No one can deny that the new Pope for the Coptic Orthodox Church will take office as head of his church under very difficult and unprecedented circumstances. This comes at the time Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis have reached power and are trying to impose an Islamic constitution and the Islamic Sharia. Furthermore, they prosecute the religious minorities by all means, and sometimes they attack their houses of worship as well as their property, and force them to leave their homes.
Giving the current surroundings, the new pope will be in a very hard situation in which a lot is expected from him concerning the church and the demands of many Copts that may get him into conflict with the authorities as well as MB that's trying to restore the Islamic caliphate in Egypt and apply Sharia law.
Frankly, I pity the new pope since he will have to face many problems that were accumulated over many years and are not to be ignored any more such as preventing building new churches and kidnapping Christian minor girls to force them to covert to Islam as well as inciting killing and forced displacement of the Coptic Christians in addition to calling them infidels all the time in media and many mosques.
I'm afraid he will have only two choices before him; the first choice is to stand strongly and to demand the rights of more than twenty million Egyptian Christians in order to receive the same rights as the Egyptian Muslims.
It doesn't make sense in the twenty-first century that the head of the church has to ask the permission of the authorities to repair a toilet, a window, a wall or a ceiling of a church. While thousands of mosques built on the lands of the state even without permission, Christians are attacked and killed by the fanatics, supported by the state, to prevent them from building a place to worship God!
The new pope has to refuse the court-martial as well as the pressure of police to follow these court-martials. He has to demand applying the law without discrimination, racism or nepotism. He has to ask the state to be neutral and deal equally with the Egyptians no matter what is their religion. I'm sure that if he does so, Egypt may be saved from such gloomy future intended by many fanatics who trade on religion. I expect millions of Copts and moderate Muslims to support him in order to restore love and tolerance of Egypt.
The second choice before the new pope is an easy one. It's to do nothing and ignore all problems made by the state or the fanatics. If this is his choice, Coptic Christians will suffer even more and more under the Islamic rule.
The new pope is going to have a great role in new Egypt. He may face the attempts of Egypt Islamization under president Morsy who acts like an Islamic caliphate. We pray that God may give the new pope patience, power and wisdom to succeed in his mission and to bring peace to Egypt as well as his church.
