Pope gets set for Turkey visit; Lanka told not to politicize papal trip

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis will visit the Turkish city of Istanbul at the end of November, his first trip to a predominantly Muslim nation, at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Vatican announced on Friday.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the exact dates and the program for the trip, which will last several days, were still not fixed.
Francis has already received an invitation from the Patriarch Bartholomew, the head of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople.
The Roman Catholic leader had expressed a desire to attend Eastern Orthodox commemorations in Istanbul in honor of St. Andrew, one of the apostles, on his feast day, November 30.
He and Bartholomew met following his election in March 2013, and again on a trip to the Middle East. In 2006 his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, also visited Turkey.
Francis has made three official trips during his pontificate: to Brazil, the Middle East and to South Korea last month.
He is making a visit to Strasbourg on November 25 to address the European Parliament, and has also announced travel to Albania.

Sri Lankan brouhaha
In Colombo, the Roman Catholic church urged Sri Lankans not to politicize a visit by the pope in January amid reports that President Mahinda Rajapakse may hold a snap election early next year.
Cardinal Malcom Ranjith, the head of the Catholic church on the island, called on Rajapakse’s government not to use Pope Francis’ visit from January 13-15 as a “political tool.”
His remarks came amid intense media speculation that Rajapakse, who removed the two-term limit on the presidency after his 2010 re-election, was preparing a poll early next year.
“We have told the president that it is not appropriate for a pope to visit a country that is in the middle of an election campaign,” the cardinal told reporters in Colombo.
“The visit should not be used as a political tool by the government, or the opposition, or anybody else for that matter.”
Sri Lanka is mainly a Buddhist country, but it has a 7.5 percent Christian population whose block vote could be decisive in the event of a close presidential election.
Asked if it would be acceptable if a snap election is concluded before the papal visit, Cardinal Ranjith said: “The government has to decide on those things.... It must be a visit free of politics. That is the position of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.”
The 77-year-old pope is due to spend three days in Sri Lanka before heading to the Philippines — Asia’s largest Catholic country.
He is scheduled to travel to the island’s former war zone and conduct mass at a church which suffered damage during the height of fighting between troops and Tamil rebels.
Sri Lanka ended 37-years of ethnic bloodshed after wiping out the leadership of Tamil Tiger rebels in a no-holds-barred 2009 military campaign that has also triggered allegations of war crimes.