São Paulo – Brazilian Catholics living in Qatar now have the chance to attend mass celebrated in Portuguese and their children will also be able to go to catechism classes in their native language starting at the of the month. Due to a request by the Brazilian community living in the Arab country, the Our Lady of Rosary church, in Barwa, next to Doha, began to offer, since May and once a month, eucharistic celebrations in Portuguese.
Qatar’s state religion is Islam, but the country has a religious complex called Mesaimeer that hosts temples of other religions. The Our Lady of Rosary church, a Roman Catholic church, is one of them. It welcomes the foreign catholic community living in the country for mass and other activities such as catechism classes.
The Brazilian mechanical engineer André Claro Cortez lives in Doha and told ANBA that the church used to celebrate mass in many languages, mainly in English, Arabic and Tagalog (spoken in the Philippines), but not in Portuguese. It was Cortez who proposed a mass in the language and he gathered the support of other Portuguese-speaking members of the local community.
Father Michael Cadhit (picture above) offered to celebrate the mass in Portuguese. He’s from the Philippines, was ordained a priest in Colombia and speaks many languages, among them Spanish and Italian. He celebrates mass in Portuguese, but the homily is given in Spanish.
Since then, three masses were celebrated in Portuguese, in May, June and September. They didn’t take place in July and August due to the vacation period, when many people are travelling. Cortez says around 200 people attended the first mass in Portuguese. He said that most of them were Brazilians. The next mass in Portuguese is scheduled for October 20.
The masses in Portuguese are always on Saturdays, at 11 am, occupying the slot of the mass that usually is celebrated in Spanish. The mass doesn’t take place in the main church, but in a chapel called Alverna, part of the complex of the Our Lady of Rosary church. Cortez says that his request gained the support of the embassies of Brazil and Portugal in Doha.
The catechism, in the Catholic Church the teachings of the church’s beliefs and of the life of Christ and his teachings, will be offered on Saturdays, before mass, beginning on September 29. The classes will be taught by Brazilian catechists, says Cortez.
André Cortez has been living in the Arab country, with his wife, for two years. He works in the customer support department of a Brazilian company operating in Qatar. Born in São José dos Campos, 91 km from São Paulo, he used to attend Catholic mass when living in Brazil.
Contact:
Our Lady of Rosary church
Barwa – Qatar
Information
Mass: catolicosqatarlinguaportuguesa@gmail.com
Catechism: catequeseportuguesqa@gmail.com
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
