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MANAMA: About 30,000 flag-waving worshippers joined an open-air mass held by Pope Francis in primarily Muslim Bahrain on Saturday, the spotlight of his outreach mission to the Gulf. Among the congregation had tears of their eyes as they waited to see the 85-year-old at Bahrain Nationwide Stadium, the dominion’s largest venue.
Francis, who makes use of a wheelchair and strolling stick resulting from knee issues, smiled and waved to the crowds from an open-sided popemobile the place he was seated, flanked by greater than a dozen suited safety guards and attendants. As a 100-strong, multinational choir sang in a number of languages, the Argentine stood to kiss youngsters lifted as much as greet him within the specifically tailored automobile, which drove slowly in the direction of a white stage backdropped by a large gold cross.
“This very land is a dwelling picture of coexistence in range and certainly a picture of our world, more and more marked by the fixed migration of peoples and by a pluralism of concepts, customs and traditions,” he mentioned in an deal with.
The pope, who has made outreach to Islam a pillar of his papacy, is on his second go to to the resource-rich Gulf, the cradle of Islam. Throughout his 2019 journey to the United Arab Emirates he led a mass for 170,000 individuals and signed a Christian-Muslim manifesto for peace.
He has spent a lot of his four-day Bahrain journey assembly high officers and non secular figures, however for Catholics within the tiny island nation, together with many migrant staff, Saturday’s mass was the excessive level. “We’ve been right here since one o’clock. We didn’t sleep,” mentioned volunteer Philomina Abranches, 46, an Indian-born Bahrain resident. “We’re so excited. All of us name him ‘Papa’. Greater than something, he represents peace on the planet. That is what we want now.”
Margerite Heida, 63, additionally a Bahrain resident, mentioned: “Internet hosting Pope Francis is one of the best feeling. That is the best occasion of the 12 months.” Heida was ready for her second have a look at the pontiff. “I noticed him yesterday within the church”, she mentioned. “I take into account myself fortunate to have the ability to see him. I used to be additionally in a position to maintain his hand yesterday and acquired his blessings.” Many worshippers got here to catch a glimpse of the pope from across the Gulf area, which has about two million Catholics, primarily overseas staff from South Asia and the Philippines.
Everybody on the stadium acquired a plastic bag containing a white baseball hat, a paper Vatican flag, a bottle of water, a booklet with particulars of the mass and a few biscuits. Pope Francis’s thirty ninth worldwide go to is basically aimed toward constructing ties with Muslim officers. Afterward Saturday, Francis met youngsters on the Sacred Coronary heart Faculty. On Sunday, he’s to attend a prayer assembly on the 83-year-old Sacred Coronary heart Church – the oldest within the area – earlier than flying again to Rome.
On Friday he met the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar mosque, one of many main authorities of Sunni Islam, and members of the Muslim Council of Elders. He additionally attended a service at Our Woman of Arabia Cathedral, the largest within the Arabian Peninsula that seats greater than 2,000. A whole lot of migrant staff have been among the many congregation welcoming him.
The Argentine decried the “opposing blocs” of East and West, a veiled reference to the standoff over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a speech to non secular leaders. “We proceed to search out ourselves getting ready to a fragile precipice and we don’t wish to fall,” he instructed an viewers together with Bahrain’s king and Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar Mosque.
“A couple of potentates are caught up in a resolute battle for partisan pursuits, reviving out of date rhetoric, redesigning spheres of affect and opposing blocs,” he added. “We look like witnessing a dramatic and childlike situation: Within the backyard of humanity, as an alternative of cultivating our environment, we’re enjoying as an alternative with fireplace, missiles and bombs.”
Francis, who’s on his second go to to the rich Gulf, later met privately with Tayeb, with whom he signed a Muslim-Christian manifesto for peace within the UAE in 2019. “This assembly has nice symbolic significance, each regionally and internationally, for selling peace and peaceable co-existence between totally different religions and civilizations,” mentioned Hala Ramzi Fayez, a Christian and member of Bahrain’s parliament.
Tayeb, who met with the pope on earlier Center East visits, additionally referred to as on Friday for talks between Islam’s two principal branches, Sunni and Shiite, to settle sectarian variations. Later, the pope addressed 17 members of the Muslim Council of Elders, a world group of Islamic students and dignitaries, on the mosque of the Sakhir Royal Palace. He instructed them dialogue was “the oxygen of peaceable coexistence”.
“In a world that’s more and more wounded and divided, that beneath the floor of globalization senses nervousness and concern, the nice spiritual traditions should be the guts that unites the members of the physique,” he mentioned. He additionally struck out on the arms commerce, a “commerce of demise” that he mentioned was “turning our widespread house into one nice arsenal”.
The pope later addressed Christians on the ultra-modern, 2,000-seat Our Woman of Arabia Cathedral in Awali. The congregation, together with many migrant staff dwelling within the kingdom, applauded and filmed on cellphones as he was wheeled into the octagonal corridor, its partitions adorned with icons. The pope was flanked by senior clergy of various sects as he delivered an deal with calling for unity amongst Christians. – AFP
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