ITINERARY FOR HOLY FATHER'S FEBRUARY TRIP TO MOUNT SINAI

VATICAN CITY, JAN 20, 2000 (VIS) - The itinerary for Pope John Paul's February 24-26 Jubilee pilgrimage to Mount Sinai was made public this afternoon. This will be his 90th foreign apostolic trip.

The Pope will depart Rome the morning of Thursday, February 24 and arrive at Cairo airport at 2 p.m. local time where there will be a welcome ceremony and where he will meet privately with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. At 6:15 p.m. he is scheduled to pay a courtesy visit to His Holiness Shenouda III, Pope of Alexandria and patriarch of the See of St. Mark of Cairo in his residence. At 7:15 p.m. he will pay a courtesy visit to His Excellency Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar of Cairo, in his residence.

On Friday, February 25, the Holy Father will celebrate Mass in the cathedral of Our Lady of Egypt in Cairo in the morning. At 5:30 p.m. he will speak during an ecumenical encounter in the chapel of the Inter-ritual Major Seminary of St. Leo the Great in Cairo.

At 8:40 a.m. on the morning of February 26, the Pope, after a private mass in the apostolic nunciature, is scheduled to leave by helicopter for St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai. He will have a private visit of the monastery, to be followed by a celebration of the Word in the Garden of Olives, at the foot of Mount Horeb. Just before 1 p.m. Pope John Paul will return to Cairo for his return flight to Rome, where he is set to arrive at 8:45 p.m., local time.

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