Courtney McGrail“Freedom of religion and freedom of expression, when truly guaranteed to each person, will help friendship to flourish and thus become an eloquent sign of peace” – Pope
Interreligious dialogue dominated Pope Francis' first day in Turkey, with the Pope and Turkish leaders frankly stating their concerns, respectively, about discrimination against Christians in the Middle East and against Muslims in the West.
"It is essential that all citizens – Muslim, Jewish and Christian – both in the provision and practice of the law, enjoy the same rights and respect the same duties," the Pope said in a speech to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials at the presidential palace.
"Freedom of religion and freedom of expression, when truly guaranteed to each person, will help friendship to flourish and thus become an eloquent sign of peace," the Pope said, adding that commitment to such freedoms is essential to countering "fanaticism and fundamentalism, as well as irrational fears which foster misunderstanding and discrimination.
Turkey's secularist constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but Pope Francis' call for equality "both in the provision and practice of the law" seemed to allude to persistent de facto discrimination against non-Muslims.
Members of the country's minuscule Christian community – less than 0.2% of a total of 76 million – are still commonly regarded as foreigners by the Muslim-majority population and authorities have kept the country's only Greek Orthodox seminary closed since 1971.
Speaking prior to the Pope, Erdogan raised the issue of prejudice and intolerance against Muslims in other countries, stating that "Islamophobia is a serious and rapidly rising problem in the West" and lamenting that "attempts to identify Islam with terrorism hurt millions”.