Tirana gets ready to host Pope

TIRANA, Sept. 17 – Albania is planning a warm welcome for Pope Francis, who is scheduled to visit on Sunday.
In the preceding days authorities intensified efforts to complete work at Mother Teresa Square, where the Pope will hold mass with thousands of people in attendance. Albanian and Vatican flags also adorned all roads leading from the airport to downtown Tirana.
Officials have released the agenda for the visit. The Pope is scheduled to arrive Sunday morning. He is to be welcomed by Prime Minister Edi Rama at the airport, which is also named after Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Catholic nun renowned for her charity work.
Schedule released
The Pope will then attend a ceremony at office of President Bujar Nishani as well as be honored by Tirana City Hall, which will give him a symbolic key to the city.
The Pope is then expected to hold lunch with the leaders of the Albanian Catholic Church before he meets with leaders of the other religious communities in Albania.
In addition to the larger Mother Teresa Square mass, the Pope will also hold a mass at the main Tirana cathedral and then visit the Bethany Centre for orphans — near the airport — before he heads back to Rome following the 11-hour visit to Albania, the first European country he is scheduled to visit since the Argentinean Jesuit took over as Pope last year.
Tribute for Communism’s victims
Francis’ decision to visit the tiny Adriatic republic as his first European destination is in keeping with his desire for the church to go to the “periphery,” Vatican officials said. It also confirms his desire to encourage once-persecuted Christian communities.
Like other religions, Catholicism suffered gravely in Albania under Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, who declared Albania the world’s first atheist state in 1967. Like the rest of the population, many Catholics were killed, tortured, imprisoned or sent to labor camps. The Catholic clergy was particularly targeted. Ahead of the Pope’s visit photos of clerics killed under communism were posted on Albanian streets.
During his visit to Albania, Pope Francis will pay tribute to the victims of Communism, the Vatican has announced.
The ban on religions ended in the early 1990s and John Paul II visited in 1993.
The Pope is also expected to emphasize relations between Christianity and Islam. Albania is a majority Muslim nation, although there is a substantial Christian minority.
The Pope will also pay a special tribute to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, an ethnic Albanian revered at home and abroad.
Security concerns
Despite growing fears over terrorism globally, the Vatican said it’s not taking any extra security measures to protect Pope Francis during his weekend trip to Albania.
Italian news outlets, citing unnamed sources, said Albanian law enforcement had flagged Interpol with concerns that Muslim militants who trained in Iraq and Syria might pose a threat during the Pope Francis visit.
Iraq’s Ambassador to Rome, Habeeb Al Sadr, was quoted by Italian media as saying: “What has been declared by the self-declared Islamic State is clear – they want to kill the Pope. … I believe they could try to kill him during one of his overseas trips or even in Rome.”
The Pope will be using his regular open-top Jeep, the vehicle he usually rides at the Vatican during his visit to Albania.
“There is no reason to change the Pope’s itinerary,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a briefing Monday. “We are obviously paying attention but there is no need for concern or a change to his program in Albania.”
Vatican security officials are “calm” ahead of the visit, he added.
Francis has said he wanted to visit Albania to highlight the rebirth of Christianity that was brutally wiped out during communist rule, and to showcase how Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims are working together now to govern the country.
Lombardi said that while there is general concern about the Islamic State threat, “there are no specific threats or risks that would change the pope’s behavior or the way the trip is organized.”
The Sept. 21 trip will be the fourth trip abroad for Pope Francis, and the first to a European country, outside Italy.