A day like today in 1970 Aerosmith performs its first concert at a high school

AFP

The pope celebrates mass in Bahrain and families of those sentenced to death ask for your support

Some 30,000 people attended the mass celebrated by Pope Francis on Saturday at Bahrain’s national stadium, on the third day of his visit, which was marked by a protest by families of those sentenced to death in this Muslim Gulf kingdom. Police briefly detained 10 people who demonstrated outside a school where the pontiff was due to speak and asked to meet him, the London-based group Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) told AFP. “Tolerance does not exist for us here in Bahrain!” Read the sign carried by Hajar Mansur, mother of imprisoned activist Sayed Nizar al Wadaei -director of the NGO BIRD-. The pope, who was not in direct contact with the protesters, was greeted with dances and flowers inside the Sacred Heart school, where he called on students to “adopt a culture of care” and “dialogue.” Since the 2011 uprising in the context of the Arab Spring, Bahrain has been regularly accused by NGOs and international institutions of carrying out a fierce crackdown on political dissidents, particularly those from the Shia community, in a country ruled by a dynasty. Sunni. The government, for its part, assures that it does not tolerate “discrimination” and that it has put in place mechanisms to protect human rights. -“Coexistence”- “This land is a living image of coexistence in diversity and even an image of our world, increasingly marked by the constant migration of peoples and by the pluralism of ideas, customs and traditions,” Francis said. The pope arrived in this island kingdom of 1.4 million people on Thursday for a four-day visit, the second to a Gulf country after the 2019 visit to the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain, which formalized diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 2000, currently has 80,000 Catholics, according to the Vatican. Francis is devoting most of his visit to Bahrain to meetings with government officials and religious figures, although for Catholics on this small island the highlight of the trip was Saturday mass. Some of the 30,000 faithful of 111 nationalities who were waiting for him could not hold back their tears from the emotion of seeing the 85-year-old Argentine pope in the largest sports venue, located in Riffa. Francis, who was using a wheelchair and a cane due to knee problems, smiled and waved to the crowd from the popemobile, surrounded by dozens of security personnel. “We are so excited about seeing the pope!” Philomina Abranches, a 46-year-old Indian volunteer living in Bahrain, told AFP. “Everyone wants to see the pope! It is the dream of a lifetime for everyone to come see him. (…) He represents above all world peace. This is what we need now,” she added. Marguerite Heida, 63, felt “lucky” to attend “the biggest event of the year”. “People usually go to Italy to see the pope and they don’t always get to do it. I saw him yesterday in church and I will see him today. I was also able to shake his hand and get his blessing,” said this Christian from Bahrain. Francis has made the relationship with Islam one of the pillars of his papacy. Three years ago, in the Emirates, he celebrated mass before 170,000 people and signed a Christian-Muslim declaration in favor of peace. Since his election in 2013, Francis has visited a dozen Muslim-majority countries, including Jordan, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco and Iraq. cmk-lar/ybl/dbh/mar/jvb/aoc/mb