STRASBOURG: Francis is second Pope to visit European Parliament

Pope Francis will pay an official visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday 25 November and deliver a formal address to MEPs.

The Pope was invited by President Schulz, on behalf of the European Parliament, when he paid an official visit to the Vatican on 11 October 2013. The previous visit by a sovereign pontiff was on 11 October 1988, when Pope John Paul II delivered an address to MEPs in Strasbourg.

At that time, just a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, John Paul underscored the Christian roots that undergird European culture and society and made an impassioned appeal for freedom of conscience and religious liberty.

When St John Paul II addressed the body in October 1988, the event was disrupted by the Rev Ian Paisley, leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, who unfurled a large orange banner branding the Pope “Antichrist” and shouted: “I renounce you. I renounce you and all your cults and creeds.”
Fellow parliamentarians threw papers at Rev Paisley and, after a brief scuffle, he was forcibly ejected from the hall.