By Adelaide Mena

Washington D.C., May 30, 2013 / 04:05 am (CNA).-

As he oversees the missionary territory of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, apostolic vicar Camillo Ballin outlined Catholics’ need for religious toleration as well as a physical home for ministry.

A native of Italy, Bishop Ballin set out to study Arabic and Islam in order “to discover another world” after his ordination as a priest of the Comboni Missionaries.

In a May 29 interview with CNA, he noted that his travels have taken him to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, and eventually to his 2005 appointment as apostolic vicar of Kuwait.  His vicariate – otherwise known as an ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the Church where a hierarchy is not yet fully organized – was expanded in 2011 to include the whole of the Northern Arabian Peninsula, which oversees Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The area has supported a Christian population since before the advent of Islam, a fact that many Christians in the area look to for inspiration, Bishop Ballin said. As an example, he pointed to church within the vicariate that is dedicated to St. Arethas and the 400 martyrs that were persecuted and killed over a century before Islam came to the area.

Today, ministry within the vicariate focuses upon the spiritual sustenance of 2.5 million Christians in the area, Bishop Ballin said.

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