There have been dark days in the annals of the Coptic church in Egypt, with Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) targeting Christian churches in a series of bloody attacks since last December. In the most recent atrocity, 45 worshippers were killed and more than 100 others injured when the terrorists bombed two Palm Sunday services in Alexandria and the Nile delta city of Tanta. Pope Tawadros II, the spiritual leader of the Copts, was leading the Alexandria service when a bomber blew himself at the church gates. Since the attacks, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi has declared a state of emergency and his security services are offering no respite in the fight against Daesh.
Pope Francis I, the leader of the world’s billion Roman Catholics, has lent a strong message of support to the Coptic church, meeting with Tawadros in Cairo. Francis has also met leading Islamic officials to send a clear and unequivocal message to Daesh repudiating its hate and violence. He is the second Roman Catholic pontiff to visit Egypt, following in the footsteps of John Paul II, who had travelled there a month before the 9/11 terror attacks of 2001.
Given the state of emergency and the visit of the high-profile Francis, security arrangements were predictably tight. Francis, however, is a brave man, who forsake a heavily protected vehicle to travel on Cairo’s streets in a regular Fiat car, waving to cheering crowds from an open window. His visit and this extraordinary gesture towards terrorists — that they can neither change nor affect the course of ordinary actions — underline his message of building better relations between Christians and Muslims. All are together in this struggle.
