Catholic church in Barcelona opens door to Ramzan dinners

During Ramzan, Muslims fast every day from dusk to dawn. Muslims abstain from eating any food, drinking any liquids, smoking, and any negative thoughts. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has made many social aspects of Ramzan a lot harder to do safely. Thus, a Catholic church in Barcelona has offered up its open-air cloisters for Muslims to eat and pray together.

During the holy month of Ramzan, every evening between 50 and 60 Muslims, many of them homeless, stream into the centuries-old stone passages of the Santa Anna church, where volunteers offer a hearty meal of home-cooked food.

The encounter of religions can be an engine to show civic coexistence that, even though having different cultures, different languages, different religions they gather here and exchange thoughts.

Like one of them says, 'we are more capable of sitting down and talking than some politicians, who in the end talk about what differentiates them more than what can unite us.'

During the month of Ramzan, observant Muslims do not eat between sunrise and sundown, breaking their fast only after nightfall with a meal known as Iftar.

Now, People are very happy that Muslims can do Iftar in a Catholic church because religions serve to unite, not to separate.

A mosque or a church all are houses of God, and this is why we must give big respect to these places because it is the house of God where the prayer to Jesus takes place.

One of these Muslims says, 'It doesn't matter to us whether it is a mosque or a church. For us, it is a house of God.'

When the evening call to prayer is made they break the day's fast with a meal — called an iftar. 

Here a woman intones the Muslim evening call to prayer behind the church's central courtyard. When asked what did she pray for? She said, 'For everyone's well-being.'