Pope Francis will be the first pope in history to visit Bahrain this week, on a trip hopefully meant to cement ties with Islam but also marked by allegations of human rights abuses in the Gulf state.
The Thursday-Sunday visit — the 39th international journey of Francis’ papacy — comes three years after his historic trip to the United Arab Emirates in 2019, where he signed a Muslim-Christian Manifesto for Peace.
But some human rights groups are now hoping that Francis will urge Bahrain’s Sunni leader, King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, to stop repression of Shia Muslims in the country, even as neighboring Qatar’s human rights record has attracted more attention in recent months has drawn world championship.
The Argentine pope, 85, has made outreach to Muslim communities a priority during his tenure, visiting Middle Eastern countries including Egypt in 2017 and Iraq last year and pledging interfaith dialogue with leading Muslim clerics.
On Friday, Francis plans to meet with the highest authority on Sunni Islam, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar Mosque and center of Islamic learning, at Sakhir Palace in the center of the country.
The two religious leaders signed a joint document in Abu Dhabi in February 2019, promising interfaith coexistence between Christians and Muslims. This visit was the first ever by a Pope in the Gulf region, where Islam was born.
Francis will also meet with the Abu Dhabi-based Muslim Council of Elders for an “East and West” forum, where Muslim communities in the West, humanitarian crises, climate issues and Muslim-Christian relations will be on the agenda.
– Religion tolerance? –
Also on Friday, the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics – who is expected to be confined to a wheelchair during his trip due to persistent knee pain – will lead an ecumenical prayer at Awali’s cavernous Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, which opened its doors in December .
The cathedral, which seats over 2,000 people, was built to serve Bahrain’s approximately 80,000 Catholics, mostly workers from South Asia, including India and the Philippines.
Bahrain, like the United Arab Emirates, is considered a relatively more tolerant Arab nation compared to ultra-conservative Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia – repeatedly cited by human rights groups for abuses – whose absolute monarchy does not recognize freedom of religion and which bans all non-Muslim places of worship.
Nonetheless, NGOs continue to point to discrimination, repression and harassment by the Sunni elite against Shia Muslims in Bahrain, crackdowns on opposition figures and activists and other abuses.
Bahrain-based nonprofit organization Americans for Democracy and Human Rights wrote this month that the country’s religious liberty laws are “merely an act of subterfuge, printed on paper, to give Bahrain’s ruling family access to the benefits of friendship with a more powerful world.” leaders and cover up the plight of their human rights abuses”.
The group called on the pope, who has made advocacy for marginalized groups a hallmark of his papacy, to draw attention to “rampant discrimination” against Shia in Bahrain.
On Monday, Human Rights Watch released a report documenting Bahrain’s “targeted marginalization of opposition figures” in the decade since pro-democracy protests erupted in 2011.
The annual Formula 1 race in Bahrain has also drawn frequent criticism of the country’s human rights record. In 2011, the Grand Prix was canceled amid the crackdown following the protests.
Pending Francis’ visit is the World Cup later this month in nearby Qatar, which has highlighted his human rights record, particularly the treatment of his low-income migrant workers, women and the LBGTQ community.
– flocking to the mass –
On Saturday, the Pope will celebrate mass in front of an expected 28,000 believers in a stadium in Bahrain’s second largest city, Riffa, according to Father Charbel Fayad.
“We are happy to see many Christians from the region,” he told AFP, saying he was expecting believers from other Gulf countries.
The Pope – who will conclude his trip with a prayer meeting with Catholic clergy in Manama on Sunday – has visited various Muslim-majority countries during his pontificate, including Jordan, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco, Iraq and most recently in the… September Kazakhstan.
