© GRAPHIC NEWS
© GRAPHIC NEWS
RELIGION
Pope visits Egypt in wake of attacks
April 28, 2017 - April 29, 2017 - Pope Francis visits Egypt on a trip intended to build on inter-faith dialogue with Muslim leaders. The two-day visit comes at a time of acute fear and uncertainty for the country’s Christian community following a spate of terrorist attacks.
Pope Francis will meet with the leader of one of the world’s leading Sunni Muslim institutions, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church and representatives of the Catholic Church during the two-day trip to Cairo.
The Catholic Herald reports that the visit will be the Pope’s 18th trip abroad in his four years as Pope and the seventh visit to a Muslim-majority nation. He will be the second pope to visit Egypt after St John Paul II went to Cairo and Mount Sinai in 2000.
The two-day visit will include a Mass in a stadium on the outskirts of Cairo.
On Palm Sunday suicide bombers attacked Coptic Christian churches in Alexandria and Tanta, killing 45 people and injuring 126 others. A week later, so-called Islamic State militants attacked a police checkpoint close to St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai, killing a police officer and injuring three others.
Here is the Pope’s schedule as released by the Vatican