ROME (AP) — Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to Bahrain combines three of his top priorities as pontiff: serving a small Catholic community, promoting discussion with Muslims around the world and fostering relations with other Christian communities, according to key points released Thursday by the Vatican. .
The Nov. 3-6 stop will mark Francis’ moment in the Gulf, his moment in a Muslim-majority country in as many months and his time to participate in an interfaith collection sponsored by someone other than the Vatican to promote discussion. among other people of other faiths.
Just as he did in Kazakhstan last month, when Francis attended an interfaith peace conference, the 85-year-old pope is set to close the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence.
In doing so, he will be the first pope to stop in Bahrain. Francis’ historic stopover in Abu Dhabi in 2019 made him the first pope to stop at the Arabian Peninsula.
On the sidelines of the conference, Francis plans to meet again with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the seat of Sunni education in Cairo, as well as the council of former Muslims.
In 2019, Francis and al-Tayeb signed a document in Abu Dhabi pledging to Catholic-Muslim cooperation on peace paintings, a pact backed by Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa and Muslim leaders.
According to the itinerary of the trip to Bahrain, Francis would also preside over an ecumenical prayer service in the desert of the city of Awali and continuously attend to the country’s small Catholic community.
Bahrain is home to the first Catholic church in the Gulf, the Church of the Sacred Heart in the capital Manama, as well as the largest, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, which opened last year in Awali.
Francis said travel is complicated for him now that he uses a wheelchair and a cane to move around because of the strain on the ligaments in his knee.
But it has continued overseas involving relatively little and where it can publicize its “Human Fraternity” initiative, seeing in discussion and meeting opportunities a way to foster understanding even in times of shock and war.
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