Before a meeting with Muslim leaders in the mosque of Bahrain's royal palace, Pope Francis met privately with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, with whom he signed the Document on Human Fraternity promoting peace and religious tolerance during his 2019 trip to Abu Dhabi.
Today you were very courageous when you spoke about dialogue between Islamists.
Passages from both the Quran and the book of Genesis were read before the Pope's meeting with the Muslim Council of Elders, an independent and international organization promoting peace in the global Islamic community.
Grand Imam Al-Tayebb, considered the highest authority in Sunni Islam, then spoke to the council, stating that atheism is the common root behind homosexuality, gender ideology, and indifference toward climate change.
In his address, Pope Francis said that it is incumbent upon people of all faiths to be united and go beyond their communities as beacons of hope in a world threatened by international conflicts and climate change.
POPE FRANCIS
Social, international, economic and individual evils, as well as the dramatic environmental crisis of our time on which we have reflected here today, ultimately derive from estrangement from God and our neighbor.
We who are descended from Abraham, the father of peoples in faith, cannot be concerned merely with those who are “our own” but, as we grow more and more united, we must speak to the entire human community, to all who dwell on this earth.
The Pope then traveled to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia in Awali for an prayer gathering of different Christian denominations for peace.
It is the largest Catholic Church in the Arab peninsula, the land for which was given to the Catholic community by the king of Bahrain in 2013.
Alongside the leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Pope Francis addressed Bahrain's minority Christian community to give them advice on staying uplifted in spirit despite being small in numbers.
POPE FRANCIS
Prayer of praise is the antidote to sadness and the temptation to lament our interior inadequacy and our outwardly small numbers. Those who praise the Father are not disheartened by the smallness of the flock, but rejoice in the grandeur of being God’s children.
The leaders of the different Christian communities then offered prayers for unity and presented candles before the altar to bring the pope's first full day in Bahrain to a close.
JM
