Bishop Gianfranco Todisco said he wrote to the pope last year saying he wanted to return to his work as a missionary.

"I hope that this visit will be an embrace of consolation and of encouragement to all Christians in the Middle East," the pope said.

At Rome's Basilica of St. Bartholomew, a shrine to modern martyrs, Pope Francis presided over an evening prayer service April 22, honoring Christians killed under Nazism, communism, dictatorships and terrorism.

Pope Francis will be in Egypt for two days beginning on April 28.

Pope Francis "will affirm that there is a certain solidarity among Christians" and that "we are all related together by Jesus."

Bill O'Reilly, a Catholic, who last year challenged the pope’s views on immigration and promised to convince him of the need for reform, shook hands briefly with the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics at the Vatican.