Before Bahrain established the Gulf's first church in the 1930s, priests would visit from Iraq to perform services for a small Catholic community.Now, its ranks swollen by foreign workers, mostly from India and the Philippines, the community is preparing to welcome the pope, the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics.Pope Francis's visit this week, his second to the Arabian peninsula, will be especially emotional for Najla Uchi, whose father Salman built the Sacred Heart church that opened on Christmas Eve, 1939.
VATICAN CITY, Holy See - Pope Francis will become the first pontiff in history to visit Bahrain, in a trip this week that is hoped will cement ties with Islam but is also marked by accusations of human rights abuses in the Gulf state.
A poster bearing the image of Pope Francis is displayed at the S