Pope Francis meets the small Catholic community of Morocco

Rabat.- Pope Francis will dedicate his second day of official visit to Morocco, this Sunday, to the small Catholic community, with several meetings followed by a high mbad for nearly 10,000 faithful.

In the morning, the Sovereign Pontiff will visit a social center near Rabat, before meeting religious leaders in the cathedral of the Moroccan capital, AFP reported.

The central act of the day will be Mbad organized in a covered sports complex.

Morocco has about 30,000 Catholics, 10 times less than before their independence, in 1956. In Morocco, there are about 30,000 Catholics, 10 times less than before their independence, in 1956.

The churches were saved from oblivion thanks to the arrival of sub-Saharan Africans, students attracted by the system of university scholarships and migrants who aspire to make the crossing to Europe.

The Christian community also has a few thousand Moroccan converts who have been fighting since 2017 to fully enjoy the freedom of religion recognized by its Constitution.

On Saturday, during a speech to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Francisco stressed that "freedom of conscience and freedom of religion are inextricably linked to human dignity"..

In the same speech, he emphasized the "suffering" of migrants, denouncing "indifference and silence" and asking to recognize them "as people, not as numbers".

"Forms of collective expulsion should not be accepted" and "extraordinary regularization should be encouraged", he said at the end of the day, in front of a small group of migrants gathered in the premises of the Catholic badociation Caritas.

"Safe, orderly and regular migration"

The road through Morocco in recent years has become the main route taken by migrants from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe, mainly because of the closure of the Libyan highway.

Morocco defends a "humanist" policy and claims to regularize nearly 50,000 illegal immigrants since 2014. The authorities regularly reject the criticism of human rights defenders, who denounce the "mbad arrests" campaigns carried out in recent months in the north of the country. country to move migrants south of the territory.

The Pope also called for the "rapid" implementation of the commitments of the Marrakech Global Compact, aimed at strengthening international cooperation to achieve "a safe, orderly and regular migration".

In a strong moment of Saturday, the leader of the 1300 million Catholics and King Mohammed VI, "commander of the believers", signed a joint declaration in which they demand to "preserve" Jerusalem as a meeting place and symbol of peaceful coexistence where mutual respect and dialogue are cultivated ".

The text also calls for "guaranteeing freedom of access to the faithful of the three monotheistic religions and the right of everyone to exercise his or her own worship" in Jerusalem.

The status of Jerusalem is a thorny issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while Palestinians want East Jerusalem the Palestinian sector, occupied and annexed by Israel, is the capital of the state to which they aspire.

King Mohamed VI chairs the "Al Quds Committee", established by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to promote the preservation of the religious, cultural and urban heritage of the holy city.

The pope and the ruler, who appeared side by side in all official acts, also defended peaceful coexistence between religions and condemned all forms of extremism.

The monarch stressed on Saturday that "the radicals, whether they are religious or not, are based on the non-knowledge of each other, the ignorance of the other, the l? ignorance in general ".

"What all terrorists have in common is not religion, but precisely the ignorance of religion, the time has come for religion to stop being an excuse for those who ignore it, "he said.

The pope will leave Morocco after mbad, after a 27-hour visit 34 years after John Paul II.