A Not-So-Innocent Abroad: Pope Francis in Arabia (I) View all posts from this blog
By:Srdja Trifkovic | February 04, 2019
Pope Francis arrived in the United Arab Emirates yesterday, February 3. Tonight he will address the “Muslim Council of Elders,†a body based in the UAE which supposedly “seeks to counter religious fanaticism by promoting a moderate brand of Islam.†We’ll reserve our judgment until we see the text of his speech (cf. Part II tomorrow); but on current form nothing good should be expected from the occasion.
The “Council of Elders†is the brainchild of Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo’s Al-Azhar mosque and university. Today’s meeting between Francis and el-Tayeb (fifth in three years) is light years away from Al-Azhar’s angry freezing of relations with the Holy See which followed Pope Benedict XVI’s September 2006 lecture at the University of Regensburg on Islam and violence, and his subsequent demand for greater protection for Christians in Egypt.
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/a-not-so-innocent-abroad-pope-francis-in-arabia-i/
