Pope delivers first Mass in UAE
POPE Francis ministered yesterday to the thriving Roman Catholic community in the United Arab Emirates as he concluded his historic visit to the Arabian Peninsula with the first papal Mass there 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 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. Vatican spokesperson Alessandro Gisotti later said 180 000 people attended the Mass, including 135 000 tickets given out for stadium seats and the throngs who crowded around it to catch a glimpse of the pope.
Organisers said faithful from 100 countries would attend, as well as 4 000 Muslims from this Muslim federation – evidence of the enormous diversity among the 9 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 Emirates’ Catholic community is 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.
The Catholic Church estimates as many as 1 million of the more than 9 million living in the UAE are Catholic, nearly all foreigners drawn to the oil-rich federation to work in white-collar finance to construction.
In his homily, delivered in Italian and translated into Arabic with English subtitles on giant screens, Francis made a direct reference to the sufferings many endure.
Francis also told his flock – many of them poor, manual labourers – that they need not build great “superhuman” works to be faithful. It was a message extolling meekness in a country that is home to the world’s biggest skyscraper and is known for its opulence and excess.
Jesus, Francis said, “did not ask us to build great works or draw attention to ourselves with extraordinary gestures. He asked us to produce just
EPA one work of art, possible for everyone: our own life.”
“He is almost divine. He has a special charisma, which appeals to each one,” said Raphael Muntenkurian, 64, an Indian-native and former seminarian who has lived in the UAE for more than 30 years.
Prayers during Mass were being read out in a variety of languages. The Mass concluded around noon and the pope departed about an hour later on a chartered Etihad flight to Vatican City.
On Monday, the pope met Emirati leaders and signed a document promoting “human fraternity”. He urged religious leaders to work together to reject the “miserable crudeness” of war.
“There is no alternative: we will either build the future together or there will not be a future,” Francis told Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince and hundreds of imams, muftis, ministers, rabbis and swamis in the Emirati capital.