Manama: Pope Francis met Friday with Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar Mosque, on a stopover in Bahrain.
The assembly is from the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence in Al-Fida Square of the Royal Palace of Sakhir.
Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa welcomed the Pope and Dr. Al Tayeb in a speech, after which Dr. Tayeb and the Pope addressed the rally in Al-Fida Square.
The pontiff landed in Bahrain on Thursday afternoon for the four-day trip.
The pope, who has been using a wheelchair for several months because of stress on knee ligaments, said he was in “a lot” of pain when he made his momentary stop in the Gulf. For the first time, he greeted journalists traveling with him. . sitting than walking down the aisle of the plane.
Bahrain is home to the first Catholic church built in the region in fashionable times, which opened in 1939, as well as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, the largest Catholic church in the Arabian Peninsula. Reuters reported that the country has a network of about 160,000 Catholics, composed mostly of foreign workers.
On Thursday, Pope Francis spoke at Sakhir Palace alongside King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. From the scene, the 85-year-old pope, who suffered from knee pain, drove in a wheelchair to the front of the courtyard with the king walking beside him. The pope stood up and the two kissed before the pontiff loaded them into a white Fiat 500 with Vatican plates.
King Hamad, in his speech, said his country protected the freedom of all religions to “perform their rituals and identify their places of worship. “It rejects everything that divides its unity and threatens its civilizational development,” he said.
The pontiff’s 39 overseas vacations since taking office come 3 years after he signed a “document of human fraternity, called the Abu Dhabi Declaration” in the United Arab Emirates. The document was signed, the 2019 papal visit, through Pope Francis and Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb.
The Argentine has put interreligious discussion at the center of his pontificate, visiting Muslim-majority countries such as Egypt, Turkey and Iraq.
The trip to Bahrain, where he will also participate in a forum with the Abu Dhabi-based Council of Muslim Elders, is no exception.
Pope Francis, after being dismounted from the plane in his wheelchair on a platform, won an enthusiastic reception on Thursday.
Uniformed guards on horseback, as well as Vatican and Bahraini flags, marked the direction of his brief adventure to the gleaming white marble palace, where he greeted cheering children.
In addition to attending the forum and assembly with the grand imam, the pope will pray at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, the largest Catholic church in the Arabian Peninsula, followed by an open-air Mass on Saturday.
– AFP Contributions
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