VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will travel to Egypt next month, the Vatican said Saturday, giving him another opportunity to promote better relations between Catholics and Muslims.
Francis has accepted an invitation to visit Cairo on April 28 and 29 from President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Roman Catholic bishops, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox church of Alexandria and the grand imam of Al Azhar mosque, the Vatican said in a statement.
Christians, mostly Orthodox Copts, account for about 10 percent of Egypt’s population, which is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
Violence sometimes erupts over disputes related to the building of churches, religious conversions and interfaith relationships.
Francis has put great emphasis on improving interfaith relations since he became pope in 2013, and a year ago he met the grand imam of Al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, in the Vatican.
That meeting unfroze relations after Al Azhar, a 1,000-year-old mosque and university center, cut off contacts with the Vatican in 2011 over what it said were repeated insults toward Islam from Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
Benedict had denounced what he called “a strategy of violence that has Christians as a target” after a bomb attack outside a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria that killed 23 people.
A bombing at Cairo’s largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people and wounded 49 in December.
Pope Francis has urged an end to what he called a “genocide” against Christians in the Middle East, but he has also said it is wrong to equate Islam with violence.
