“It will be a journey of peace, and the Pope will bring a message of reconciliation for all the Region”. This is how Greg Burke, director of the Vatican Newsroom, presented to the press, this morning, the journey that will bring Pope Francis to Georgia and Azerbaijan, from 30^th September to 2^nd October. It is Francis’s 16^th international journey, and Georgia and Azerbaijan are the 23^rd and the 24^th countries to be visited by the Pope, respectively. An “important” journey, said Burke, who will go to end Francis’s embrace to the entire Caucasian Region after his visit to Armenia, last June. A journey that promises to be clearly “ecumenical” in Georgia and “interreligious” in Azerbaijan, since, in both countries, Catholics are a small minority: in Georgia they are 112 thousand (that is, 2.5% of the mostly Orthodox population) and in Azerbaijan a mere 570 (that is, 0.01% of the mostly Muslim population). In Georgia, Catholics attend three rites (Latin, Armenian, Assyrian-Chaldean). That’s why the Pope’s retinue will include cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, and cardinal Kurt Koch, of the Pontifical Council for the Unity of Christians. At Tbilisi international airport, the Pope will be received by the Patriarch of All Georgia, Ilia II, whom, after the official visit to the president of the Republic and a meeting with the public authorities, Francis will meet in the Palace of the Patriarchate. Here, the Holy Father will have a private meeting with Patriarch Ilia II, at the end of which both will give a speech. A much-awaited meeting is the one that will follow soon after that, with the Assyrian-Chaldean community in the Chaldean Catholic Church of St Simon the Tanner, where the Pope will say a prayer for peace in Syria and e Iraq. The day after, a delegation of the Georgian Orthodox Church will be at Holy Mass at M. Meskhi Stadium, and this – the director of the Newsroom said – is “remarkable in itself”. After a meeting with priests and men of religion in the Latin Church of the Assumption (where 4 people will tell their stories and where the Pope will speak off the cuff), and a visit to St Camillus Assistance Centre, the Pope will visit the Patriarchal Cathedral of Mskheta, the spiritual centre of the Orthodox Church, where the Pope and the Patriarch will give, once again, a speech.

Pope Francis is expected to arrive in Baku, Azerbaijan, after just one hour’s flight from Tbilisi on Sunday, 2^nd October. The first event will be Mass in the little church of the Immaculate Conception in the Salesian Centre in Baku, where the Pope will say the Angelus. After several official meetings with the president of the Republic and the authorities, Francis will have a private meeting with the Sheik of Caucasian Muslims in “Heydar Aliyev” Mosque, which will be followed by an interreligious meeting with other religious communities, where the Sheik and the Pope will hold a speech. As to the conflict that is still going on between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, Burke said he cannot tell now whether the Pope is going to say something, that usually the Holy See “tries to fly high when there are rows”, and for the time being the only thing that can be done is “wait and see”.