Pope Francis to travel Bahrain to encourage interfaith peace

• Pope Francis’ next trip to Bahrain would combine three of his key aims as pope.
• It would include ministering to a small Catholic minority, establishing a dialogue with the Muslim world, and fostering contacts with other Christian groups.
• The 85-year-old pope will finish out the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue.

Pope Francis’ next trip to Bahrain would combine three of his key aims as pope, ministering to a small Catholic minority, establishing dialogue with the Muslim world, and fostering contacts with other Christian groups, according to information provided Thursday by the Vatican.

Francis’ travel to the Gulf will be his second in as many months, his second to a mainly Muslim country, and his second to participate in an interfaith event sponsored by someone other than the Vatican to promote communication among people of various faiths.

The 85-year-old pope will finish out the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence, much as he did in Kazakhstan last month at an interfaith peace summit.

As a result, Francis will be the first Pope to visit Bahrain. Francis became the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula during his historic visit to Abu Dhabi in 2019.

Francis plans to meet with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar, the seat of Sunni learning in Cairo, as well as the Muslim council of elders, on the margins of the summit.

In 2019, Francis and al-Tayeb signed a treaty in Abu Dhabi vowing Catholic-Muslim cooperation to work for peace, an agreement that Bahrain King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa and other Muslim leaders backed.

According to the itinerary, Francis would also preside over an ecumenical prayer session in the desert town of Awali and minister to the country’s small Catholic community on many occasions.

Bahrain is home to the Gulf’s first Catholic church, the Sacred Heart Church in Manama, as well as its largest, Our Lady of Arabia Cathedral, which opened in Awali last year.

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