Conservative Catholics have frequently criticised Pope Francis’ position against organised or aggressive recruiting of potential converts
Pope Francis told Morocco’s tiny Catholic community on March 31 their role in the predominantly Muslim country was not to covert their neighbours but live in brotherhood with all other faiths.
Pope Francis has used his two-day trip to stress inter-faith dialogue. He has also backed Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s efforts to spread a form of Islam that promotes inter-religious dialogue and rejects violence in god’s name
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI invited the pope for the sake of “interreligious dialogue” according to Moroccan authorities [Youssef Boudlal/Reuters]
The country’s 23,000 Roman Catholics — most of them expatriate Europeans, mainly French, and sub-Saharan African migrants — make up less than 1% of the population of about 35 million.
“Christians are a small minority in this country. Yet, to my mind, this is not a problem, even though I realise that at times it can be difficult for some of you,” he said at a meeting with Catholic community leaders in Rabat’s cathedral.
Conservative Catholics have frequently criticised Pope Francis’ position against organised or aggressive recruiting of potential converts. “The Church grows not through proselytism but by attraction,” Pope Francis said to applause.
“This means, dear friends, that our mission as baptised persons, priests and consecrated men and women, is not really determined by the number or size of spaces that we occupy, but rather by our capacity to generate change and to awaken wonder and compassion,” he said.
Moroccan authorities do not recognise Moroccan converts to Christianity,many of whom worship secretly in homes. Conversion from Islam to Christianity is banned — as it is in many Muslim countries — and proselytising is punishable by up to three years in prison.
“The problem is not when we are few in number, but when we are insignificant,” Pope Francis said, adding that Catholics were called to be an integral part of inter-religious dialogue in a world “torn apart by the policies of extremism and division”.
On March 30, Pope Francis and King Mohammed VI visited an institute the monarch founded to train imams and male and female preachers of Islam.
Morocco has promoted itself as an oasis of religious tolerance in a region torn by militancy. It has offered training to Muslim preachers from Africa and Europe on what it describes as moderate Islam.
At the March 30 event, Pope Francis praised the monarch for providing “sound training to combat all forms of extremism, which so often lead to violence and terrorism, and which, in any event, constitute an offence against religion and against God himself”.
Also on March 30, Jewish leaders joined Christian representatives in the front row at two events presided over by the Pope and the monarch on interfaith dialogue.
Pope Francis’ appeal for inter-religious dialogue was made more poignant on March 31 by the presence in Rabat cathedral of Father Jean-Pierre Schumacher, a 95-year-old French monk who survived what is known as the Tibhirine massacre in Algeria. In March 1996, seven French monks were kidnapped in a monastery in the central Algerian village of Tibhirine during the civil war. They were held for about two months and found dead. Rev. Schumacher managed to escape.