Bahrain : Pope Francis shifted gears Saturday in his visit to Bahrain to minister to the Gulf’s Catholic community, presiding over a huge open-air Mass and then meeting with young people to give them a bit of fatherly advice: Don’t just Google your questions about life decisions, he told them. Instead, find a parent, teacher or grandparent who can offer guidance.
After focusing on relations between Catholics and Muslims the first two days of his four-day visit to the tiny kingdom, Francis on Saturday was treated to the multiethnic diversity of the Gulf region’s Catholic community. It’s made up mostly of South Asian migrant workers who often leave behind their families to work in construction, oil extraction, domestic and service industries.
An estimated 30,000 people, some traveling from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf countries, packed the Bahrain national stadium for Francis’ big Mass. The English-language liturgy was clearly geared toward the foreign workers, with popular English hymns and prayers in Malay, Tagalog and Tamil and a priest offering English translations of the pope’s native Spanish homily.
