The Egyptian government has announced that the Pope will be visiting Egypt next month, as reported on this website. This will be something of hazardous trip for the Holy Father, given that Egypt is in the midst of a low level but bloody sectarian conflict between Muslims and its Christian minority, but one can understand why the Pope wants to go to Egypt, and equally well why the Egyptian government wants to host him.
The non-democratically elected government of General El-Sisi would clearly like to receive the ever popular Pope, in the hope that something of the papal charisma might rub off on the regime, which, though broadly supported in the West (the alternatives seem unpalatable) is hardly respectable. Like every other dictator, General El-Sisi is hoping for a bit of papal legitimisation. The general is, of course, the legal head of state, but a Pope can supply moral legitimisation in a way that any other visiting head of state cannot.
