In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis arrives on a car driven by King Abdullah II of Jordan as he visits Bethany beyond the Jordan river, the site of Christ’s baptism, west of Amman, Jordan, Saturday, May 24, 2014. AP File Photo
VATICAN CITY—Pope Francis says he will make a one-day trip to Albania in September to encourage a country that “long suffered” from the consequences of past ideologies.
The pontiff was referring in his announcement Sunday to decades of communist rule by a dictatorship that tried to isolate Albanians from the outside world.
Tens of thousands of impoverished Albanians fled to Italy in the 1990s, crossing the Adriatic Sea in crammed ferries and fishing boats as the regime in Tirana crumbled. Many of the migrants have since integrated into Italian life.
Francis told faithful in St. Peter’s Square that he would also use his Sept. 21 visit to express support to Catholics who make up a tiny minority in largely Muslim Albania.
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