{"id":38180,"date":"2019-03-31T11:22:52","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T11:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=38180"},"modified":"2019-03-31T11:22:52","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T11:22:52","slug":"man-running-at-moroccan-kings-car-during-pope-visit-is-tackled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=38180","title":{"rendered":"Man running at Moroccan king\u2019s car during pope visit\u00a0is tackled"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nRABAT: Pope Francis will hold mass Sunday for nearly 10,000 members of Morocco\u2019s Catholic minority, on the second day of a visit during which he has already met migrants and trainee imams.<\/p>\n

\nThe Argentine pontiff will begin the day at a social center near Rabat, before meeting religious leaders at the cathedral in the Moroccan capital.<\/p>\n

\nThe highlight for the Catholic community will be the mass held at a city stadium that marks the conclusion of the pope\u2019s two-day visit.<\/p>\n

\nFrancis is the first pontiff to visit the North African country since John Paul II in 1985, and his arrival drew thousands to the streets on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\nChristians are a tiny minority in Morocco where 99 percent of the population is Muslim, with sub-Saharan Africans making up a large part of the country\u2019s 30,000-strong Catholic community.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"
\nPope Francis, on the popemobile, and Moroccan King Mohammed VI, right, waving, make their way through the crowd in Rabat, Morocco, Saturday, March 30, 2019. \u00a0(AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\nThere are a few thousand Christian converts in Morocco, who since 2017 have called openly for the right to live \u201cwithout persecution\u201d and \u201cwithout discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nSpeaking at Saturday\u2019s welcome ceremony, the pope defended \u201cfreedom of conscience\u201d and \u201creligious freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe pontiff also highlighted the suffering of migrants, denouncing \u201cindifference and silence\u201d while calling on people to consider them \u201cas people, not numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe fate of migrants has been a focal point of Francis\u2019s papacy and he concluded his Saturday schedule at a Caritas charity center which offers them support.<\/p>\n

\nWhile at the center, where children donned colorful hats to greet the pope, Francis criticized \u201ccollective expulsions\u201d and said ways for migrants to regularize their status should be encouraged.<\/p>\n

\nMorocco says it has a \u201chumanistic\u201d approach to migration and rejects allegations by rights groups of \u201cbrutal arrest campaigns\u201d and \u201cforced displacement\u201d to the country\u2019s southern border.<\/p>\n

\n

\nDear Moroccan friends, I am coming as a pilgrim of peace and fraternity. We Christians and Muslims believe in God, the Creator and the Merciful, who created people to live like brothers and sisters, respecting each other in their diversity, and helping one another in their needs.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Pope Francis (@Pontifex) March 29, 2019<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nFrancis was welcomed to Morocco by King Mohammed VI \u2014 who describes himself as \u201ccommander of the faithful\u201d \u2014 and the two on Saturday addressed the \u201csacred character of Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe city should be a \u201csymbol of peaceful coexistence\u201d for Christians, Jews and Muslims, they said in a joint statement released by the Vatican.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe specific multi-religious character, the spiritual dimension and the particular cultural identity of Jerusalem… must be protected and promoted,\u201d said the text, which was jointly signed at Rabat\u2019s royal palace.<\/p>\n

\nThe Moroccan king chairs a committee created by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to safeguard and restore Jerusalem\u2019s religious, cultural and architectural heritage.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"
\nThe honor guard waits for Pope Francis to arrive in Rabat, Morocco, Saturday, March 30, 2019. (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\nJerusalem\u2019s status is perhaps the most sensitive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n

\nIsrael sees the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.<\/p>\n

\nUS President Donald Trump sparked anger across the Muslim world when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital in 2017.<\/p>\n

\nFrancis\u2019s palace meeting with the king was followed by a visit to an institute which hosts around 1,300 trainee imams and preachers.<\/p>\n

\nThere they heard from a French and a Nigerian student of the institute, which teaches \u201cmoderate Islam\u201d and is backed by the king.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RABAT: Pope Francis will hold mass Sunday for nearly 10,000 members of Morocco\u2019s Catholic minority, on the second day of a visit during which he has already met migrants and trainee imams. The Argentine pontiff will begin the day at a social center near Rabat, before meeting religious leaders at the cathedral in the Moroccan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}