Pope Leo XIV started the second day of his tour of Turkey and Lebanon meeting bishops and other church officials on Friday at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, a 19th-century Baroque church in Istanbul’s Sisli district.

He is then scheduled to visit a nearby nursing home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order founded in France in the 1840s to care for poverty-stricken older people.

The American pope has emphasized a message of peace and a plea to help end wars in Ukraine and Gaza during his Nov. 27 to Dec. 2 trip to Turkey and Lebanon.