Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Turkey on his first foreign trip, a visit that fulfills the late Pope Francis' plans to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity's first ecumenical council, per the AP. In 325 AD, that council hashed out the first version of the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that millions of Christians still recite each Sunday. The pope, who was welcomed on the tarmac of Ankara's Esenboga Airport by a military guard of honor, will meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday, then travel to Istanbul for three days of ecumenical and interfaith meetings. He'll then visit Lebanon from Sunday to Tuesday, bringing a message of peace to the region at a crucial time for efforts to ease Mideast tensions.
Speaking to reporters as he traveled to Turkey, Pope Leo XIV offered a message to the Americans gathered. "Happy Thanksgiving!" he said. "It's a wonderful day to celebrate." At least two journalists presented Leo with pumpkin pies. The Chicago native was also gifted a baseball bat once owned by legendary White Sox player Nellie Fox, and a pair of White Sox-branded slippers and socks.
Despite an early wakeup, Leo said he had already done his Wordle online game before embarking on the six-day trip. Leo revealed last week that he opts for the challenging strategy of changing his start word each day when playing the popular New York Times puzzle. He said he got Thursday's word in three tries. Later, he visited the mausoleum of modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, where he laid a floral arrangement in front of the marble grave with the help of two honor guards and observed a minute a silence. He said he knows the visit to commemorate a key ecumenical anniversary was important for Christians. But "we hope to also announce, transmit and proclaim how important peace is throughout the world," he said.
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