Lennie Connully, the parish priest of St. Mary’s. The pontiff will visit Abu Dhabi, the headquarters of the Catholic Church’s Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia, which covers the UAE, Oman and Yemen. Officials consecrated the first Catholic church in Abu Dhabi in 1965. The Catholic Church itself believes there are some 1 million Catholics in the UAE today. At St. Mary’s and other churches, crosses are for the most part carefully concealed behind compound fences.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer January 31, 2019 07:52 UTC