Pope Francis will hold an audience with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the Vatican on Saturday, ahead of the canonisation of two Palestinian nuns.
On Sunday, Abbas will attend the canonisation ceremony of Marie Alphonsine Ghattas of Jerusalem and Mariam Bawardy of Galilee in St Peter's Square. Israel is not known to be sending an official representative to the ceremony.
While in Rome, Abbas will hold talks with Italy's head of state Sergio Mattarella and prime minister Matteo Renzi.
Ghattas and Bawardy, who lived in Ottoman Palestine during the 19th century, are the first Palestinian Arabs to gain sainthood.
Francis announced in February that the two nuns would be made saint.
Bawardy, a mystic, was born to a Greek Catholic family in the Galilee village of Ibillin in 1843. As an adult she joined the Carmelite order at a convent in France and established convents in India and Bethlehem.
Ghattas was born to Christian family in Jerusalem and joined the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition aged 15. She established the Congregation of Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary, an order of Arab women dedicated to serving the Church in the Holy Land.
