VATICAN The Pope’s trip to Bahrain, dialogue, meeting and journey

In the general audience, Francis reviewed the visit of the last few days, answering the question: why visit a country with a large Muslim majority? “Dialogue is the oxygen of peace. Gulf Christians invite us to broaden our horizons and dedicate ourselves to getting to know others.” The memory of the Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus Chrysostomos, “a pastor with a vision of the future”.

Vatican City () – Dialogue, encounter and journey are the three key words of the apostolic journey to Bahrain that ended on Sunday and, as usual, Pope Francis wanted to ideally resume this morning, addressing the faithful gathered in the square of Saint Peter for the general audience on Wednesday. “It is natural to wonder – he commented – why the Pope wanted to visit this small country with a very large Islamic majority? There are many Christian countries: why not go to one or the other first? I would like to respond through three words: dialogue, meeting and journey”.

First of all, dialogue, which is “the oxygen of peace, also in domestic peace,” the Pope explained. Responding to the invitation of the King of Bahrain to participate in a Forum on dialogue between East and West, Francis recalled the words of the conciliar constitution Gaudium et Spes on the need for men “to broaden their minds beyond the borders of own nation and renounce national selfishness and the ambition to dominate other nations” to contribute to peace. the borders themselves, of the communities themselves, to take care of the whole. Only in this way can certain universal issues be addressed, for example, the forgetfulness of God, the tragedy of hunger, the custody of creation, peace. I am thinking of the absurd war – crazy! – of which the martyred Ukraine is a victim – he added – and in so many other conflicts, which will never be resolved through the childish logic of arms, but only with the meek force of dialogue ” .

But there can be no dialogue without meeting. “Many times I have felt the desire to increase encounters between Christians and Muslims, to build stronger relationships, to care more about each other. In Bahrain, people put their hands over their hearts when they greet someone. I did it too, to make room within myself for the people I met. Because, without reception, dialogue is empty, apparent, it remains a matter of ideas and not of reality”.

However, the trip to Bahrain should not be seen as an isolated episode: “it is part of a journey that Saint John Paul II began when he went to Morocco,” the pontiff recalled. That first visit of a Pope to Bahrain has been “a new step on the road between Christian and Muslim believers: not to confuse us or water down our faith, no: dialogue does not distort; but to build fraternal alliances in the name of father Abraham, who was a pilgrim on earth under the merciful gaze of the only God of Heaven, God of peace”.

“In Bahrain there was also dialogue, meeting and journey between Christians,” Francis added. “The brothers and sisters in faith that I met in Bahrain really live ‘on the way’: most of them are migrant workers who, far from home, find their roots in the People of God and their family in the great family of the Church. And they go forward with joy, with the certainty that hope in God does not disappoint”. “Thinking about their path, in their daily experience of dialogue – he concluded -, let us all feel called to broaden our horizons, to open up and broaden our interests, to dedicate ourselves to getting to know others, because the path of fraternity and peace, in order to continue, needs each and every one”.

At the end of the greetings to the groups of pilgrims who were in Saint Peter’s Square, Pope Francis recalled the figure of the sister Maria Carola Cecchin, of the congregation of the Sisters of Cottolengo, who died in 1925, at the age of 48, who gave witness to the Gospel of charity to the African populations and was proclaimed blessed last Saturday in Kenya. “May her example of a good and wise woman sustain all those who work for the spread of the Kingdom of God,” Francis said.

Finally, the pontiff also remembered the Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus, Crisostomos II, who died on Monday. Recalling the fraternal meetings during his trip to the island last year, the Pope defined him as a “pastor with a vision of the future, a man of dialogue and a lover of peace, who worked to promote reconciliation between the different communities of the country” .