Laudably Guided
"There is no alternative; we will either build the future together or there will not be a future."
"God is with those who seek peace."
"Someone who is afflicted, who suffers injustice, who does everything he can to be a peacemaker, knows what it means to suffer."
"It is most certainly not easy for you [refugees] to live far from home, missing the affection of your loved ones, and perhaps also feeling uncertainty about the future. But the Lord is faithful and does not abandon his people."Pope Francis in Dubai
"Those who attack or overpower others are not blessed, but rather those that uphold Jesus' way of acting, he who saved us, and who was meek even towards his accusers."
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| Pope Francis, second left; and Dr Ahmad Al Tayeb, Grand Imam of the Al Azhar Al Sharif, sign a commemorative stone at The Founders Memorial. Hamad Al Mansoori / Ministry of Presidential Affairs |
Pope Francis is on a mission to repair relations between the Vatican, the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the rulers and clerics of the Arabian Peninsula as he travelled there and urged religious leaders of all stripes to work to reject the "miserable crudeness" of war. He spoke to an interfaith gathering in the United Arab Emirates, warning that no less than the future of humanity was at stake, requiring the world's religions to resist the "logic of armed power .. the arming of borders, the raising of walls".
It is not known whether anyone in the gathering enquired whether the Holy See is prepared to remove its own wall surrounding its hallowed acreage in Rome as a state within a state. His hosts smiled broadly and with extreme good will at the pronouncements of a man for whom they have respect if only for the power invested in him as Pope to whom over a billion faithful worldwide turn their ear. Chastising warmongers he stood comfortably among them even as they were prosecuting a war of religious sectarian dimensions.
In God's name -- he persuaded his listeners -- to seek peace and accommodation, never conflict and bloodshed. This, to a religion born on both and which its sacred scriptures remind its faithful to commit to as the signal commitment of that faith. In Islam there is peace, and only within Islam. Without the confines of Islam, in places where Islam does not rule, conflict does. It is only when non-Muslim nations and their people become Islamic that peace rules and war wanes.
HH Sheikh MohammedVerified account @HHShkMohd
UAE today was proud to host the historic meeting of His Holiness Pope Francis and His Eminence Dr. Ahmad Al Tayeb. We launched the 'Human Fraternity Award' to create a true interfaith dialogue. The two religious symbols were honoured during the award's first edition.
But to achieve that exquisitely blissful state of universal peace war must be waged to bring about peace; until such time as that final celestial conquest occurs, Islam is dedicated to conflict, but the cause is great and will not be denied, a paradox that the good Pope Francis may or may not have made an effort to wrap his mind around.
His immediate predecessor Pope Benedict did just that, as the scholar of history he is, invoking the wrath of Islamic scholars in 2006 when he candidly asserted "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached", quoting a 14th Century Byzantine emperor.
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Pope Francis celebrates Mass on Tuesday at Zayed Sports
City in Abu Dhabi. His three-day trip to the United Arab Emirates marks
the first time a pontiff has ever visited the Arabian Peninsula. Francois Nel/Getty Images
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Humble Pope Francis arrived at the Emirates' Founders' Memorial in a Kia hatchback and was confronted by an artillery salute n his honour, along with military flyover trailing yellow and white smoke of the flag of the Vatican. Horse-mounted guards escorted the Pope's motorcade through the palace gardens, the kind of pomp and ceremony eschewed by Francis and typical of Middle East powers who glory in both as symbols of their power and magnificence.
The papal Mass Pope Francis conducted in a first-time public Christian worship in the Emirates was expected to attract 135,000 faithful. In fact, the numbers attending exceeded that. Perhaps a result of Pope Francis' accommodation with the grand imam of Egypt's Al Azhar university, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, where for a thousand years Sunni learning has been promulgated and clerics have been sent from Al Azhar all over the world to head congregations of the faithful.
In a part of the world where Christianity arose to become the faith power that it is today, the number of its adherents has been steadily diminishing even as Islam has inspired fanatics to prey on Christians, and wars inspired by the faith have risen across the globe. In the Emirates, however, a more moderately tolerant area than most of the region, an estimated Catholic community of about a million exists. And yes, they take selfies there just as they do the world over.
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More than 140,000
faithful attend a mass given by Pope Francis in and around Abu Dhabi’s
Zayed Sports City Stadium during the first-ever visit by a pontiff to
the Arabian Peninsula. Abu Dhabi, UAE, February 5, 2019.
Natasha Turak | CNBC
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Labels: Arabian Peninsula, Pope Francis
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, February 06, 2019
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