Pope in Morroco: Don’t Convert Your Neighbor Be in Brotherhood

During a two-day trip to stress inter-faith dialogue in predominantly Muslim Morocco, Pope Francis told the small Catholic community Sunday that their mission was not to covert their neighbors but to live in brotherhood with other faiths.

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Conservative Catholics have criticized the pope’s opposition to organized or aggressive recruiting of potential converts. To this Francis said during Sunday mass that the “Church grows not through proselytism but by attraction,” adding that Morrocan Catholics’ mission “is not really determined by our size but rather by our capacity to generate change and to awaken wonder and compassion.” 

Morocco’s 30,000 Roman Catholics - most of them French and other European expatriates and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa - make up less than one percent of the population of 35 million. 

“Christians are a small minority in this country. Yet, to my mind, this is not a problem, even though I realize that at times it can be difficult for some of you,” he said at a meeting with Catholic community leaders in Rabat’s cathedral. Francis is the first pontiff to visit the North African country since John Paul II in 1985. 

Moroccan authorities do not recognize Moroccan converts to Christianity, many of whom worship secretly in homes. Although progress has been made in order to incorporate and tolerate other faiths. 

On this matter, the Head of the Catholic church celebrated Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s efforts to spread a form of Islam that promotes inter-religious dialogue and rejects violence in God’s name. 

The Moroccan monarch also welcomed Francis to the royal palace, where the two addressed the "sacred character of Jerusalem" in a joint declaration. The city should be a "symbol of peaceful coexistence" for Christians, Jews and Muslims, they said in a statement released by the Vatican. A declaration that comes as tensions have risen over U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that “Holy City” is Israel’s capital.