Leo XIV chose not to pray during his visit to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and broke with the custom begun by Benedict The decision surprised the landowners, but it did not offend them … The Vatican later explained that the Pope “experienced the visit in silence, in the spirit of remembering and listening, with deep respect for the place and for the faith of those who gather there to pray.”
The mosque’s muezzin explained to ABC, after accompanying the Pope during the 15-minute tour: “They explained to me that the Pope would pray during the visit, and I confirmed that there was no problem.” He added: “But when I told him that it is the house of God, if you want you can pray, and if you want you can spend a moment of worship, he said to me: That’s okay, let’s continue visiting the mosque.” He stressed that he was completely satisfied: “We are very happy that you visited us, because it is important for us to be together and get to know each other.”
Türkiye did not attach much importance to this gesture, as Leo XIV respectfully rejected the muezzin’s proposal and continued the visit cordially. Although the unofficial guide prepared by the Vatican states that the Pope will perform a silent prayer in the most important mosque in the country, a Vatican spokesman explained before the start of the trip that we will have to wait and see what happens on Saturday.
A sudden decision
In 2006, Benedict It was assumed that the new pope would do the same.
Leo XIV’s decision can be linked to the desire not to anger Turkish nationalists, who criticized the popes praying in this place. Indeed, also this Saturday, in his only public Mass in this country, the Pope asked Catholics in Turkey to cooperate with Muslims “to value what unites us, to break down the walls of prejudice and mistrust, and to promote knowledge and mutual respect.” “All too often, religion is used to justify wars and atrocities,” he said in his sermon.
99% of the population of this country are Muslims. The number of Christians is about 0.2%, including 60% Orthodox. “It is estimated that there are about 35,000 Catholics in the country, but these are very approximate numbers,” the spokesman for the Catholic Church in Turkey, the Rev. Claudio Monge, explained to ABC. “The profile changes a lot. “I think half of them are Turks, and the other half are immigrants,” Monge says.
Huge mass
The Mass in Lyon was attended by about 4,000 people, four times the number celebrated in this country by his predecessors Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014. Masses were then held in the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, this time in a sports hall. Among the pilgrims were several Spanish families and military personnel residing at the NATO base in Izmir.
As a symbolic legacy of this visit, the Pope asked Catholics in his homily to be architects of “peace, unity and reconciliation” and to “care, strengthen and expand bridges” within the Church itself, with other Christians in this country and with Muslims. Unity behind closed doors is not as simple as it seems because “within this church there are four different liturgical traditions, namely Latin, Armenian, Chaldean and Syriac,” which is also a source of misunderstanding and jealousy between the communities.
This Saturday, the Pope also met behind closed doors with leaders of Christian churches, in the only church opened in this country since the birth of the modern Turkish Republic in 1923. There Leon proposed the year 2033 as a target for taking important steps toward unity among Christians, when they will all commemorate the 2,000th anniversary of Christ’s resurrection. The Holy See spokesman said: “The Pope invited them to walk together on the spiritual path that leads to the Jubilee of Redemption in 2033, with the aim of returning to Jerusalem, to the Upper Room, the place of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, a journey that leads to complete unity.”
The visit to Türkiye will conclude on Sunday, when the Pope intends to visit the Vatican, affiliated with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the first among the Orthodox patriarchs. The Bishop of Rome will have lunch with Patriarch Bartholomew I and will immediately head to Istanbul Airport to depart for Lebanon.
Your new itinerary
The Pope arrives in Beirut at 2:45 p.m. Madrid time, just one week after Israel launched an attack on the Lebanese capital to assassinate Abu Ali Tabatabai, a Hezbollah military commander. The Holy See designed this visit to promote stability in the country with the largest Christian population in the Middle East, to press for clarification of the explosion in the Beirut port in August 2020 that killed 218 people, and to thank Catholics who did not abandon the region.
The Pope will devote the afternoon to institutional meetings, where he will meet the three main authorities in the country: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, a Christian; Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a Sunni Muslim; The Speaker of the National Assembly, Nabih Berri, is a Shiite Muslim. At the last minute, he will deliver a speech before Lebanese politicians, diplomats and representatives of civil society.
Hezbollah published a message on social media in which it welcomed the Pope’s visit and called on it to “reject the injustice and aggression to which our country is being subjected by the Zionist invaders and those who support them.”