Speaking in Rabat’s cathedral on his second day in the
Moroccan capital, Francis insisted trying to convert people to one’s own belief
“always leads to an impasse”. “Please, no proselytism!” he told an audience of
around 400,
who greeted the pope’s arrival by ululating and applauding, while
hundreds more gathered outside the cathedral. 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.” Pope issues new law, guidelines against child abuse in Vatican state
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. On Saturday he
visited migrants at a Caritas charity centre, where the pope criticised
“collective expulsions” and said ways for migrants to regularise their status
should be encouraged. Morocco says it has a “humanistic” approach to migration
and rejects allegations by rights groups of “brutal arrest campaigns” and
“forced displacement” to the country’s southern border. – Jerusalem declaration
– Earlier on Sunday, Francis visited a social centre run by nuns and volunteers
near Rabat, including a health centre where he met with unwell children. The
previous day he visited an institute which hosts around 1,300 trainee imams and
preachers. There they heard from a French and a Nigerian student of the
institute, which teaches “moderate Islam” and is backed by the king. The
Moroccan monarch also welcomed Francis to the royal palace, where the two
addressed the “sacred character of Jerusalem” in a joint declaration. The city
should be a “symbol of peaceful coexistence” for Christians, Jews and Muslims,
they said in a statement released by the Vatican. “The specific multi-religious
character, the spiritual dimension and the particular cultural identity of
Jerusalem… must be protected and promoted,” said the text, which was jointly
signed at Rabat’s royal palace. The Moroccan king chairs a committee created by
the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to safeguard and restore Jerusalem’s
religious, cultural and architectural heritage. Jerusalem’s status is perhaps
the most sensitive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel sees the
entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern sector as
the capital of their future state. US President Donald Trump sparked anger
across the Muslim world when he recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in
2017.
Written by Royce Charles