The seat of the Roman Catholic Church Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia will be transferred to Bahrain and not the Vatican Embassy, according to Archbishop Camillo Ballin, answering queries from the Kuwait Times through an email.
“It is the local Bishop (myself) who is going to transfer to Bahrain, not the mission of the Vatican (Embassy), which will remain in Kuwait. I also want to keep my residence in Kuwait, where we have 350,000 Catholics and four parishes, so I will be with you there very often,” he said.
Last week it was reported in many local dailies that the Vatican Embassy to Kuwait would be transferred to Bahrain for a variety of reasons.
“Bahrain is more central among the four countries in the region (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) of which I am in charge; so, for geographical reasons, we talked about it and decided to transfer the Bishop House from Kuwait to Bahrain,” he added.
Asked if the decision to transfer was somehow connected to the continuing refusal of the Kuwaiti government to provide additional land and the so called ‘lack’ of real religious freedom in the country, Ballin said, “This decision has nothing to do with the refusal to receive land for a new Catholic Church, which only happened around three months ago. This decision had already been made in January 2012 on the occasion of the meeting of all the priests. The previous Bishop was also consulted and all the priests were of the mindset that the Bishop should be in Bahrain. This happened a long time before the strange stand taken by some parliamentarians in the Kuwaiti Parliament,” he explained.
The transfer of the Vicariate will be completed in a year’s time, according to Ballin. With regard to the Church of Bahrain and whether the church in Bahrain has existed for a considerable period of time, Ballin noted, “There is already a church in Manama from a long time back. It is the first Catholic Church in the Gulf, built in 1939. But we are in need of another church for the large number of faithful (the ancient church can seat only around 100 people). There are in Bahrain between 100,000 and 140,000 Catholics. With a church for only 100 people , you can understand the need for another church.”
Bishop Ballin also confirmed that that there are Bahraini citizens who are Christians and even Jews. “Bahrain is open to give citizenship, under some conditions.”
The new church will reportedly be constructed in Awali on a 9,000 square meter plot of land donated in May by His Majesty the King. It will include the transfer of the official residence of the Bishop and the seat of the Vicariate of Northern Arabia. The Vicariate looks after the spiritual well-being of over two million Roman Catholics in the GCC area.
The decision came after careful evaluations and considerations regarding Bahrain as the new center for Catholicism in the GCC.
The conclusion was that due to Bahrain’s central locale, fewer visa restrictions, and, most importantly, the Kingdom’s openness and tolerance towards religion, Bahrain would greatly facilitate the work of the church, including its officials.