Reassuring trip

IT IS hardly surprising that Pope Francis would draw criticism on a visit to a dictatorship where Islam is the dominant religion. That comes with the job. Catholic conservatives have misgivings about his embrace of Muslims – especially in a country, Egypt, where radical Islamists have murdered Christians. Secular liberals are wary of a visit that could be interpreted as support for an authoritarian leader.

But papal visits are not diplomatic missions, even though a lot of diplomacy is inevitably involved. They are, as Francis explained to reporters on the flight back to Rome, about values.

He was there, of course, to express solidarity with the victims of two terror attacks on Coptic churches on April 9, Palm Sunday. Bombs for which the Islamic State took responsibility exploded in a city north of Cairo and in the main cathedral in Alexandria, killing at least 45 people.

Francis condemned any invocation of religion to justify such crimes, yet once again he rejected the notion that Islam and violence are intimately intertwined, most notably in a meeting with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of a mosque associated with Islamic scholarship. The only fanaticism that religious believers should have, he declared, “is that of charity”.

And when he met President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who stands accused of human rights violations, Francis declared that “history does not forgive those who preach justice but then practice injustice”.

However one rates the pope’s visit to Egypt, the pontiff ’s message of faith, humility, peace, tolerance and dialogue is a reassuring departure from the cynicism, cruelty, populism and tribalism on the rise in so many corners of the world.