Just imagine how much more dignified this close-up photo would be with the papal coat of arms on the papal sash! Just sayin’!
Crux is reporting that Pope Leo refuses to pray in the Blue Mosque during his visit. He said he preferred just to be a tourist. You can read the Crux article HERE.
This reverses both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis I both of whom did pray in the Blue Mosque.
Before entering the Blue Mosque, Pope Leo removed his shoes, revealing his White Sox. Pope Francis’ socks were black, thus another sacramental reversal.
But this is what happened according to Crux:
After removing his shoes prior to entering the mosque, displaying a pair of white socks, he was given a brief tour of the inside of the mosque, asking questions about the architecture and design.
However, unlike his previous two predecessors, he chose not to pray during the brief visit, opting for an explanation of the mosque instead.
Benedict’s prayer at the mosque two months later was seen as a significant moment of rapprochement, and a gesture of goodwill in attempting to restore good relations with the world of Islam.
Pope Francis, who made dialogue with Islam a cornerstone of his papacy, also observed a moment of silent prayer inside the Blue Mosque during his visit to Turkey in 2014.
Leo, however, took a different approach, saying he preferred to simply visit the mosque instead.
Aşgın Musa Tunca, the muezzin, the Muslim man who recites the adhan, the call to prayer, at the Sultan Ahmed said he had asked Pope Leo if he wanted to pray, saying it was also his house to worship in if he wanted.
“(Pope Leo) said, this is the house of Allah! It’s not my house, it’s not your house, it’s the house of Allah,” Tunca told members of the Vatican press corps present at the event.
Tunca said he told the pope that, “if you want you can worship here, but (Pope Leo) said, ‘that’s okay’. He wanted to see the mosque, to feel the atmosphere of the mosque, and I think he was very pleased with the atmosphere.”
No one prayed during the brief visit, he said, but said that for him personally, the most important gesture is to come together and get to know one another.
“We are the children of Adam and Eve. Allah said in the Koran, I created you from a single male and female, and I made you peoples and tribes, to come together to get to know each other,” he said.
“This is very important,” Tunca said, saying, “I look at the matter from that point of view, we should meet, we should get to know each other. That’s why I’m very happy to meet him here.”
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