Pope holds open-air mass for 30,000 in Bahrain
Riffa, Bahrain (AFP):
About 30,000 flag-waving worshippers joined an open-air mass held by Pope Francis in mainly Muslim Bahrain on Saturday, the highlight of his outreach mission to the Gulf.
The congregation waited to see the 85-year-old at Bahrain National Stadium, the kingdom’s biggest venue.
Francis, who uses a wheelchair and walking stick due to knee problems, smiled and waved to the crowds from an open-sided popemobile where he was seated, flanked by more than a dozen suited security guards and attendants.
As a 100-strong, multinational choir sang in multiple languages, the Argentine stood to kiss children lifted up to greet him in the specially adapted vehicle, which drove slowly towards a white stage backdropped by a giant gold cross.
“This very land is a living image of coexistence in diversity and indeed an image of our world, increasingly marked by the constant migration of peoples and by a pluralism of ideas, customs and traditions,” he said in an address.
The pope, who has made outreach to Islam a pillar of his papacy, is on his second visit to the resource-rich Gulf, the cradle of Islam.
During his 2019 trip to the United Arab Emirates he led a mass for 170,000 people and signed a Christian-Muslim manifesto for peace.
He has spent much of his four-day Bahrain trip meeting top officials and religious figures.
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