Blitz on militants backed by pope
CAIRO Pope Francis has celebrated a Mass in a military stadium in Cairo on the last day of a two-day visit to Egypt, during which he called for leaders of all faiths to reject religious violence and denounce intolerance.
Three weeks after Islamic State militants killed at least 45 people in attacks on two Egyptian churches, Francis used his trip to launch a strong appeal for religion freedom and to accuse extremists of distorting the nature of God.
‘‘Together, let us affirm the incompatibility of violence and faith, belief and hatred,’’ he said yesterday at an international peace conference at Al-Azhar University, the 1000-year-old Sunni Muslim seat of learning.
Military Humvees patrolled largely deserted streets in the Egyptian capital yesterday, although the pope himself declined the use of an armoured limousine, preferring instead to travel in a simple blue Fiat car.
Police riverboats patrolled the Nile in front of the Vatican Embassy. Security men were posted every 100 metres or so along the 20-kilometre stretch between the airport and central Cairo ahead of the pope’s arrival, and armoured cars were stationed in front of the presidential palace.
The visit appeared to have caused little disruption to the city of 18 million, however, as it fell on the Muslim Friday-Saturday weekend.
After the Mass, Francis had lunch with Egyptian bishops and gave a speech to local seminaries before flying back to Italy.
Egypt has some 9 million Christians, making up 10 per cent of the total population – by far the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Most are Copts, with barely 250,000 members of churches within the Roman Catholic fold.
The faith is facing the worst persecution of its history in Egypt, with Isis militants threatening to wipe out Christians and attacking their churches.
Francis strongly backed the government’s response to the growing insurgency, saying Egypt had a unique role in forging peace in the region and in ‘‘vanquishing all violence and terrorism’’.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has had the support of Egypt’s Christians in his crackdown. But the general-turned-president has been criticised for human rights violations, while Christians have long complained of discrimination by the government.
The Al-Azhar visit was a diplomatic breakthrough for the Vatican after Sheikh Ahmed elTayeb, Al-Azhar’s grand imam, severed relations with Rome in 2011, when Pope Benedict XVI demanded that Egypt better pro- tect its Christian minority following a New Year’s Eve church bombing that killed over 20 people.
Francis hosted el-Tayeb at the Vatican last year, and his return visit has cemented the renewed relationship.
While Al-Azhar has strongly condemned Islamist extremism, Egypt’s pro-government media has accused its leadership of failing to do enough to reform religious discourse and purge canonical books of outdated teachings and hatred for nonMuslims.
Francis later went to the seat of REUTERS the Coptic Orthodox Church to meet its spiritual leader, Pope Tawadros II.
The two popes and the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew I, presided at an ecumenical prayer service at St Peter and St Paul’s Church, where a suicide bombing last December killed 30 people, most of them women.
Francis bent down and touched a blood-stained wall beneath a memorial to the victims.
‘‘Their innocent blood unites us,’’ he said. Reuters, AP