Posted in: 09/10/2022 – 13:36Past update: 09/10/2022 – 13:34
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The Vatican (AFP) – Pope Francis goes to the money of Kazakhstan on Tuesday, despite his transportation issues, for a 3-day stop by devoted to dialogue in light of the tense regional circumstances induced by the war in Ukraine.
The 85-calendar year-aged pope, in a wheelchair due to knee ache, will take part in an interreligious summit in Nur-Sultan (previously Astana) from 13 to 15 September, with the presence of about 100 delegations from nearly fifty nations around the world.
The war in Ukraine will be just one of the great themes of the Pope’s 38th journey overseas, for which he chose the former Soviet republic bordering Russia, which turned impartial in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, 69, who succeeded Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2019, is an ally of Moscow, whilst tension has emerged involving the two nations right after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.
Tokayev refrained from supporting the Russian assault, although a big Russian local community lives in the north of his nation, which raises concerns about the return of Moscow’s imperial ambitions in these spots.
“In mild of the perilous intercontinental problem, the take a look at delivers hope for peace and reconciliation all over the earth,” the archbishop of Nur-Sultan Monsignor Thomas Petta, the official Vatican media, instructed Vatican Information.
“strengthening power”
For a though, the announcement of the presence of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, a staunch supporter of President Vladimir Putin, gave hope for a assembly with Pope Francis, but in the end he refused to appear.
The Pope requested for peace and denounced a “brutal and senseless war”, whilst Kirill defended Putin’s “military operation” and Russia’s reaction to “enemies at home and overseas”.
One particular of the themes that will dominate the Pope’s go to is also the query of China, with which the Vatican seeks to renew a historic arrangement with which it signed in 2018. Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in Nur-Sultan through the Pope’s go to, but no assembly was introduced involving them.
Kazakhstan is the major place in Central Asia and has a population of 18.7 million men and women, of which a significant bulk are Sunni Muslims (70%) and 26% militants, but Catholics signify much less than 1 % of the inhabitants.
Right after coming to electrical power, Tokayev embarked on a sequence of reforms, but in early 2022 the region witnessed bloody riots connected to rising fuel price ranges, which killed 238 people today and broken the impression of balance. mirrored in this state.
“We are witnessing a stage dependent on the consolidation of the authority of the existing President Tokayev … in a context of solid rigidity: internal rigidity before the functions of January, intercontinental pressure in just the former Soviet Union, but it is also around the globe with the involvement of other powers in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict “.
sermons and mass
On Tuesday, in advance of 18:00 (12:00 GMT), the Pope will arrive in Nur-Sultan, where by he will satisfy Tokayev at the presidential palace and produce his to start with speech to the authorities and the diplomatic corps.
He will also give a speech on Wednesday at the opening of the seventh meeting of the leaders of world and common religions, in advance of mass in the afternoon.
Pope Francis will dedicate the third and very last working day of his go to to the conference with Catholic officials and the closing tackle of the meeting.
He is the next pope to pay a visit to Kazakhstan just after John Paul II in September 2001. He beforehand visited Ga and Azerbaijan in 2016.
Confronted with the problems of his motion for a number of months, Pope Francis admitted in July that he could no lengthier “retain the similar rate of journey”, including that “I will have to spare myself a very little” or even “think about the likelihood of resigning.”
Throughout two visits to Malta in April and Canada in July, the Pope’s routine was established so that he could rest. He had to cancel a vacation to Africa in early July.
© 2022 AFP
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