ASIA/KUWAIT - “We are a small, young, and dynamic community, and we live on peaceful terms with the Muslim majority,” the Apostolic Vicar of Kuwait tells Fides

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - “We have freedom of worship and maintain healthy relations with the other religions and with the Muslim majority,” Bishop Camillo Ballin, Apostolic Vicar of Kuwait, told Agenzia Fides.
“The Catholic Church in Kuwait is small yet dynamic,” the Apostolic Vicar says. “It is made up of people from other countries who are working here. The majority of the faithful are young, and offer the enthusiasm and love for activity that characterizes the people of their age. It is a Church that is constantly changing, as the foreigners, once they finish the job they were working on, they leave (although there are people who have been living here for 30 years or longer). It is impossible for a foreigner to obtain citizenship in Kuwait, nor purchase property. This legislation has become necessary because, as occurs in other countries in the Gulf, it attracts a large number of foreign workers. If citizenship was granted to all of them, the local people would begin to be a minority.”
“For this reason,” Bishop Ballin says, “only four of the Catholic families are local citizens. There are also around 150 Protestants. They are families of Turkish or Iraqui origin that were living in Kuwait at the time of the independence in 1961. That is when they decided to grant citizenship to the foreigners living in the country at the time.”
There are 350,000 Catholics, of whom 320,000 are of Latin Rite and 30,000 of Eastern Rite. The majority of the Catholics are of Asian origin (Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Bengals, Indians, and Pakistanis), Arabic origin (Lebanese, Egyptian), and European origin. This implies a great variety of languages in worship: Arabic, English, Italian, French, Tagalog, and Hindi. In addition to the Latin Rite, there is also the Syro-Malabar, Syro-Melkite, Maronite, and Coptic rites. “We are a small but varied community, which in its littleness reflects the spiritual wealth of the Catholic Church.” Bishop Ballin concluded (LM) (Agenzia Fides 25/11/2008)