Arabic made its debut as official language at Vatican

Arabic on 10 October 2012 made its official debut among one of the Languages at Pope Benedict’s weekly general audiences. This is an exercise and attempt of Vatican to expand its reach to Christians and Muslims in Middle East.  

This came out of the growing concerns of the Vatican in relation to the mass departure of the Christians from Middle East fearing to their safety over there. The community that comprised about 20 percent of the total population a century ago has fallen down to a percentage level of five. Some of the estimates also states that the 12 million of Christians leaving in Middle East may drop down to its half by 2020.

Speaking Arabic during the audiences that is broadcasted across the world on radio and television may bring down the fear of Christians in Middle East comforting them to stay back on the land that is a home for many of the holy places for Christians. It is likely that this act of Pope’s address to the world in Arabic language would help in improving the strained relations with the Muslim world. The relations between the Christians and the Muslim world turned sour after Pope’s speech at Regensburg in 2006, which made the Muslim world feel that his message was an attack on Islam.

The Priest, while addressing thousands of people at St. Peter's Square, read the summary of pope’s Italian language weekly address in Arabic for the very first time in the history along with other briefs in different languages including English, Polish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Slovak, German, Czech, Russian and Hungarian.

On occasion of the 50th anniversary of the second Vatican Council, Pope for the first time addressed people in Arabic.