Pope Francis arrived in Slovakia on Sunday, after a short stopover in Budapest, for a four-day official visit where he will notably meet Holocaust survivors and members of the Roma community.
The Sovereign Pontiff, who advocated “openness” to others after his meeting with Hungarian sovereignist leader Viktor Orban, was welcomed in Bratislava by Slovak President Zuzana Caputova.
To mark his arrival, the bells of 2,627 Catholic churches across the country rang in unison as his plane landed.
Pope Francis is scheduled to meet with members of the Jewish community, including Holocaust survivors, on Monday.
He will then travel to poorer parts of the country on Tuesday, where he will meet with members of the Roma community, among others, and return to Bratislava on Wednesday for an open-air Mass at Sastin’s place of pilgrimage before returning to Rome.
Slovakia is one of the least vaccinated countries in Europe (only half of adults are fully vaccinated, compared to over 70% in the EU as a whole). The government had initially decided to reserve all events for vaccinated people, causing discontent and a low number of reservations. He finally changed his mind a week before the trip, deciding to give entry tickets to holders of negative tests and those recovered from Covid-19.
Reference-feedproxy.google.com