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| The Proposed "Our Lady of Arabia Catholic Cathedral" in Bahrain [Photo Source: Hermit Brother Blog] |
Cathedral dedicated to Our Lady is being built.
BY VICTOR GAETAN, SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER
AWALI, Bahrain — Over the last six years, religious tolerance has increased in the cradle of Islam, the Persian Gulf, according to clerics who live there as well as academic observers.
On May 31, a brick from St. Peter’s Basilica, which is being used as the foundation stone for the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia in Awali, Bahrain, was blessed by Bishop Camillo Ballin, apostolic vicar of northern Arabia.
The blessing ceremony marked the start of construction on a cathedral, pastoral center, guesthouse and car park — on land donated by King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa — to serve the faithful in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
King Hamad met Pope Francis May 19 at the Vatican and presented the Holy Father with a red box containing a scale model of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, which will be the largest Catholic church in the Persian Gulf.
Driving this positive trend are the increased numbers of guest workers who are Christian — primarily from the Philippines and India — and initiatives by wealthy rulers to open up the region to the world.
Foreign workers in the Persian Gulf are employed mainly in construction, domestic service, energy and health care. "Immigration started when the oil was discovered, around 40 years ago. It is always increasing, for the necessity of manpower," Bishop Ballin, 70, explained to the Register via email.
And the numbers are mindboggling: In Qatar, for example, more than 1.3 million foreign nationals work for a Qatari population of only 280,000 citizens. Kuwait has about the same number of visiting workers but a larger local population of 2.2 million.
Bishop Ballin said more than 350,000 expatriates in both Qatar and Kuwait are Catholic, about evenly divided between Indians and Filipinos.
