RABAT, March 31 (LINA) – His Majesty Mohammed VI, King of Morocco, has reaffirmed ensuring that there is freedom to practice all religions in the Kingdom.
« As King of Morocco and Commander of the Faithful, I am a guarantor of the free practice of religion. I am Commander of all believers, I protect Moroccan Jews as well as Christians from other countries who are living in Morocco, » King Mohammed VI indicated.
King Mohammed VI in his welcome speech to Pope Francis Saturday in Rabat, Morocco indicated that given the reality of today’s world, dialogue between the Abrahamic religion (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and inter-religious dialogue is important.
« The dialogue centered on tolerance has been going on for a long time now and yet it has not achieved its goal. The three Abrahamic religions were not created to be tolerant of one another out of some unavoidable fate or out of courtesy to one another, the reason they exist is to open up to one another so as to do one another good, » the Moroccan King explained.
Pope Francis is currently on a two-day visit to Morocco, a country where over 99 percent of its population is Muslim.
King Mohammed VI has, however, said the visit of Pope Francis to the Kingdom falls within the framework of the longstanding relations between Morocco and the Vatican.
According to the King, the Pope’s visit to the Kingdom comes at a time when all believers are faced with a number of challenges.
« We need to tackle these ill which feed on treachery as much as on the instrumentalization of the divine message by advocating the denial of the other and similar wicked theories, » the King stated.
According to him, whether radicalism is motivated by religion or not, it is due to failure to know one another and ignorance of the other.
He pointed out that the meeting between him and the Pope attests to a mutually held belief that the values of monotheism contribute to rationalization, to reconciliation and to improving the world order.
« As Commander of the Faithful and just like Your Holiness, I am against all forms of indifference, as Commander of the Faithful and as Holy Father, we called upon both idealistic and pragmatic to be realistic and to set an example, » King Mohammed VI noted.
