A7
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2019
Pope in historic UAE visit urges faith leaders to reject war
By NICOLE WINFIELD
and JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press
ABU DHABI, United
Arab Emirates — Pope
Francis urged religious lead-
ers today to work together to
reject the “miserable crude-
ness” of war as he opened
the fi rst-ever papal visit to
the Arabian Peninsula, the
birthplace of Islam, with a
strong denunciation of vio-
lence committed in God’s
name.
In a keynote speech to an
interfaith gathering in the
United Arab Emirates, Fran-
cis warned that the future of
humanity was at stake unless
religions come together to
resist the “logic of armed
power ... the arming of bor-
ders, the raising of walls.”
“There is no alterna-
tive: we will either build
the future together or there
will not be a future,” Fran-
cis told Abu Dhabi’s pow-
erful crown prince and hun-
dreds of imams, muftis,
ministers, rabbis and swamis
gathered in the Emirati capi-
tal at a time when the UAE-
backed Saudi war in Yemen
has driven the Arab world’s
poorest country to the brink
of famine.
“God is with those who
seek peace,” Francis added.
Francis’ speech, deliv-
ered at the Emirates’ Found-
ers’ Memorial, capped a his-
toric day that began when
he arrived at the presidential
palace for a welcome cer-
emony in a tiny Kia hatch-
back — only to be greeted
by an artillery salute and
military fl yover by a coun-
try at war.
Even for a nation known
for excess, the Emiratis’
red-carpet welcome was
remarkable, especially for a
pope who prides himself on
simplicity. It featured horse-
mounted guards escort-
ing the pontiff’s motorcade
through the palace gardens
while the fl yover trailed the
yellow and white smoke of
the Vatican fl ag.
AP Photos/Andrew Medichini
Yellow and white smoke, the colors of the Vatican fl ag, trail behind military aircraft during offi cial welcome ceremony for Pope
Francis in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Francis’ speech to the
gathering of faith lead-
ers was the highlight of his
40-hour visit to Abu Dhabi.
His trip concludes Tuesday
with the fi rst papal Mass
on the Arabian Peninsula, a
gathering expected to draw
some 135,000 faithful in a
never-before-seen display
of public Christian worship
here.
Francis’ visit, 800 years
after his peace-loving name-
sake St. Francis of Assisi
visited an Egyptian sultan,
marked the culmination of
years of Holy See efforts to
improve relations with the
Muslim world after they hit
a low during the papacy of
Pope Benedict XVI. Since
then, religious fanaticism
and faith-inspired wars
have only grown around the
globe.
The Jesuit pope cap-
italized on his relation-
ship with Sheikh Ahmed
el-Tayeb, the grand imam
of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the
revered 1,000-year-old seat
of Sunni learning, to make
SUNDAY
Pope Francis hugs Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of
Egypt’s Al-Azhar.
the historic trip. They found
welcome in the Emirates,
which prides itself on its tol-
erance in a region known for
severely restricting religious
freedom and is home to a
remarkably vibrant Catho-
lic community that by some
estimates numbers 1 million
faithful in a federation of 9
million.
At the end of the inter-
faith meeting, Francis and
el-Tayeb signed a joint state-
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ment on “human fraternity”
and their hopes for world
peace, and then laid the cor-
nerstones for a new church
and mosque to be built side-
by-side in Abu Dhabi. The
document, in Arabic and
Italian, describes itself as
being written in the name
of “all victims of wars, per-
secution and injustice; ...
and those tortured in any
part of the world, without
distinction.”
The United Arab Emir-
ates is deeply involved in the
Saudi-led war in Yemen and
faces widespread interna-
tional criticism for airstrikes
killing civilians and the cre-
ation of the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis.
As Francis began his trip,
human rights groups that are
banned from the UAE urged
him to use his visit to press
for accountability by the
Emirati leadership for atroc-
ities in the war in Yemen
and its repression of dissent
at home.
“Despite its assertions
about tolerance, the UAE
government has demon-
strated no real interest in
improving its human rights
record,” Human Rights
Watch said in a letter to
Francis.
It was a reference to the
UAE’s often-stated claims
of tolerance — it has a min-
ister for tolerance, is host-
ing the interfaith meeting
Francis is attending and has
declared 2019 to be its “Year
of Tolerance.” That respect
for non-Muslim forms of
worship, however, runs up
against the political reality
of media censorship, repres-
sion of political dissent and
bans on proselytizing and
conversion for Muslims.
Francis cited Yemen,
Syria, Iraq and Libya in his
speech in which he made
clear that “no violence can
be justifi ed in the name of
religion.”
“Human
fraternity
requires of us, as represen-
tatives of the world’s reli-
gions, the duty to reject
every nuance of approval
from the word ‘war,’” Fran-
cis said. “Let us return it to
its miserable crudeness.”
“The time has come
when religions should more
actively exert themselves,
with courage and audacity,
and without pretense, to help
the human family deepen
the capacity for reconcilia-
tion, the vision of hope and
the concrete paths of peace,”
he added.
El-Tayeb, for his part,
insisted to the audience that
Islam is a religion of peace
that values human life.
“All religions are inno-
cent and free from terrorism
and armed groups, no matter
what religion or notion those
groups follow, who their
victims are, or what land
their crimes were commit-
ted on,” he told the crowd
gathered at the memorial as
the sun set. “They are mur-
derers and butchers, who are
assaulting God’s messages.”
He added that after the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the
U.S., Islam was defamed by
what he called the media’s
misrepresentation of its true
message.
“The Western media
exploited the incident to
show Islam negatively as a
blood-thirsty religion and
to show Muslims as sav-
age barbarians who pose a
danger and threat to mod-
ern societies,” he said in
a lengthy speech quoting
numerous Quranic verses
about the value of life.
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