Pope takes peace and unity message to Egypt

VATICAN CITY: In video posted online this week by the Vatican, Pope Francis sounded excited about his two-day trip to Egypt, which starts today, despite recent terrorist attacks.

It is the first papal trip to the Muslim-majority nation since Pope John Paul II visited in 2000. Francis plans to encourage dialogue with Muslim leaders and to show solidarity with Christians across the Middle East at a time of great division and violence.

Islamic State extremists this year declared a campaign against Egypt’s Coptic Christians, who account for about 10 per cent of the country’s population of 92 million. Extremists have attacked a monastery, churches and Christian strongholds to the north, east and south of the capital, Cairo.

Last December a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a chapel next to St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo, killing 29 people. On Palm Sunday this month, Isis suicide bombers targeted churches in Alexandria and Tanta, killing 47 people.

Naguib Gobrael, a Coptic Christian activist who leads the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, said he hoped victims of the attacks would be able to meet the pope. Many Coptic Christians were encouraged by Francis’s bravery in not cancelling his trip, he said.

Francis is expected to start his visit by meeting with Egyptian leaders including President AbdelFattah el-Sissi and Sheikh Ahmed Tayeb, the grand imam of Al Azhar mosque, Sunni Islam’s paramount seat of learning.

Despite the risk, the pope would not travel in a bulletproof vehicle, a spokesman said. - LA Times