Rabat – The Vatican has chosen a logo for Pope Francis’s upcoming visit to Morocco scheduled for March 30-31.
The visit came at the request of King Mohammed VI. The pope will visit Rabat and Casablanca on his 26th visit outside Italy.
The Vatican chose “Servant of Hope” as the motto of the pope’s upcoming visit to Morocco because he “is known as the Servant of the Servants of God,” Vatican News reported January 8. The motto is shown under Pope Francis’ name
The Vatican selected the logo out of 50 logos in a competition.
The logo features symbols of “a cross and a crescent” representing Christianity and Islam. It highlights “the interreligious relations between Christians and Muslims.”
The logo has the colors red and green which symbolizes Morocco’s flag and yellow and white as background colors for the Vatican.
It also shows the name “Morocco” written in Arabic as an honor to the Arabic-speaking country for hosting the pope.
Prior to his two-day visit to Morocco, the pope plans to visit the UAE February 3-5.
In an address to diplomats on Monday in the Vatican, Pope Francis said that his visits to the UAE and Morocco “represent two important opportunities to advance interreligious dialogue and mutual understanding between the followers of both religions.”
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In November 2018, Rabat’s Archbishop Cristobal Lopez wrote a letter to Christians in Morocco on Pope Francis’s visit to Morocco.
Lopez explained that the pope wants to meet the people of Morocco and “His Majesty the King, in the spirit of an interreligious Islam-Christian dialogue,” which both sides seek to promote.
The pope’s visit will be the second of its kind from a pope to Morocco after the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1985. King Hassan II invited Pope John Paul II as an opportunity to build a bridge between Muslims and Christians.
