BENEDICT XVI WILL VISIT TURKEY THIS YEAR

Sunday – Catholic Weekly, Poland
May 10 2006

The news about the murder of Father Santoro in Trabzon, Turkey,
was released together with the announcement of the official visit of
Benedict XVI to Turkey. The head of the office of Turkish President
Ahmet Necdet Sezer told the paper ‘Hurriyet’ that the Pope would
visit the country on 28 November 2006. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, Vatican
spokesman, confirmed that information, adding that the visit would last
three days, on 28-30 November. This date is not accidental since the
Pope intends to see Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I on the feast of
St. Andrew. The Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is the head of the Catholic
Church, on the Chair of St Peter, whereas the Orthodox Patriarch
of Constantinople, on the Chair of St Andrew, is the honorary head
among the Orthodox patriarchs, he is primus inter pares – a first
among equals.

The Pope wanted to make the trip last year because Bartholomew I
had invited the Pope to join him for the celebration of that feast
day at the beginning of his pontificate. Unfortunately, the Turkish
government thwarted the trip, which had to be postponed (popes visit
other countries only when they are invited by the local church and
the government).

Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey will not be a precedent. Paul VI and
John Paul II visited the country, too. Paul VI went to the country on
the Bosporus in 1967, his main aim being to meet Patriarch Atenagoras
who was a sincere promoter of the ecumenical dialogue. Paul VI had had
the occasion to meet him in Jerusalem three years earlier. Apart from
the meeting with the patriarch Paul VI had meetings with the local
Catholic and Assyrian communities, the Armenian Patriarch Kalustian
and the representatives of the Jewish community.

John Paul II went to Turkey in the second year of his pontificate
in 1979. He spent three days there, from 28 to 30 November, and
he met Dimitrios I, the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch (the result
of the encounter was the joint declaration to appoint a mixed
Catholic-Orthodox commission on theological dialogue). John Paul II
visited Ephesus and Smyrna, the ancient cities that played a great
role in the early Church. On the occasion of that visit the Turkish
press published a letter of some Ali Agca who said he would kill John
Paul II.