ITEMS OF INTEREST March 30, 2009 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

with contributions from Caryle Murphy, Gerry Harrington, Wendy Lee

WHEN THE REV. TOMASITO VENERACION arrived in this Muslim nation seven years ago, his Roman Catholic parishioners prayed in small groups scattered in apartments, schools, and one tiny makeshift chapel. At Easter, Indian Catholics gathered in one place, Filipinos in another, Arabs in yet another.

But with last year's opening of Our Lady of the Rosary Church, his congregants for the first time had a recognized, central place to worship. On Christmas Eve, 15,000 attended a midnight mass, with those who couldn't cram into the 2,700-seat church watching on video screens outside. "When I first came here, the church was not recognized. But now we are enjoying this gift," Father Veneracion says. "It's a tremendous feeling of relief that we can breathe, worship, and pray in a place without fear and without disturbance."

The decision to permit church building is widely seen as part of an effort by Qatar's leader, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, to modernize the tiny emirate, made wealthy by its natural-gas reserves, and demonstrate traditional Islam's flexibility and tolerance.

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