Kuwait: Parliamentarians oppose the construction of churches

On January 26, 2016, Vatican missionary news agency Fides reported the reaction of Kuwaiti parliamentarians and legal advisors when the municipality of Kuwait City, capital of Kuwait, approved the concession of land for the construction of new places of Christian worship. They declared their lively opposition to such an authorization, which would be against Sharia, they said. Emphasizing the unconstitutional nature of such a concession, its opponents cited the Constitution as establishing Islam as the state religion and Sharia as “the chief source of the legislation” (article 2). They added that all the researchers and experts in Islamic law would agree that no non-Islamic place of worship may be built in the Arabian Peninsula. After these declarations, Fahd Al-Sane, bureaucrat in charge of the municipal technical department, made haste to indicate that he had not received any communications with regard to the land conceded for the construction of churches.

Cathedral of the Holy Family in Kuwait City.

However, on September 10, 2015, an agreement in principle between the Kuwaiti minister of foreign affairs and the Holy See’s Secretariat of State was signed by Bishop Paul Richard Gallagher and his counterpart Sheik Saba Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah. They committed to strengthening and broadening the relationship along with cooperation in favour of peace and regional and international stability, according to Vatican Radio.

On September 15, Bishop Camillo Ballin, Apostolic Vicar for northern Arabia, told Famille Chrétienne that “two committees should be set up to work on subjects such as religious liberty, the teaching of the catechism in religious schools, the safety of churches, and the need for new churches.” For if Catholics are not truly “prevented from practicing their faith,” it is nonetheless increasingly “difficult to practice”: the 350,000 Catholics of Kuwait “officially have two churches.” And their number is growing: “It is becoming more and more difficult to meet their needs.” Bishop Ballin recalled that already before “the ministry of Islamic affairs had given its authorization to allow the Catholic Church 32,000 square feet for a new church,” sparking a “revolution of fundamentalists” in Parliament. Indeed, according to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN,) on February 16, 2012, recently established Islamist parliamentary group Al-Adala Bloc (justice group), had proposed a bill that would forbid the construction of churches and other non-Islamic places of worship in the country. Legislator Osama al-Munawer, who proposed the bill, had at that time declared his intention of going so far as to destroy the country’s churches.

Because of the “excessive number of churches relative to the Christian minority in the country,” the Islamist group’s manifesto stated they were acting to “preserve the identity of society and its Islamic values, to work according to the principles of equality, to present bills inspired by Islam, to fight corruption and to reinforce national unity.”

The Catholic community in Kuwait is able to use the Cathedral of the Holy Family in Kuwait City in addition to the churches of St. Therese, Our Lady of Arabia, St. Daniel Comboni, and a Greek Catholic church, located respectively in Salmiya, Ahmadi, Jlib al-Shuyukh and Salwa.

(Sources: kipa-apic.ch – Fides – Vatican Radio– Famille chrétienne – Aid to the Church in Need – DICI no. 332, 11/03/16)