I don't know who puts out the Arab Times but this is an AP story.
Plan for catholic church makes waves in Bahrain
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Plan for catholic church makes waves in Bahrain
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Sunni clerics oppose
MANAMA, Bahrain, Sept 3, (AP): The building of the largest Roman Catholic church in the Gulf was supposed to be a chance for the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain to showcase its traditions of religious tolerance in a conservative Muslim region where churches largely operate under heavy limitations.
Instead, the planned church — intended to be the main center for Catholics in the region — has turned into another point of tension in a country already being pulled apart by sectarian battles between its Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities.
Hardline Sunni clerics have strongly opposed the construction of the church complex, in a rare open challenge of the country’s Sunni king. More than 70 clerics signed a petition last week saying it was forbidden to build churches in the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.
One prominent cleric, Sheik Adel Hassan al-Hamad, proclaimed in a sermon during Friday prayers last month, that there was no justification for building further churches in Bahrain, adding, “anyone who believes that a church is a true place of worship is someone who has broken in their faith in God.”
But Bahrain has a multi-religious tradition — and tolerance — that is unique in Gulf. The island nation has several Christian extended families which originally immigrated from Iraq, Iran or elsewhere in the early 20th Century and gained citizenship when Bahrain gained independence. Similarly, it has native Jewish and Hindu communities. The first Roman Catholic church in the Gulf was built in 1939 on land donated by Bahrain’s emir.
The building of the church complex “is a sign of openness, important for Bahrain, and I hope it will serve as a model for other countries, too,” the region’s bishop, the Rev. Camillo Ballin, said in a statement.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, issues over Christian churches have flared in the past year.
In Kuwait, Islamist lawmakers have proposed bans on further construction of churches. Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Abdel Aziz Al Sheik, reportedly urged for the destruction of all Christian churches on the Arabian peninsula, but it was quickly dismissed by nearly all Islamic leaders in the region.
“Bahrain is a country of tolerance among all religions, sects and races. This is well known about Bahrain’s history,” said the Rev. Hani Aziz of Bahrain’s National Evangelical Church, who was among 19 non-Catholic Christian leaders who also met with Bahrain’s king over the project. “The construction of a church falls in line with this image.”