Pope in Morocco urges religious fraternity
02 April, 2019
Pope Francis on Sunday sought to encourage greater fraternity between Christians and Muslims in Morocco, telling his flock that showing the country’s Muslim majority they are part of the same human family that will help stamp out extremism.
On his second and final day in Morocco, Francis told Catholic priests and sisters that even though they are few in number, they shouldn’t seek to convert others to Christianity but rather engage in dialogue and charity.
“In this way, you will unmask and lay bare every attempt to exploit differences and ignorance in order to sow fear, hatred and conflict,” he said. “For we know that fear and hatred, nurtured and manipulated, destabilize our communities and leave them spiritually defenseless.”
Francis has stressed a message of Christian-Muslim fraternity during his first trip to Morocco, a majority Muslim nation of 36 million. Proselytism is a sensitive topic in religious discourse in the North African nation, even though Christians, Muslims and Jews have coexisted peacefully here for centuries.
After reaching out Saturday to Morocco’s Sunni majority, Francis turned his attention Sunday to the country’s Christian minority, celebrating a Mass for about 10,000 people representing 60 countries, many of them sub-Saharan African migrants and other foreigners.
In his homily, delivered in his native Spanish and translated into French, Francis urged them to resist the temptation to sow division and confrontation and instead remember “we are brothers and sisters.”
“Experience tells us that hatred, division and revenge succeed only in killing our peoples’ soul, poisoning our children’s hopes, and destroying and sweeping away everything we cherish,” Francis told the faithful, who gathered in a sports arena in Rabat.
His aim was to highlight the constructive presence of Christians in Moroccan life and how they are part of its human fabric alongside Muslims and people of other faith.
He started his day Sunday by visiting a social center run by Catholic religious sisters that serves a poor Muslim community south of the capital, Rabat, with medical, educational and vocational services. The Temara center operates a preschool, treats burn victims, trains women in sewing and provides meals for 150 children a day.
Catholic teachings are not taught at the preschool.
“Their teachers are all Muslims and speak in Arabic and they prepare them on Muslim religion,” said sister Gloria Carrillero. “We did not come here with the purpose of doing proselytism. We came here just to help.”
Catholics represent less than 1 percent of Morocco’s population and most are foreign-born migrants. Morocco also has up to 6,000 homegrown converts to Christianity who are obliged to practice their faith privately because Morocco prohibits Muslim conversions.
These Moroccan converts often celebrate Masses in their homes and hide their religious affiliations in fear of prosecution and arrest.
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