Pope urges Catholics in Morocco to dialogue, not proselytize
1 / 35Pope Francis arrives to celebrate Mass at Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat, Morocco, Sunday, March 31, 2019. Pope Francis is in Morocco for a two-day trip aimed at highlighting the North African nation's Christian-Muslim ties, while also showing solidarity with migrants at Europe's door and tending to a tiny Catholic flock.
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.
"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. 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.
Francis touched on the issue of religious freedom in his opening speech to King Mohammed VI on Saturday, urging Morocco to move beyond just freedom of worship to true respect for an individual's faith. He called for prayer"in the name of this fraternity, torn apart by the policies of extremism and division, by systems of unrestrained profit or by hateful ideological tendencies, which manipulate the actions and the future of men and women."
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