VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis will travel to Bahrain in November to spread his message of dialogue with the Muslim world, the Vatican, the country’s first pontiff, said Wednesday.
Bahrain is home to the first Catholic church in the Gulf, in the capital Manama, as well as the largest, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, which opened last year in the desert city of Awali.
Francis is scheduled to stop in any of the cities Nov. 3-6. The Vatican announced it would participate in a convention titled “Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence. “
Francis, 85, has made discussion with the Muslim world a hallmark of his pontificate. He recently returned from Muslim-majority Kazakhstan, where he attended an interfaith summit.
In 2019, Francis became the first pope to make a stopover in the Gulf bound for Abu Dhabi. There, he signed a landmark document with the leading imam of al-Azhar in Cairo, the seat of Sunni learning, pledging Catholic-Muslim cooperation for paintings for peace.