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Dee Sandin
First Catholic Church Opens in Qatar - Sign of the Times (GALLERY)
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This weekend, with the blessings of that nation’s emir, 5,000 faithful will celebrate Our Lady of the Rosary’s historic consecration as the first catholic church in Doha, Qatar. Yet there is no cross, no bell, no steeple or sign because some Muslim people have deemed it as offensive and the parish priest, Father Tom Veneracion worries about backlash. Sadly, a national referendum has been called to determine the fate of the church. They are very brave, and let’s hope it causes no bloodshed
And as the church lookd forward to its first Easter service, the controversy is getting considerable attention among this gas-rich country's press.
"The cross should not be raised in the sky of Qatar, nor should bells toll in Doha," wrote Lahdan bin Issa al-Muhanada, a leading columnist in Doha's Al-Arab newspaper. But Abdul Hamid al-Ansari, the former dean of the Islamic law school at Qatar University, disagrees. He wrote that having "places of worship for various religions is a fundamental human right guaranteed by Islam. Sitting in his sparse office in the portable building that has served as a makeshift chapel for his congregation for the last six years, Veneracion said he was bewildered by the dispute. "It is confusing to us," said the priest, a soft-spoken man from the Philippines who seemed genuinely caught off guard by the controversy.
"We tried to be discreet, and I think there's an atmosphere generally in the Gulf that's fairly anti-Christian, but that's mainly to do with what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has nothing to do with us at all."
(foxnews)
Read More: foxnews
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