In a country where luxury and excess are considered almost national virtues, Pope Francis on Tuesday became the parish priest of some 130,000 Catholics from 100 different countries, thanking them for their witness and urging them to live simply in accordance to the beatitudes.
Pope Francis came to the United Arab Emirates to attend an interreligious gathering taking place in Abu Dhabi.
A pope, a prince and an Imam walk side by side at an airport on the red carpet. It seems like the beginning of a bad bar joke, but instead, it was the start of a historic, first-ever papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula on Sunday.
Pope Francis today begins a two-month period largely dedicated to outreach to Islam. If Pope Francis holds to form it’ll be a largely irenic effort premised on friendship and cooperation on shared values.
After more than 2,000 years it’s hard to believe there are many “firsts” left for the Catholic Church, but the first-ever pope from the global south will notch yet another one on Sunday, when he becomes the first pope in history to set foot in the Gulf States with a Feb. 3-5 visit to United Arab Emirates.
Photos from all the exciting events over the course of World Youth Day Panama
While conveying compassion and solidarity with his citizens, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte’s visit to a Catholic cathedral where Sunday’s bomb attack took place is also another sign of his odd and, at times, volatile relationship with the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis told an American pilgrim taking part in World Youth Day that clerical sex abuse is a “horrible crime” and that “even if it is just one person, the Church should not tolerate it.”
As Brooklyn and Queens pilgrims arrived at the final and perhaps, most important days of their World Youth Day pilgrimage, they also reached the longest leg of their journey – walking at least seven miles for the evening prayer vigil with Pope Francis.
Speaking to over half a million young people from around the world on Sunday, Pope Francis said Jesus is not “an interval in life nor a passing fad,” but a loving God who’s concrete and close.
