En route to Türkiye and Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV tells 80+ journalists his visit marks 1,700 years since Nicaea and aims to promote global peace and fraternity.
Newsroom (27/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) Twenty minutes after the papal plane lifted off from Rome’s Fiumicino Airport on Wednesday morning, Pope Leo XIV emerged smiling from behind the curtain separating the press section, immediately greeting the American journalists aboard with a cheerful “Happy Thanksgiving!”
Speaking to more than 80 reporters, photographers and camera operators accompanying him on the first leg of his November 27-December 2 apostolic journey to Türkiye and Lebanon, the Pope described the visit as fundamentally about “unity and peace.”
“It’s so important today that the message be transmitted in a way that really reveals the truth and the harmony that the world needs,” he said. “In a special way, this particular trip to Türkiye and to Lebanon has, first of all, the very meaning of unity, celebrating 1,700 years from the Council of Nicaea.”
Though Pope Leo has travelled extensively as an Augustinian missionary and later as Prior General of the order, this will be his first visit to both countries as pontiff.
He told the journalists he was especially eager for the journey because of what it represents “for Christians but also for the entire world in terms of promoting peace.”
“In a special way, the presence of myself, of the Church, of believers in both Türkiye and in Lebanon, we hope to also announce, transmit, and proclaim how important peace is throughout the world and to invite all people to come together to search for greater unity and greater harmony and to look for the ways that all men and women can truly be brothers and sisters, in spite of differences, in spite of different religions, in spite of different beliefs,” he said.
The Pope repeatedly thanked the travelling press corps “for the service that you offer to the Vatican, to the Holy See, and to my person, but also to the whole world,” and urged them to help promote peace and unity during the trip.
The traditional in-flight greeting quickly turned festive. Veteran Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki, who is covering her 164th papal journey since 1979, welcomed Pope Leo on behalf of the press and presented him with a Byzantine-style icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe — “for a Pope from North America but with a Latin American heart.”
Pope Leo then made his way down the narrow aisle, shaking hands, posing for selfies and accepting an eclectic array of gifts. Among them were a homemade pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, Chicago White Sox slippers and socks for the pontiff’s beloved baseball team, and a 1950s-era baseball bat that once belonged to Hall of Fame second baseman Nellie Fox.
“How did this pass security?” the Pope laughed as he hefted the bat.
Other offerings included framed photo collages of his childhood and missionary years, a parchment of gratitude from the war-torn Ukrainian Greek Catholic community in Kharkiv, and the coat of arms of a Spanish journalist’s ancestors.
Perhaps the most moving moment came when Eva Fernández of Spain’s COPE radio handed Pope Leo a letter from 15-year-old Ignacio Gonzálvez, currently battling aggressive lymphoma at the Vatican’s Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital. The Pope had met the teenager and his family during the Jubilee of Youth last summer and later visited him in hospital.
Speaking briefly with an Algerian-born reporter, Pope Leo added that he hopes one day to visit Algeria.
As the plane began its descent toward Ankara, the Pope once again thanked the journalists for “being part of this historic moment” and asked them to help carry forward the trip’s central message: that genuine fraternity is possible even amid deep religious and cultural differences.
The six-day journey will take Pope Leo first to Ankara and Istanbul in Türkiye — where he will commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea — before continuing to Beirut and northern Lebanon from November 30 to December 2.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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