Pope Francis, the first leader of the world\u2019s 1.3 billion Catholics to visit the Arabian Peninsula, will attend an interfaith meeting in the UAE on Monday as part of his outreach to Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pope\u2019s highly publicised 48-hour visit to the United Arab Emirates will also include an open-air mass on Tuesday for 135,000 of the Muslim country\u2019s million Catholic residents, set to be the largest public gathering in the country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pope was expected to raise the issue of Yemen, devastated by a war in which the UAE is a key player, in talks with Abu Dhabi\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To mark the occasion, the pontiff offered the crown prince a framed medallion of the meeting between St. Francis Assisi the pope\u2019s namesake and the Sultan of Egypt Malek al-Kamel, in 1219.Sheikh Mohammed, in turn, offered a deed for the plot of land on which the first church in the UAE was built.The emirate\u2019s crown prince was also at the airport to greet the pontiff, who has made strengthening ties between Christianity and Islam a cornerstone of his papacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yemen is the scene of what the UN calls the world\u2019s worst humanitarian crisis, triggered by the intervention of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their allies in a war between the government and Huthi rebels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pope Francis, who made history when he touched down in Abu Dhabi on Sunday night, said he came \u201cas a brother, in order to write a page of dialogue together, and to travel paths of peace together\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UAE has dubbed 2019 its \u201cyear of tolerance\u201d, but rights groups have criticised the country for its role in Yemen, where an estimated 10,000 people have been killed since the Saudi-led alliance including the UAE joined the government\u2019s fight against the Huthis in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rights groups, which have slammed the UAE over its intolerance of dissent, have also urged the pope to raise the issue of Ahmed Mansoor, an Emirati activist serving a 10-year prison term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before heading to the Gulf on Sunday, Pope Francis urged warring parties in Yemen to respect a truce agreement and allow deliveries of food aid.\u201cThe population is exhausted by the lengthy conflict and a great many children are suffering from hunger, but cannot access food depots,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pope Francis, the first leader of the world\u2019s 1.3 billion Catholics to visit the Arabian Peninsula, will attend an interfaith meeting in the UAE on Monday as part of his outreach to Muslims. The pope\u2019s highly publicised 48-hour visit to the United Arab Emirates will also include an open-air mass on Tuesday for 135,000 of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54233,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54231\/revisions\/54233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}