Pope, Saudi king to hold historic meeting

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WanderAimlessly

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Pope, Saudi king to hold historic meeting
Nov 6 06:13 AM US/Eastern

Pope Benedict XVI was to hold an historic audience with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, on the first visit to the Vatican by a monarch from the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.

The Holy See does not have diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, which is home to Islam’s holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina and applies a rigorous doctrine of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism.

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Its possible some minor concessions in regard to possession of religious objects(Bibles, crosses etc) and maybe private worship. If the Vatican and enough western powers negotiate hard enough for it.

But I doubt we’ll ever see steeples or hear church bells ring out anywhere across the kingdom. And that Muslims will never be allowed to convert, at least publically. The imams will make sure of that.

This Wikipedia article elaborates further:
Status of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia:
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an Islamic theocratic monarchy in which Islam is the official religion; the law requires that all Saudi citizens be Muslims. Religious freedom is virtually non-existent. The Government does not provide legal recognition or protection for freedom of religion, and it is severely restricted in practice. The public practice of non-Muslim religions is prohibited. As a matter of policy, the Government guarantees and protects the right to private worship for all, including non-Muslims who gather in homes for religious practice; however, this right is not always respected in practice and is not defined in law.[1] The Saudi Mutaween (Arabic: مطوعين), or Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (i.e., the religious police), enforces the prohibition on the public practice of non-Muslim religions. The Government claims to recognize the right of non-Muslims to worship in private; it does not always respect this right in practice.[2]

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