Pope Leo removes shoes but does not appear to pray in first mosque visit

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Pope Leo XIV visited a mosque for the first time since his election, and although he took off his shoes as a sign of respect, he was not seen praying.

On Saturday, Leo visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, a 17th-century place of worship considered a masterpiece of Ottoman-era architecture, with its walls and dome covered in turquoise ceramic tiles.

Leo, accompanied by local Muslim leaders, passed through the courtyard of the mosque and, after taking off his shoes, appeared inside in his white socks. The first American Pope, a big Chicago White Sox baseball fan, recently joked that he always wears “white socks.”

Muezzin Asagin Tunca said that Leo was invited to pray during his visit. The muezzin is an official who calls Muslims to prayer and who was one of the people who showed Leo around the Blue Mosque.

Tunca later said, “I asked him if he wanted to worship here, but he said ‘No, I’m just going to look around.’ “They told me” the Pope was going “to pray here,” he said.

There was further confusion when the Vatican press office sent a statement after the visit saying that Leo had prayed at the mosque and was welcomed by the head of Turkey’s state-run religious body, despite no event taking place. The Vatican later said that the statement, which mentioned “a brief moment of prayer” by Leo, was sent in error and was taken from a booklet prepared before the visit.

Leo is the third Pope to visit the Blue Mosque. Previous papal visits have raised questions about whether the Pope will pray.

In 2014, Pope Francis spent two minutes in silent prayer in the mosque, and in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI held what the Vatican described as a moment of “silent meditation”, and what some saw as the first time a Pope had prayed in a Muslim place of worship.

After Leo’s visit, the Vatican said the Pope “visited the mosque quietly, in a spirit of contemplation and listening, with deep respect for this place and the faith of the people gathered here in prayer.”

The first Pope to visit a mosque was John Paul II, who visited a mosque in Syria in 2001. The past sixty years have seen the Catholic Church engage in active dialogue with the Muslim world.

Pope Leo recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of a historic church declaration on inter-religious cooperation, attended by hundreds of religious leaders at the Vatican.