VATICAN CORNER
On April 28th & 29th, 2017, the 80 year-old Pope Francis made a brief visit to Egypt. The main theme of the visit was to promote tolerance, peace and dialogue between Christians and Muslims in the Arab world’s largest country. It was nearly two weeks after the Palm Sunday bombing of two Coptic churches there, which left 45 people dead and scores injured. The Coptic Orthodox Church is the largest Christian Church in Egypt, Northeast Africa and the Middle East. According to tradition, the Coptic Church was founded by the Apostle Mark in Alexandria a decade or so after the death of Jesus. The Coptic Church split from the Roman Catholic Church in 451 AD, but dialogue in recent decades has drawn the two churches closer. Pope Francis’s visit comes in a critical time for Egypt, with the country suffering from intensifying terrorist attacks by Islamic State militants, particularly against Christians. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a strongman leader with a record of mass detention, torture and killings without court justice has used harsh crackdowns to combat Islamist violence. As a defensive measure he has deployed troops to protect churches across the country. In Cairo, at a peace conference organized by Al Azhar mosque and university, one of the most influential centers of Sunni Islamic learning, Pope Francis delivered a blunt and powerful message to the Muslim world. He warned against wrapping violence and terror in the language of religion. “As religious leaders, we are called, therefore, to unmask the violence that masquerades as purported sanctity. We have an obligation to denounce violations of human dignity and human rights, to expose attempts to justify every form of hatred in the name of religion, and to condemn these attempts as idolatrous caricatures of God.” Celebrating in an open air mass at a suburban Cairo stadium, Pope Francis told the crowd of about 15,000 Catholics and Copts “True faith is one that makes us more charitable, more merciful, more honest and more humane … it makes us see the other not as an enemy to be overcome but a brother or sister to be loved, served and helped.” Two military helicopters circled the stadium and police checked cars in the area for explosives. Only attendees with a pass from the Egyptian homeland security agency were allowed in the stadium. Despite the security concerns, Francis rode around the stadium in an open-topped golf cart ahead of the Mass as the joyful crowd welcomed him with yellow and white balloons (the Vatican flag colors) and a chorus sang Gloria.
Sources: npr.org, nytimes.com, cnn.com