Pope Francis will visit Cairo on April 28-29 at the invitation of the Egyptian president and the grand imam of the capital’s famed Al-Azhar mosque, the Vatican said Saturday.
The pontiff had hosted the grand imam, Ahmed al-Tayeb, at the Vatican last May, in a landmark meeting with one of Islam’s top clerics.
That encounter was the culmination of a steady improvement in a relationship that had broken down because of a series of spats under Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI.
The current pope has made interfaith dialogue and reconciliation a leading theme of his pontificate and has also overseen an improvement in relations with the Orthodox and Protestant wings of Christianity.
The Argentine pope has a long-standing invitation to visit Egypt, issued by President President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi when he met Francis at the Vatican in 2014.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.