Pope calls for tolerance, peace at mass in Morocco

RABAT: Pope Francis called Sunday for tolerance and peace at a mass for thousands of Catholics during a rare visit by a pontiff to Morocco, after warning the faithful there against trying to convert others.

Ten thousand worshippers, many migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, packed a sports complex in Rabat as the pope rounded off his two-day stay in the Muslim North African state.

“Often we are tempted to believe that hatred and revenge are legitimate ways of ensuring quick and effective justice,” the 82-year-old pontiff told those gathered.

“Yet 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.”

Ahead of the mass the pope insisted to an audience of around 400 at Rabat’s cathedral that trying to convert people to one’s own belief “always leads to an impasse”. “Please, no proselytism!” he said.

Christians are a tiny minority in Morocco where 99 percent of the population is Muslim, with sub-Saharan Africans making up a large part of the country’s 30,000-strong Catholic community.

Islam is the state religion and authorities are keen to stress the country’s “religious tolerance” which allows Christians and Jews to worship freely.

But Moroccans are automatically considered Muslim if they are not born into the Jewish community, apostasy is socially frowned upon, and proselytising is criminalised.

“I protect Moroccan Jews as well as Christians from other countries, who are living in Morocco,” King Mohammed VI told crowds on Saturday, following the pontiff’s arrival.

There are a few thousand Christian converts in Morocco, who since 2017 have called openly for the right to live “without persecution” and “without discrimination”.

Francis is the first pontiff to visit the North African country since John Paul II in 1985 and the cathedral had been repainted for the occasion.

Waiting for the pope outside, a Nigerian man said the visit “shows that living together is possible in Morocco”.But “there are things to improve, notably the question of migrants and that of Moroccan Christians”, said 36-year-old Antoine, who works for an association to defend migrant rights.The need to support migrants was mentioned again Sunday by Francis, who has made the issue a focal point of his papacy.