Bishop Paolo Martinelli is urging Catholics in the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia to enter Holy Week with devotion, patience, and confidence in Christ, even as war continues to unsettle the region.
In his Holy Week 2026 message, released March 27, the Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia called the faithful to take part in the liturgies from Palm Sunday through the Easter Triduum, describing them as the source of Christian hope. He also acknowledged the grave context in which this year’s observances are taking place.
“Since 28th February, the whole of Middle East has been caught into a complex and unprecedented conflict,” he wrote.
About the vicariate
The Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia is the Catholic jurisdiction for the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen, based at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Abu Dhabi. Its roots go back to 1888, when it was created as the Apostolic Vicariate of Aden; it took its current name in 2011, when the Arabian territory was reorganized. Today it serves a largely expatriate Catholic population under Bishop Paolo Martinelli, OFM Cap.
The Vicariate of Northern Arabia covers Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, with residence of the Bishop in Awali, Bahrain.
Bishop Martinelli thanked civil authorities and security personnel for helping keep communities safe and churches open, while asking the faithful to respect local guidance during the week’s celebrations. He warned that parishes may need to adjust schedules and asked Catholics to accept those changes with patience.
His message framed those disruptions in spiritual terms. The difficulties of the present moment, he said, can be lived in union with Christ’s suffering and offered as a participation in His work of redemption. He renewed his appeal for prayer, urging families to pray the Rosary each day for peace in the region and throughout the world.
Two days later, in his Palm Sunday homily on March 29, Bishop Martinelli returned to the same theme with greater urgency, placing the Passion of Christ at the center of the current crisis.
He began by recalling Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the liturgy’s movement from acclaim to suffering. Drawing on Isaiah’s suffering servant and St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he said Christ’s Passion shows that apparent defeat is not the end of the story. Jesus, the Son of God who “emptied himself” and became obedient unto death, reveals in the cross a love stronger than evil.
The bishop's most forceful words came when he connected the Passion directly to the experience of Christians living amid violence:
“These days, marked by great sadness due to war and violence in the world, which have affected us as well as all the other Gulf countries, are not the last word on earth. Death and evil will never be the last word. The last word will always be the victory of love, of God’s mercy.”
That line gives the clearest key to both texts. Bishop Martinelli is not minimizing the suffering caused by war. He is insisting that Christians read it through the lens of Holy Week. Human violence is real, but it does not define the believer’s life. “Our life,” he said, “is not defined by this war; it is not defined by evil, but by the presence of Christ who walks with us.”
He closed by inviting the faithful to live the Triduum intensely, remain united in prayer for peace, and ask the intercession of Mary, “our Mother of Sorrow,” for reconciliation among peoples.
Visit the slideshow below to see Bishop Paolo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia (which includes UAE, Oman and Yemen), celebrating a Mass this year in memory of four Missionaries of Charity who were killed in Yemen on March 4, 2016.
