ISTANBUL CNS – Pope Leo XIV, like his two immediate predecessors, visited the so-called Blue Mosque in Turkey’s capital; he spent about 20 minutes inside but did not appear to pause for prayer as Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis had done.
Instead, he listened to Askin Musa Tunca, the mosque’s muezzin who calls people to prayer five times a day, explain the building, its construction and how Muslims pray. And the Pope asked questions.
Tunca told reporters afterward that the mosque is “the house of Allah – it’s not my house; it’s not your house,” and so he told Pope Leo he could pray if he wanted. “‘That’s OK,’ he said, he wanted to see the mosque.”
Reporters pressed Tunca, asking again if the Pope prayed. “Maybe to himself, I don’t know,” he responded.
The Vatican press office said afterward that Pope Leo visited the mosque “in a spirit of reflection and attentive listening, with deep respect for the place and for the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”
As is customary, Pope Leo removed his shoes in the courtyard before entering the mosque in white socks.
Formally called the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the Muslim house of prayer was complete in 1617 and is known as the Blue Mosque because of the more than 21,000 blue tiles that decorate its walls, arches and domes. The tiles come from Iznik, site of the ancient Nicaea, which Pope Leo had visited the day before.
Leaving the mosque, Pope Leo noted to Tunca that they were going through a doorway with a sign that said, “No exit.” The muezzin replied that the sign was for tourists but, if the Pope preferred, “you do not have to go out. You can stay here.”
Pope Benedict XVI had visited the Blue Mosque in 2006, and Pope Francis toured it in 2015. Both had paused for a moment of silence facing the mihrab, which indicates the direction of the Islamic holy city of Mecca. St. John Paul II was the first pontiff to visit a mosque when he went to the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, Syria, in 2001.
In late October Pope Leo had led Vatican celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s document on relations with other world religions. The bishops at Vatican II said Catholics have esteem for their Muslim brothers and sisters, who “adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,” and “they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even his inscrutable decrees.”
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