Vatican says ‘demanding’ six-day mission will be packed with meetings with political and religious leaders
Pope Leo will make his debut overseas trip as leader of the Catholic church on Thursday, travelling on a six-day mission of peace and unity to Turkey and Lebanon in what the Vatican said was expected to be a “demanding” schedule packed with meetings with political and religious leaders amid heightened Middle East tensions.
In Turkey, a country with a Muslim majority and home to an estimated 36,000 Catholics, the Chicago-born pontiff, who was elected in May, will first meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara.
He will also meet Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians, for celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of a major early church council in Nicaea, now İznik, which settled ideological disputes.
Leo’s arrival is especially anticipated in Lebanon, where many fear a deepening conflict between Israel and Hezbollah after an Israeli strike earlier this week on a neighbourhood in southern Beirut that killed four Hezbollah operatives and one of the group’s most senior military commanders.
