Pope Francis waves to a group of Filipinos as he arrives to celebrate mass at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates yesterday.
ABU DHABI (AP) — Pope Francis ministered yesterday to the thriving Catholic community in the United Arab Emirates as he concluded his historic visit to the Arabian Peninsula with the first-ever papal mass here and a call for his flock to remain meek in following God.
A day after making a broad appeal for Christian and Muslim leaders to work together to promote peace and reject war, Francis celebrated what some considered the largest show of public Christian worship on the peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.
For the Gulf Arab region where public displays of non-Islamic faith are restricted, the hymns of “Halleluja” booming out from speakers marked a milestone and evidence of the Emirates’ much touted assertions of its tolerance for other faiths.
Cheers erupted inside and outside the Zayed Sports City Stadium as Francis arrived and looped through the crowd in his open-sided popemobile, as chants of “Viva il Papa” and “We love you!” echoed from the crowd, estimated to be around 135,000.
Organizers said faithful from 100 countries would attend, as well as 4,000 Muslims from this Muslim federation — evidence of the enormous diversity among the nine million people who live in the UAE.
“We have to say it is really a big event for us which we never expected,” said Sumitha Pinto, and Indian native who has lived in the UAE for nearly 20 years. She attended the mass with her husband and four sons, the youngest of whom held up sign with the pope’s photo that read: “Welcome Pope Francis. Make Me a Channel of Your Peace.”
The Emirates’ Catholic community is something an anomaly for the region — large, diverse and thriving at a time when the wider Mideast has seen an exodus of Christians fleeing persecution at the hands of the Islamic State group and others.