This was the meeting of Pope Francis and President Biden 0:36
VATICAN CITY, Reuters
- The Vatican officially announced on Friday that Pope Francis will visit Cyprus and Greece, including the island of Lesbos, which is home to many foreign migrants.
The announcement of the Dec. 2-6 trip was further confirmation that the 84-year-old pope has fully recovered from the bowel surgery he underwent in July.
The announcement was made while making a thank you visit to the hospital staff where he had surgery.
The Vatican announced the trip, but did not release the full program.
Francisco will stay in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, from December 2-4, on his first visit to the divided Mediterranean island.
The internationally recognized government of Cyprus is run by Greek Cypriots, while the northern separatist administration is only recognized by Turkey.
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Pope Francis receives shirt from star Lionel Messi 0:32
Francisco will be in Greece from December 4-6, most of the time in Athens.
A Vatican source told Reuters last month that the visit to the Greek island of Lesbos would be on December 5.
The high pontiff visited the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos in 2016 and returned with a dozen Syrian refugees.
The Moria camp was destroyed by fire last year and replaced by another camp called Mavrovouni.
The Prime Minister of France gave Pope Francis a shirt signed by Lionel Messi
Francisco visited the Gemelli hospital earlier this Friday on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his medical school.
"It is good to ignite our memory with those who loved us, healed us, raised us," he said in the homily of an open-air mass for several hundred workers, referring to his stay in the hospital.
The pope was in the Gemelli for 11 days in July, during which he underwent surgery to remove part of his colon, which had narrowed.
It was his first hospitalization since he was elected in 2013.
The medical school said it would celebrate the visit by sending medicines needed for emergency treatments to Lebanon, Syria and Sudan.
Pope Francisco
