Christian growth in the heart of Islam

Media theorists like to talk about the power of a “narrative,” meaning a storyline that’s often more influential than reality in shaping perceptions. For instance, violent crime rates in the United States are at historic lows, yet popular psychology, shaped by Quentin Tarantino and “CSI,” remains gripped by a narrative of pervasive danger.

Pope Benedict XVI recently returned from his fourth trip to the Middle East, where there’s a strong Christian narrative these days: decline and possible extinction. Given the steep drop in the native Christian population, some fear the region will soon be a “spiritual Disneyland,” full of holy sites but empty of flesh-and-blood believers.

There’s certainly reality to that, yet the narrative of decline obscures an equally important truth. In some parts of the Middle East, Christianity is actually booming, and those folks deserve some attention, too.

Looking just at Catholics, seven Middle Eastern nations have seen spikes since 1980: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Yemen, all on the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia alone now contains the second-largest Catholic community in the region, conservatively estimated at 1.5 million. They’re mostly so-called “guest workers,” including Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Koreans, Nigerians, Lebanese and others, drawn by construction, manufacturing and service jobs.

This mushrooming Christian footprint in the heart of the Islamic world is arguably the most remarkable phenomenon in the global church in the 21st century, and it faces unique pastoral challenges. As long as all one sees is a Christian exodus, however, it’s unlikely the church will mobilize its resources effectively to be of support.

In effect, we need a new narrative for the Middle East: not just decline, but new life, too.

To that end, I turned to Bishop Camillo Ballin, a 68-year-old Comboni missionary who serves as apostolic vicar of Northern Arabia, covering Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. An Italian, Ballin has spent his career in the Middle East, serving in Egypt, Lebanon and Sudan. He was in Lebanon for the pope’s trip, and I interviewed him shortly afterward, on Sept. 20.

Allen: We hear a great deal about the decline of Christianity in the Middle East, but your local church is growing rapidly. Who are your people, where do they come from and how many are there?

Ballin: Our faithful come from Asia (the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Korea and elsewhere), from the Arabic countries and from Europe. There are now 350,000 Catholics in Kuwait; 300,000 in Qatar; 150,000 in Bahrain; and 1.5 million in Saudi Arabia, including 1.2 million Filipinos. The overall total for Northern Arabia is 2 million Catholics. Ninety percent belong to the Latin Rite, while the remaining 10 percent belong to one of the Eastern churches.

What are the main challenges you face? What are the gifts?

The main challenges we face are:

• How to form all these people and nationalities into one Catholic church, and not many Catholic churches living alongside one another.
• How to help people in their own language. We celebrate the Mass in five rites (Latin, Malabar, Malankara, Maronite and Coptic) and in 12 different languages.
• How to assist such a large number of faithful with very limited facilities. We need much more space, but this is opposed by fundamentalist Muslims. In Kuwait, the fundamentalists declared a few months ago that not only can no new churches be built, but existing churches must be destroyed.

Our gifts include:

• Our faithful are all young, because when they reach retirement age they have to leave. Generally, they go back back to their original country or they emigrate definitively to the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and so on. Being young, our faithful are very active. They want space for meetings, prayer services and other activities, but we have just two or three halls to serve thousands of people.
• Our faithful are generous. We’re dependent on their offerings at the Masses, which are enough for the normal running of our parishes, but we can’t handle any big projects.
• Religious practice among our people is very high, especially the Indians. Our Masses usually have at least 1,000 attendees, and many Masses have several thousand. In Qatar, for example, there are two weekly Masses for the Filipinos, and there are usually 3,000 people at each. This massive presence of our faithful facilitates our relations with them and encourages us in our ministry.

Is there a danger that in thinking about the church in the Middle East, we overlook the rapidly growing immigrant population?

The immigrant population deserves much more attention. Our two vicariates now have almost half of the Catholics living in the Middle East. They deserve consideration, too, even though they’re not natives in these countries.

From the outside, we hear a great deal about a lack of religious freedom in Arabia. What’s the reality on the ground?

We want to respect the laws of the countries we live in as well as their faith, traditions and mentality. These countries never have to be afraid of the Catholic church, because we will always respect them.

Where we live, it’s generally permitted to pray in private in one’s home, but it’s not clear if this private prayer can include only members of the immediate family or if a group of families can meet together to pray. Some embassies welcome us for prayer, a practice known by the government and by everyone.

The day when we have even some simple halls in the main towns where we can pray without fear or the day when we can have a church there will be a glorious day for Saudi Arabia and for all the world.

What did you make of the pope’s trip to Lebanon? Is there anything from it that will be of practical value to your church?

It’s important to put the teachings of the pope into practice, especially communion among all the churches and all believers. In his document on the church in the Middle East, the pope wrote: “I encourage all the Catholic faithful and all priests, to whatever church they belong, to manifest sincere communion and pastoral cooperation with the local bishop.” In our two vicariates, there is only one bishop in charge of all Catholics, no matter the church to which they belong. As I said above, communion is our first challenge, and the pope put great stress on unity with the local bishop.

The pope’s exhortation takes everyone back to the theme of “the Catholic church in the Middle East” — “church” in the singular, not plural. It is a strong prophetic teaching for the churches in our area.

How can Catholics in the United States be of support?

We implore Catholics everywhere to pray for our ministry in the Arabian Gulf countries, which urgently need the presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and his grace through the other sacraments and the Gospel.

The Vicariate of Northern Arabia is a “start-up” in a vast mission territory, with huge financial needs. We plan as soon as possible to build a new cathedral church and pastoral center in Bahrain, centrally located among the four countries of the vicariate. The estimated budget for this project alone is $9 million. Our friends in the United States can make tax-deductible contributions to support the vicariate through the Comboni Missionaries, the religious order of which I am a member. Helping us is as simple as making an online donation at www.combonimissionaries.org [4], noting that it’s for the Vicariate of Northern Arabia.