Pope Francis became the first pontiff to visit an Arab Gulf state after he landed yesterday in the United Arab Emirates. Francis will spend three days in Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s capital, where he’ll attend a conference with Jewish and Christian leaders. It’s Francis’ seventh visit to a predominantly Muslim country, signaling a continuation of improving ties between the Vatican and the Islamic world. The overwhelming majority of people in the UAE are Muslim, but the country hosts a big expatriate population, some 1.2 million of whom are Christian.
(CNN)