Title: Pope Francis: Extending his “Culture of Encounter” into the Arab and Muslim Worlds
In February 2019, Pope Francis became the first pope to visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Like John-Paul II before him, he has also visited Egypt, and he went to Morocco in March 2019. The pope participated in a colloquium on “human fraternity” and interreligious dialogue sponsored by the UAE-based Muslim Council of Elders—the brain-child of Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the most important Sunni Muslim university in the world. The Council of Elders sponsors initiatives to engage young Muslims on Islamist ideology by promoting a more “authentic” interpretation of Islam. Islamist violence—with its beheadings and mass executions—has provoked disgust across the Muslim world and is causing young Muslims to become more distant from their imams and mosques. It is becoming clear to many Muslim intellectuals in Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon that, in order to defeat Islamism, there needs to be greater dialogue and coexistence with Christians. Pope Francis is attempting to lead the way, extending his “culture of encounter.”
Links to History
Pope Francis’ visit is not an unprecedented aspect of papal diplomacy. Historical parallels reinforce why Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose to be named after Francis of Assisi. First, John Paul II travelled to Morocco in 1985 at the late King Hassan II’s invitation. He addressed 80,000 young Muslims in Casablanca as part of the United Nations’ “International Youth Year.” A year later, John-Paul II inaugurated the “World Day of Prayer for Peace” in Assisi, Italy, launching the “spirit of Assisi” meetings and bringing together global religious leaders. These events suggest a symbolic element to the motivations of John-Paul II, Pope Francis, and the papacy—peace, interreligious dialogue, the engagement of all young people of faith, and strong papal support for the United Nations.
Additionally, this year marks the 800th anniversary of Francis of Assisi’s encounter with al-Malik al-Kāmil, the Sultan of Egypt. The Islamic resurgence since the 1970s, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s fortieth anniversary, and the “spirit of Assisi” meetings, have given this encounter contemporary significance. With Pope Francis, the “encounter” has moved further than it did with John Paul II. He celebrated an outdoor Papal Mass with over 120,000 people in the UAE—an unprecedented Christian religious gathering given the Gulf’s predominantly Muslim character. Pope Francis’s motto for the visit, “make me an instrument of your peace,” comes from the “peace prayer” attributed to St. Francis but popularized during World War I. Pope Francis’s “culture of encounter”—peace, fraternity, and dialogue—reflects these “Franciscan values” and their relevance to modern international relations.
Pope Francis consciously draws on the historical resonance of St. Francis’s encounter with Sultan al-Kāmil. This is true not only of the UAE, Morocco, and Egypt, but also throughout the Middle East. Pope Francis has promoted the concerns of Christians in the region, worked to normalize Muslim-Christian relations, and supported cooperation on global issues that engage both communities, including those of refugees, migration, regional wars in Syria and Yemen, and religious nationalism.
Global Religious Contours
The global religious contours of the twenty-first century are important to understand why Pope Francis decided to extend his “culture of encounter” to the Middle East. First, over half of the world’s population are Christians (2.5 billion) or Muslims (1.7 billion). The frontiers of World Christianity have significance for the character of Francis’ pontificate. How Muslims and Christians engage with each other—both in diplomacy and in everyday encounters—has global importance for peace, prosperity, and international order.
Second, we are increasingly living in a world of religious nationalism. This nationalism has undermined the character of Middle Eastern societies, destroying the region’s diversity, provoking a dynamic of exclusivity, and threatening the continued presence of Christians, along with future prospects for pluralism, democracy, and tolerance. Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis have expressed their concern about this and support a living Christian presence in Jerusalem, beyond the custodianship of the Holy Places. Many believers, including the Muslim Council and Muslim intellectuals, have grappled with living faithfully in the modern world. The question becomes how young Muslims can take their Islam forward seriously, thoughtfully, and openly, while still navigating their daily encounters in a globalizing world with cultural and religious diversity and pluralism.
Third are the significant changes in twentieth-century Christianity in the Middle East and newly created global Christian diaspora communities. The pope’s visit takes place amidst both a reduction and an expansion of the Christian presence in the Gulf. The former has become a real crisis for the traditional presence of Eastern Christianity in the region. Christianity’s origins in the historical heartlands—Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and the Holy Land—are all in crisis. In the early 1990s, there were about 1.2 million Christians in Iraq, but today the number may be as low as 250,000. In Syria, the number has declined from 7 percent to 2 percent of the population since 2011.
Other parts of the Gulf, however, have seen an expansion of Christianity. A new type of Christian landscape is appearing, facilitated by globalization. Pope Francis speaks of migrants as people who are poor and marginalized, but these journeys can help break the negative, populist, narrative on migrants by showing what migrants can contribute to society. In the UAE, at least 80 percent of the population are migrant workers. There is a degree of religious freedom, though neither proselytization nor visible external signs on sacred buildings are allowed, and Christian ceremonies must be held discreetly. Pope Francis’s government-backed visit is breaking these norms; now, Christian migrants actively participate in society, and the local church is growing. The UAE belongs to the Vicariate of Southern Arabia, with over one million Catholics, mainly from the Philippines, India, Korea, and the Middle East. There are approximately five million Christians in the Gulf area from all classes and cultures. Some estimate as much as five percent of the population of Saudi Arabia is now non-Muslim. Pope Francis has undertaken a pastoral visit to the Arabian Peninsula to connect with Catholics and to meet with Muslim religious leaders, highlighting the importance of co-existence between world religions in the Middle East.
Conclusion
Against this backdrop, Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb signed the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together in February 2019. Al-Tayeb called on Muslims to “embrace” the Christians in their states, and argued they are “not a minority. [They] are citizens in every sense.” This colloquium, reminiscent of St. Francis’s encounter with the Sultan al-Kāmil, John-Paul II, and the “spirit of Assisi,” is now happening—not in Assisi or Europe, but in the Arab world. Moreover, a committee set up in August to help achieve its objectives has members from all of the Abrahamic religions and is chaired by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. In December, through the committee, Pope Francis and Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed have proposed that February 4 be declared a United Nations World Day of Fraternity, and have asked the United Nations to join them in organizing a World Summit on Human Fraternity—a promising way to begin the new year.
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Scott M. Thomas is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Bath, United Kingdom. He is a senior academic advisor to the Religion and International Relations Section of the International Studies Association (ISA) and a contributing editor to The Review of Faith and International Relations. He has recently published “The Encounter between Francis of Assisi and al-Malik al-Kāmil and its Relevance for Muslim-Christian Relations and Contemporary International Relations” in The Muslim World, 109, 1, 2 (2019).
Anthony O’Mahony is a fellow at Blackfriars, University of Oxford. He held the Sir Daniel & Countess Bernardine Murphy Donohue Chair in Eastern Catholic Theology in 2018 at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. He has recently published “Christianity in the Wider Levant Region: Modern History and Contemporary Contexts” in Secular Nationalism and Citizenship in Muslim Countries Arab Christians in the Levant (Palgrave, 2018). He is currently writing a history on Christianity in the modern Middle East.