In Turkey With a Message of Outreach, Pope Meets Erdogan

Pope Leo XIV kicked off the first foreign trip of his papacy on Thursday, arriving in Muslim-majority Turkey for a visit aimed at showcasing his interest in dialogue with other faiths and cooperation with other Christian denominations.

On the first of his four days in Turkey, Leo met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Later in the trip, he is set to visit local Catholic clergy and leaders of other Christian groups, including Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, head of the Eastern Orthodox church.

On Sunday, Leo is expected to fly to Lebanon, home to the Arab world’s largest Catholic community, to meet with church and government officials there. The pope’s visit there will force him to confront one of the world’s most fraught geopolitical contexts, testing his diplomatic mettle in ways he has rarely previously faced. Israel regularly strikes south Lebanon, endangering a fragile truce with Lebanese militias that was forged a year ago on Thursday, following a 13-month war.

In Turkey on Thursday, Leo stood inside the rotunda of the National Library and in front of a large globe in the capital, Ankara, and issued a broad appeal for dialogue and compassion between people of different countries, faiths and economic backgrounds. He spoke after meeting with Mr. Erdogan.

He took aim at artificial intelligence, saying it merely “accelerates processes that, on closer inspection, are not the work of machines, but of humanity itself.”