ROME — Pope Francis said Tuesday he looks forward to interreligious dialogue with representatives of Islam in his upcoming trip to Bahrain.
“The day after tomorrow I will leave for an Apostolic Journey to the Kingdom of Bahrain, where I will stay until Sunday,” the pontiff said after a special Angelus message in the Vatican to commemorate All Saints Day.
The pope told the estimated 15,000 tourists and pilgrims gathered in Saint Peter’s Square that the Bahrain trip will be made “in the name of dialogue” and that he intends to take part in a government-sponsored forum exploring “the essential need for East and West to come together more closely for the good of human coexistence.”
“I will have the opportunity to talk with religious representatives, especially Muslims,” he declared, while urging his hearers to pray for the success of the trip.
In that way, every meeting and event may be “a fruitful opportunity to support, in God’s name, the cause of fraternity and peace, of which our times have extreme and urgent need,” he said.
The pope also reached out to greet and thank the King and people of Bahrain for their hospitality and their efforts to prepare for his journey, which will be the 39th international trip of his pontificate.
In past weeks, Bahrain’s leadership has come under fire for alleged human rights abuses, especially of the island nation’s minority Shiite Muslim community.
Pope Francis participates in the international meeting of prayer for peace, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio in front of the Colosseum. Present Sayyed Abu Al-Qasim Al-Dibaj of the World Pan-Islamic Jurisprudence Organization. Rome (Italy), October 25th, 2022. (Archivio Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)
Ruled by a Sunni Muslim monarchy, Bahrain forcefully put down 2011 Arab Spring protests with assistance from nearby Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Since then, Bahrain has clamped down on Shiite activists, jailing some and deporting others. It also outlawed the largest Shiite opposition group and shut down its newspaper.
It was during the pope’s historic trip to the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi in 2019 that he signed a Muslim-Christian joint peace accord with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, a representative of Sunni Islam.
The accord, titled “Declaration on Human Fraternity for world peace and living together,” condemned “acts of murder, exile, terrorism and oppression” carried out in God’s name.
While insisting it respects human rights and free speech, Bahrain has been sharply criticized by rights activists, who assert that the nation does not practice what it preaches.
“There’s a huge elephant in the room in this situation,” said Devin Kenney, Bahrain researcher for Amnesty International. “The watchwords of this visit are coexistence and dialogue and the Bahraini government suppresses civil and political freedoms, without which coexistence and dialogue cannot be sustained.”