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Daily Telegraph
26 February 2000 THE Pope brought joy to Egypt's Christians yesterday by saying Mass for 20,000 in a Cairo stadium and speaking out for an end to discrimination against them over jobs.
Many worshippers were overwhelmed by the first papal Mass in the overwhelmingly Muslim country, where Christian rites are seldom publicly acknowledged.
Victoria Ibrahim, who attended with her husband and 10-year-old son, said: "For me this day is like the time when the Holy Family brought the baby Jesus to Egypt.
I think we shall celebrate it for years to come." At the end of the service the crowd chanted: "John Paul II, we love you" and waved scarves at the Pope. In his homily, read in French, the Pontiff said Egypt's Christians had kept the faith "even when it meant shedding their blood". The phrase was a reminder of last month's violence in Upper Egypt when 20 Copts - the Orthodox Christians of Egypt - were killed by their Muslim neighbours.
The Pope also called for Christians, who make up about 10 per cent of the population, to be given access to senior posts in the government. He said: "It is right that everyone, Christians and Muslims, while respecting different religious views, should place their skills at the service of the nation at every level of society." The government denies that it practises discrimination, but Christians are absent from the top ranks of the army and police.
In the last parliamentary elections, no Christian candidates were fielded by the ruling party, which won 94 per cent of the seats. The government corrected this after protests from Pope Shenouda III, leader of the Coptic Church, and appointed a token six Christian members. Of 12 Muslims asked about the Pope, almost all repeated the official line disseminated on television and in newspapers that he was a man of peace and tolerance whose visit honoured Egypt. |
