Catholic Pope Francis to visit Egypt later this month

By Mohamed Mahmoud

CAIRO (AA) - Catholic Pope Francis will visit Egypt on April 28 and 29, the Egyptian presidency announced Monday.

In a statement, the presidency said Francis would meet President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi during his two-day visit.

The Catholic pope is also slated to meet with Ahmed al-Tayyib, the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar (the highest seat of learning in the Sunni-Muslim world), and will also address a “world peace congress” that is being organized by Al-Azhar, according to the statement.

Francis is also set to meet Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II and attend a mass held for the victims of a December church attack in Cairo that left more than 27 people dead.

In 2011, Egypt’s Al-Azhar severed relations with the Vatican over what it described as repeated “insults” leveled against Islam by Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

Last year, the Vatican hosted Al-Azhar’s grand imam in the first ever meeting between the two religious leaders.