Pope Francis thrills small Gulf Catholic group with huge Mass By Reuters

By Philip Pullella

AWALI, Bahrain (Reuters) – Pope Francis mentioned Mass for hundreds of Catholics in Bahrain on Saturday, thrilling members of the small international Catholic group from across the Gulf and urging them present kindness to their hosts, even when they’re typically regarded down on.

The group of about 30,000 people who crammed Bahrain’s Nationwide Stadium was the second-largest gathering for a papal Mass on the Arabian Peninsula, following one which drew greater than 100,000 within the United Arab Emirates in 2019.

“This can be a miracle,” mentioned Mary Grace Fortes, 36, a Filipino who works on the reception of a resort in Bahrain. “So essential for us.”

Like many Filipino girls who work outdoors their nation, Fortes is married and sends a refund house to assist help her household, together with her husband and 16-year-old son.

A whole lot of Catholic international employees had been bussed in over the 25-km (16 mile) King Fahd Causeway that hyperlinks Bahrain with Saudia Arabia, the place there are not any church buildings and the place Catholics can’t worship brazenly.

“The Bahrainis organized all the pieces completely for us,” mentioned Jos Chazoor, 53, who’s from Kerala in India and works as a supervisor for a medical tools firm in Saudi Arabia.

Chazoor’s 75-year-old mom was too overcome with emotion to reply to a reporter’s questions simply earlier than the pope arrived within the packed stadium to an enthusiastic welcome by devoted waving yellow-and-white Vatican flags.

“She is simply too thrilled to speak,” mentioned Chazoor, who drives together with his mom over the causeway from Saudi Arabia repeatedly to attend Mass in one among Bahrain’s two church buildings, which give pastoral look after the some 160,000 Catholics in Bahrain.

In his homily, Francis appeared to reward Bahrain’s comparatively open coverage in direction of non-Muslims.

“This very land is a residing 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.

Overseas employees, a lot of them from Asia, present the spine of Gulf economies, working in sectors comparable to building, hospitality, transport and the oil and fuel sector.

The Worldwide Labour Organisation says the Gulf’s migrant employees have lengthy confronted issues together with exploitation by recruitment businesses and employers, poor work situations, restricted entry to justice and restricted or no freedom of affiliation.

Francis urged his listeners to be form even to these native individuals within the Gulf space who don’t deal with them nicely, saying this was key to the Gospel message of loving your enemies.

He mentioned they need to all the time be “persevering in good even when evil is completed to us, breaking the spiral of vengeance, disarming violence, demilitarizing the center”.

As Francis was pushed on a open popemobile by way of the gang on the stadium’s pitch simply earlier than the beginning of the Mass, a speaker on the altar platform shouted “God bless the pope, God bless the royal household.”

The prayers of the devoted through the Mass had been learn in languages spoken by international employees together with Tagalog, Swahili, Malayalam, Tamil and Konkani.

The Mass was attended by one of many sons of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and several other authorities ministers.