The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Francis will visit Egypt next week despite attacks on churches that left at least 45 people dead.
Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman, told Catholic News Service: “The Pope’s trip to Egypt proceeds as scheduled.” Francis will meet state and religious leaders during his visit to Cairo next Friday and Saturday.
Fr Rafic Grieche, spokesman for the Egyptian bishops, also told CNS: “Egyptians are looking forward to Pope Francis’s visit, although the atmosphere at present is heavy.
“The Pope’s mission is to be beside his brothers at the time of difficulty. Now is the real time that he can bring peace and hope to the Egyptian people as a whole and to the Christians of the East, in particular,” Fr Grieche added.
Pope Tawadros II, leader of Egypt’s Orthodox Copts, remembered the victims at Saturday’s Easter vigil at St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral. He said: “History will remember the Palm Sunday martyrs. God selected them on that day to be ambassadors in heaven to pray for us.”
The pope described President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s visit to the cathedral in the wake of the blasts as a “huge show of solidarity”.
The two explosions – outside St Mark’s cathedral and at the Orthodox Church of St George, Tanta, 50 miles north of Cairo – killed at least 45 people and injured more than 100. It was the deadliest day for Egyptian Christians in decades and the worst since a bombing at a Cairo church in December killed 30.
Pope Tawadros told the Italian national network Rai News the attacks would “not damage the unity and cohesiveness” of the Egyptian people.
“Egyptians are united before this terrorism,” he said, adding that “these vile attacks that hit people of peace in places of prayer demonstrate that terrorism lacks any religion.”
Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar University, also condemned the attacks, calling them “despicable”.
Retired Coptic Catholic Bishop Antonios Mina of Giza, Egypt, said: “Despite it all, we will never lose hope.
“These atrocious gestures make us firmer in the faith and stronger.”
Bishop: we need more protection
More action is needed to protect Church communities in Egypt from attack, a Coptic Catholic bishop has said.Bishop Kyrillos William of Assiut, Upper Egypt, said he had met state security staff following the Palm Sunday attacks.
Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, the Catholic charity for persecuted Christians, Bishop William said that even before the attacks “our sense of security was not very strong”.
Referring to the 550 churches in Assiut, he said: “Thank God, nothing has happened here so far but we are too little prepared for such events.”
The bishop said the security staff he met advised that the state and the people cooperate to improve protection at churches.
The bishop said Pope Francis’s trip to Egypt was “more important than ever” and that the Pontiff had already “shown the courage, precisely in such circumstances, to come and strengthen the people”.
The bishop expressed his confidence that Christians would not leave the country en masse, as they have in Iraq and Syria.
He said: “The people feel a close bond with their country and all of them see themselves as Egyptians.”
