Pope Francis leads mass for thousands of Egyptian Catholics

CAIRO, April29 ( AFP) - Pope Francis led a jubilant mass for thousands of Egyptian Catholics on Saturday during a visit to support the country's embattled Christian minority and promote dialogue with Muslims.

It was the second and last day of Francis's visit, which saw him plead for tolerance and peace on Friday as he visited a Coptic church bombed by the Islamic State group in December.

The spiritual leader of the world's almost 1.3 billion Catholics also became the first pope to visit the headquarters of the grand imam of Al- Azhar, one of the Muslim world's leading religious authorities.

Worshippers, old and young, nuns and priests, had been bussed to the stadium under tight security, with the country under a state of emergency following three IS church bombings in December and April that killed dozens of worshippers.

“We wanted to see the pope and show him that there is no problem here and that the situation is safe. We feel proud that he is in Egypt. It's a message that we are still standing on our feet,” said Kanzi Beblawi, a 33-year-old woman.

In the stadium some waved Egyptian flags and released balloons the colour of the Vatican flag and others tied together to form a rosary that rose to the sky. The event brings together members of all Catholic rites in the coun- try -- Coptic, Armenian, Maronite and Melkite. Egypt's Catholic community is estimated at about 272,000.

On Friday, the 80- year- old pontiff denounced violence and “demagogic” populism in an address to a MuslimChristian conference. “Peace alone... is holy and no act of violence can be perpetrated in the name of God, for it would profane his name,” Francis said. He criticised what he called “demagogic forms of populism... on the rise”, saying they were unhelpful to peace.

Christians, who make up around 10 percent of Egypt's population of 92 million, have long complained of marginalisation in the Muslimmajority country. Egypt has the largest Christian community of the Middle East.

Francis's visit comes 17 years after Pope John Paul II made a trip to the Arab world's most populous nation. On Friday, Francis met Coptic Orthodox patriarch Pope Tawadros II, and both attended an emotional mass at the church hit in the December suicide bombing. They prayed at a makeshift shrine for its victims, who were mostly women. They also signed a joint declaration pledging to “strive for serenity and concord through a peaceful co- existence of Christians and Muslims”.

Earlier in the day, the pope met Ahmed al- Tayeb, the grand imam of the Al-Azhar institution.