Pope of peace at Egypt of Peace

 Pope Francis begins a two-day trip to Muslim-majority Egypt on Friday to show solidarity with the country's Coptic Christians following the bombing of two churches that killed 44 people on Palm Sunday.

Francis is also using the visit to recognize efforts by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to allow Christians more equality in the country. He will join Pope Tawadros II, head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, for a conference on how Muslims and Christians cancoexist peacefully, an initiative Sisi is pushing.

“We have some reckless fatwas (Muslim clerical rulings) that have increased strife between Muslims and Christians,” said Usama al-Abd, a former president of Al-Azhar University who is now chairman of the Egyptian parliament’s religious affairs committee, which is drafting new regulations of fatwas

Pope Francis' visit to Egypt is a call to world peace,” al-Abd said. “So we all must unite and cooperate to rebuke terrorist thought as a global problem and not something that just plagues Egypt.”

The last papal visit to Egypt was in February 2000 by Pope John Paul II.

On Saturday, the pope will celebrate an open-air Mass here amid tight security in the wake of the bombings in Alexandria and Tanta that also injured 126 people. A week later, Islamic State militants attacked a police checkpoint close to St. Catherine's monastery on Mount Sinai, killing a police officer and injuring three others.

Pope Francis said in an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit on Thursday that "a visit to Egypt is in his plans for 2017," the Egyptian state news agency MENA reported. 

Pope twitted yesterday on his Arabic version twitter account: "I'll visit Egypt tomrrow as a pilgrim of peace".

Name: Heba Allah Magdy Abo El-Ftouh
ID: 62214