Pope Francis to address wartime persecution of Jews during visit to Slovakia

Pope Francis, white figure sitting at centre, listens to Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova, right, during a meeting with government authorities (Gregorio Borgia/AP)

Pope Francis opened his first full day in Slovakia by meeting with church and state leaders ahead of an encounter with the country’s Jewish community to honour its Holocaust dead and atone for Catholic complicity in Second World War-era racial laws and crimes.

Francis arrived at the presidential palace on Monday, and later at the capital’s St Martin cathedral, looking well and rested on the second day of his four-day pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia which marks his first international outing since undergoing intestinal surgery in July.