Ramsīs al-Najjār, the Church's legal adviser, said Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II visited to Vatican to renew relations between the two Churches. Pope Tawadros will also discuss solutions to restore the relationship between the Azhar and Vatican, which has been tense since late Vatican Pope Benedict XVI made a speech linking Islam and violence. He highlighted that the restoration of relations between the two institutions would benefit Egypt, due the Vatican's worldwide influence, and it would depict Egypt in a different way showing that the state respects minorities and the end of discrimination. Pope Tawadros emphasized the non-existence of sectarian divisions in Egypt, stating that a few isolated incidents are used to depict an unrealistic picture. He also states that Egyptians are able to solve internal Coptic affairs without foreign intervention.

Sūzī Nāshid, a member of the Shūrá Council, said that the restoration of relations between the two largest religious institutions in the world would dispel Western ignorance of Islamic concepts and the association of the religion with the crimes of certain individuals. Nāshid supported the Pope Tawadros' decision to reject the foreign intervention in the Egyptian Coptic affairs Muhammad Hamūd, President of Al-Azhar University, spoke in support of Pope Tawadros' mediation between the Azhar and the Vatican, and said that the integration of differing beliefs is purely Islamic (Sarah Hāmid, al-Misrīyūn, May 15, p. 4). Read original text in Arabic.