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By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
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Rome
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While pundits and activists sound alarms about an “exodus” of Christians out of the Middle East, raising questions about whether Christians nay be an endangered species in the land of Christianity’s birth, the Synod of Bishops this morning heard a reminder that there’s an opposite, if not exactly equal, movement of Christians into the region.
Of the sixteen nations that make up the Middle East, seven have actually seen significant spikes in their Catholic population since 1980: Saudia Arabia, Bahrein, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Yemen. All are part of the Arabian Peninsula.
Saudi Arabia is an especially interesting case. Home to the holy Islamic sites of Mecca and medina, it also now contains the second largest Catholic community in the Middle East, with what the Vatican estimates at 1.25 million believers, though some experts believe the real number may be closer to almost two million. Even considering merely the official count, Saudi Arabia trails only Lebanon’s more than two million Maronites in terms of Catholic population.More…