VATICAN CITY (RNS) – Pope Francis will be the first pontiff to stop in the small island country of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf on Thursday, Nov. 3, selling his ongoing message of brotherhood, discussion and peace with Islam.
The four-day apostolic stopover will take place “under the sign of dialogue,” Francis said in his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday. transplants from other nations, among 1. 7 million other people: The pope’s scale carries a broader message to the country’s Muslim communities, divided between Shiite and Sunni sects and the Islamic world.
The pope “is an invitation to dialogue, an invitation to encounter between East and West, in a reality, like that of Bahrain, which is a multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious reality,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said in an interview. with Vatican media.
Parolin explained that the pope’s stopover in Bahrain is part of his message for religions to peace actors, enshrined in the document on human fraternity that the pontiff signed in 2019 in Abu Dhabi with the eminent Sunni Egyptian cleric, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb.
The fraternity is the “red thread” that has connected Francis’ visits to Kazakhstan, Iraq, Morocco, Egypt, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates, Parolin said.
“This red thread is only to say that between God and hatred, between faith and violence, there is an absolute incompatibility, there is an impossibility of any touch and conciliation, because whoever accepts hatred and violence distorts the very nature of faith,” he added. .
Francis will meet with Bahrain’s King Ḥamad bin ʿĪsā Āl Khalīfa, who issued a first invitation to the pontiff, which was later made official through Bahrain’s Catholic community. The pope will meet with the local government at the Sakhir Royal Palace in Awali upon arrival.
Human rights activists have called on Francis to use his platform on his stopover in Bahrain to condemn unjust imprisonments and the government’s use of the death penalty, as well as to protect fundamental human and civil rights. While Parolin said Francis will interpret “the deep expectations of so many other people who do not see their rights respected,” the cardinal also praised Bahrain’s letter for “avoiding discrimination. “
Human rights issues “will certainly be on the pope’s agenda,” said Archbishop Paul Hinder, apostolic administrator of northern Arabia, whose oversight also includes Kuwait and Qatar. You will most likely opt for a more private technique.
On Friday, the pope is most likely to speak on dialogue between Christians and Muslims, with Francis delivering the final speech at the Forum for Bahrain Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence, before meeting privately with al-Tayeb.
The pope will then meet with members of the Muslim Council of the Wise, an organization that promotes tolerance and dialogue, and oversee an ecumenical assembly at the year-old Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia in Awali. Cathedral and Assembly is considered the crowning achievement of their ecumenical efforts in the region.
“Pope Francis will continue his efforts to accommodate, as much as possible, the other realities of the Muslim world,” Hinder said.
“The pope would like to be in contact with everyone and exclude anyone,” Hinder said, stressing the importance of Moheistic religions combining around non-unusual goals, especially in the environment.
The bishop also noted that the holiday will be held under the watchful eye of Bahrain’s tough and influential neighbors, Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran. maybe even Iran,” Hinder said.
“I believe that the courageous steps of the pope will open doors,” he added. “We don’t know where they will take us in the end, but I hope it will find answers to conflicts in the region and eventually globally. “
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Francis’ final two days will encourage the local Catholic community, which includes a global mix of Latin and Eastern rites practiced in the home countries of India, the Philippines and elsewhere.
More than 20,000 people from Middle Eastern countries are expected to attend Francis’ Mass at Bahrain’s National Stadium on Saturday. On the same day, the pope will meet with academics from the Catholic School of the Sacred Heart.
On his final day on the Middle Eastern peninsula, the pope will pray the same Sunday Angelus prayer with local bishops and priests in the northern city of Manama before boarding the ITA Airways flight back to Rome.
The message during the holidays “is the same,” Parolin said. “In a world characterized by tensions, contrasts, conflicts, it is a message of unity, cohesion, peace. “
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