{"id":597305,"date":"2025-11-27T14:30:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T14:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/597305\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T14:30:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T14:30:20","slug":"pope-leo-arrives-in-turkey-on-first-overseas-trip-as-pontiff-pope-leo-xiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/597305\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo arrives in Turkey on first overseas trip as pontiff | Pope Leo XIV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo<\/a> is making his debut overseas trip as leader of the Catholic church, travelling on a six-day mission of peace and unity to Turkey and Lebanon in what the Vatican said was expected to be a \u201cdemanding\u201d schedule packed with meetings with political and religious leaders amid heightened Middle East tensions.<\/p>\n

The Chicago-born pontiff, who was elected in May, arrived on Tuesday in Turkey<\/a>, a country with a Muslim majority and home to an estimated 36,000 Catholics.<\/p>\n

Leo first met President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan in Ankara. He is also due to meet Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world\u2019s 260 million Orthodox Christians, for celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of a major early church council in Nicaea, now \u0130znik, which settled ideological disputes.<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s arrival is especially anticipated in Lebanon, where many fear a deepening conflict between Israel and Hezbollah after an Israeli strike earlier this week<\/a> on a neighbourhood in southern Beirut that killed four Hezbollah operatives and one of the group\u2019s most senior military commanders.<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s predecessor, Francis, who died in April, had planned to visit both countries but was unable to because of ill health.<\/p>\n

Leo is considered more of a moderate, low-key operator than the charismatic but often divisive Francis, and the choice of Turkey and Lebanon<\/a> for his first overseas trip is highly strategic, while also presenting an opportunity for the pope to show the world his style and personality.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo attending a wreath-laying ceremony at Ataturk\u2019s mausoleum in Ankara. Photograph: Alessandro Di Meo\/EPA<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Turkish media has buzzed with images of Vatican delegations touring the country, while in Beirut banners showing Pope Leo\u2019s smiling face have lined the stone outer walls of churches in the Lebanese capital\u2019s central Christian neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a trip where Leo will get to promote one of the central themes of his papacy, peace \u2013 and he\u2019ll have two different audiences in mind,\u201d said Christopher White, a Vatican expert and author of Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne will be world leaders: Turkey and Lebanon are strategic locations for him to double down on his efforts for peace in Ukraine and in the Middle East and with this being his first foreign outing, he\u2019ll have the attention of world leaders closely following the trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second audience will be Christian leaders, as Leo attempts to unite the region\u2019s long-divided churches. He would especially use the anniversary celebrations in Turkey \u201cto remind believers what they share in common is far greater than their divisions,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

The pope will also visit the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and will celebrate a Catholic Mass at the city\u2019s Volkswagen Arena.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV is welcomed by Turkey’s Culture and Tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy after disembarking from his plane in Ankara. Photograph: Vatican Media \/EPA<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s arrival in Lebanon on Sunday afternoon comes during a period in which many fear a potential return to the two-month Israeli bombing campaign that blanketed southern Lebanon and Beirut last year.<\/p>\n

Karim Emile Bitar, a professor of international relations at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut, said Lebanon\u2019s Christian community would be looking to the pope for a message of unity at a time when the country remained deeply polarised.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis visit matters because the Vatican has historically been the main protector of Lebanese national unity and of Lebanese territorial integrity,\u201d he said. \u201cMost states have political or economic interests. The Vatican is one of the last moral authorities in the world that genuinely tries to promote peace and justice without any hidden agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitar said he believed Leo would \u201cfind the right words\u201d during a visit that had \u201cthe potential to demonstrate that global powers like the Vatican can attempt to heal divisions in Lebanese society without pursuing their own political interests\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cEven though this visit is symbolic, and even though the Vatican has no army and no military influence, the simple fact that this is a man who speaks to people with genuine goodwill may matter more than the representatives of heavily militarised regional powers who are pushing Lebanon toward fragmentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo will lead prayers in Beirut\u2019s port, where a deadly blast destroyed swaths of the capital in 2020<\/a>, and visit a psychiatric hospital run by the Catholic church.<\/p>\n

The Turkey trip had been on the agenda for some time before Leo received the official invitation to Lebanon, where leaders hope the papal visit will bring world attention to a country also in deep economic strife.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe immediately embraced it,\u201d said Andrea Vreede, Vatican correspondent for NOS, the Dutch public radio and TV network. \u201cGoing to Lebanon means being able to talk about peace in the Middle East, in a really war-torn country, and very near to Israel. I\u2019m not sure if he\u2019ll speak directly about Gaza but he will obviously use Lebanon as a platform for peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lebanese, meanwhile, \u201cwant some hope from him\u201d, added Vreede. \u201cIt\u2019s a country that is also in huge economic crisis \u2026 they see this visit as basically the only miraculous thing that can help them.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Francis in 2021 made the high-risk trip to Iraq<\/a>, where he visited Mosul<\/a>, the northern city devastated by Islamic State militants, Leo has faced some criticism for not visiting Christian communities in southern Lebanon. \u201cHe won\u2019t go there \u2013 it\u2019s too unsafe,\u201d said Vreede.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Christians in other countries are hoping he will visit them, too. Inside the Maronite church in Bab Touma, a historically Christian neighbourhood in the Syrian capital of Damascus, Fahed Dahta said he was overjoyed at the visit to the region. \u201cThis visit is enormously important to people. We need peace in the Middle East. I want peace for the entire region, and an end to all of these wars: Israel-Lebanon, Israel-Palestine, Israel and Syria,\u201d he said. \u201cHe represents peace: He\u2019s the pope!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo is making his debut overseas trip as leader of the Catholic church, travelling on a six-day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-597305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115622145254765151","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}