In the country hosting the World Cup, most of the baptized are migrant workers from India, Pakistan and the Philippines.
ACN.- The 2022 World Cup has already begun in Qatar, from November 20 to December 18. There have been many reports in recent days on issues other than sports. Criticisms about the lack of human rights in this Persian Gulf country, ruled by an absolute monarchy, stand out.
The host of the FIFA World Cup also faces the challenge of interreligious dialogue and the progressive recognition of the human right to religious freedom. Qatar is majority Sunni Muslim, but its inhabitants include members of many religious minorities. Followers of Jesus are the largest religious minority, but who are Qatar’s Christians? And what is it like to live the Christian faith there?
According to the report Religious Freedom in the World, edited by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Christians living in Qatar make up 13.1% of the Qatari population. Most of them are migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or the Philippines.
Among the Christians, a total of 400,000 people, Catholics are the largest group, with members coming from different local Churches with their own languages and rites, such as the Siro-Malabar and Siro-Malankar Churches of Indian origin. According to the Apostolic Vicariate of North Arabia, the Catholic authority in the region, there are some 300,000 Catholics in Qatar. The faith life of these people has been changing in recent years.
Until the mid-1990s, Catholics practiced their faith organized in small communities with celebrations in makeshift «chapels» in homes and later in a school. In 1995, the authorities modified the rules on freedom of worship and allowed only Christians and Jews to erect places of celebration and prayer. Other faiths are still not allowed to register or establish places of worship. This restricted freedom of worship is not full religious freedom. Qatari citizens can only be Muslims and there is no provision for change of religion other than Islam. But all this has not slowed down the Church’s pastoral work with Catholic immigrants and its social support, especially towards those most in need.
As the current apostolic administrator of the Vicariate of North Arabia, Msgr. Paul Hinder, in an interview with Vida Nueva: «The Church’s message to every migrant over the years has remained the same: «The Church welcomes you in the name of Jesus Christ to worship and have meaningful communion with the community of the faithful, while offering you a place of safety and comfort far from home,» comments this Capuchin Franciscan: «The Church tries in every way possible to support the broader government plan for the welfare of migrants and their basic human rights.»
The eight registered Christian denominations (in addition to Catholics, there are Orthodox, Anglicans and Evangelicals) are allowed to worship collectively in an area provided by the government on the outskirts of Doha, on land donated by the monarch or emir himself. The first Catholic church in Qatar, «Our Lady of the Rosary», with a capacity of more than 2,000 people, has been erected there since 2008.