TIL Desk/World/Cairo/ Pope Francis pleaded for peace in a visit to Egypt as he attended a service in solidarity with the embattled Coptic minority at a church bombed by the Islamic State group. The pontiff walked to the Saint Peter and Saint Paul church in Cairo in a procession led by standard-bearing clergy, after meeting Coptic Pope Tawadros II at his headquarters yesterday.
Security forces in the capital were on high alert under a state of emergency following a series of church bombings claimed by IS. On April 9, the jihadists bombed two churches in the Arab world’s most populous country, killing 45 people in the deadliest attack on Copts in recent memory.
Last December, the Saint Peter and Saint Paul church was itself targeted by a suicide bomber in an attack that killed 29 people. Francis had earlier met President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of the Al-Azhar institution, one of Muslim world’s leading authorities, to push for dialogue between the two faiths. In a speech to a Muslim-Christian conference, the 80- year-old pontiff denounced violence and populism. “Peace alone… Is holy and no act of violence can be perpetrated in the name of God, for it would profane his name,” Francis said.
