaries.
With a message of peace and tolerance, Pope Francis arrives in Egypt today, where he will meet with the highest world authority of Sunni Islam, among other religious and political dignitaries.
'... I will visit ... the cradle of civilization, the gift of the Nile ... the land where the Patriarchs and the Prophets lived, and where God, the Benevolent and Merciful, the Almighty and the Only God, made his voice heard', the Pope said, emphasizing with terms used in the Islam the common root between that creed and Christianity.
The two-day stay of the Bishop of Rome in Cairo comes just days after several attacks by the Islamic State in the North African country against the Christian Coptic minority (10 percent of the Egyptian population).
'I want this visit to be a hug of consolation and encouragement to all the Christians of the Middle East,' he added days before his departure from Rome.
The trip coincided with the realization in the Egyptian capital of the International Peace Conference of Al-Azhar (main center for Sunni Islamic studies) in order to emphasize the need for interreligious dialogue for peace.
After an expected meeting with the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El Sisi, Francis will speak today at the Al-Azhar Conference, an event that is already considered one of the most important meetings of all the history among authorities of Christianity and Islam (among others Creeds).
In that context, prior to his address, a meeting of the Pope with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed El Tayeb, is planned.
Also today he will hold a meeting with the Coptic (Orthodox Christian) Pope, Tawadros II, in the capital cathedral of Abasiya.
In the Conference of Al-Azhar Francis will also coincide with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartolomé, with whom no specific meeting is planned at the moment.
On Saturday, the Holy Father will officiate a mass for the local Catholic community at the Egyptian Air Force Stadium, where the event was moved to offer 'greater security guarantees,' said Emmanuel Bishay, bishop of Luxor and president of the organizing committee of the visit of Francis to Egypt.
Despite the importance of the visit and the media stir around it, today Cairo maintains its habitual rhythm of life, only marked by very increased security measures and the manifest indifference of the majority of the population with respect to this event.