Catholics in the United Arab Emirates take part in the Worldwide Women’s Rosary

Women from all over the world joined together on Dec. 8 for the public recitation of a rosary to Our Lady. In the United Arab Emirates, where only 7% of the population professes Christianity, women are participating in the initiative in a special way.

Martha and Darío are a Colombian married couple living in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. There they have developed an active faith life, and on Dec. 8 they will be part of a Catholic community that will join the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.

[...] “It’s common to think that in a place where the Catholic faith is not the main recognized faith, different kinds of difficulties may arise,” Darío acknowledged.

“Here, on the contrary, we constantly receive ‘friendly challenges’ to faithfully demonstrate our faith to others in love, in charity, in respect, in tolerance,” he said.

[...] The news about the Worldwide Women’s Rosary came through Fanny Tagle, a Chilean who participates in coordinating the initiative. Martha and Darío took the idea to the parish, where the priest decided to support it, proposing to offer the intentions of the Rosaries that are said in the half hour before each Mass from Dec. 5–8 for the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.

In the entire country, which is about the size of the state of Maine, there are only nine Catholic parishes, which means that “people of different cultures and different countries flock to the eucharistic celebrations.” Darío estimates that every Sunday some 15,000 people attend Mass.

[...] To join the global initiative Dec. 8, the couple met in a house and live streamed it from there on the Facebook page of the Spanish-speaking community of Abu Dhabi.

Representatives from Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, and the United States all participated in the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.

Also participating were women from Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Uganda, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

CNA Newsroom, Nov 22, 2022 (This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted)

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