2023-08-03 03:45:00
August 2, 2023 / 8:45 pm
In his first speech delivered in Lisbon, as part of his apostolic trip to Portugal that began on August 2, Pope Francis referred to Mouraria, a small Lisbon neighborhood unknown to most of the world.
What is Mouraria?
Mouraria is a neighborhood of the Portuguese capital where “people from more than sixty countries live in harmony”, as Pope Francis highlighted in his first speech today.
The neighborhood’s approximately 6,000 inhabitants come from dozens of different countries, notably China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Mozambique.
“I cordially greet all of you and I thank the President for the welcome and the cordial words he addressed to me. I feel happy to be in Lisbon, a meeting city that embraces different peoples and cultures, and that these days becomes even more universal; it becomes, in some way, the capital of the world”, expressed the Holy Father in his message on August 2.
“This fits well with his character, because young people are the future, multiethnic and multicultural ―I am thinking of the Mouraria neighborhood, where people from more than sixty countries live in harmony―, and he discovers the cosmopolitan trait of Portugal, which deepens its roots in the desire to open up to the world and explore it, sailing towards new and broader horizons”.
How did Mouraria come about?
Mouraria was born practically at the same time as Portugal itself.
Times were less peaceful then. On October 25, 1147, Afonso Henriques seized Lisbon from the Muslims after a siege of almost four months and became the first King of Portugal as Alfonso I.
The region that stretches from Martim Moniz Square to the slopes of São Jorge Castle became the only place of residence for the remaining Muslims. These descendants of the seventh-century conquerors of North Africa were called “Moors” or “moors“, in Portuguese.
They remained in the region that would take their name, Mouraria, until their expulsion by King Manuel in 1496.
In the decades after the Christianization of the area, the newly created Society of Jesus opened its first school in Portugal in this neighborhood in 1553, from which it would launch its evangelizing efforts in the region.
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The neighborhood is still known for its historic Catholic churches, the first of which, São Sebastião (Saint Sebastian), was built in 1505 as protection against the plague.
Subsequently, other chapels in the area, such as that of Our Lady of Health (Our Lady of Health), associated with miraculous protection from the plague, would inspire religious processions that continue to be held to this day every first Sunday in May.
The Church of São Cristóvão, one of the few buildings and monuments whose works of art inside survived the 1755 earthquake that devastated Lisbon, would be elevated to the dignity of royal chapel in 1861.
Marginalization, rebirth, degradation and renewal
During the 19th and 20th centuries, Mouraria was the cradle of one of the most clearly Portuguese cultural products: fado, the melancholic bohemian soundtrack of Lisbon nights. Fernando Maurício, one of the most influential “fadistas”, was born in Mouraria in 1933, as was the song “Ai, Mouraria”, recorded by many Portuguese musicians over the years.
However, Mouraria began the 21st century as a very degraded neighborhood.
“The marginalization of the Mouraria neighborhood persisted for centuries until the turn of the millennium,” says the website of the Renovar a Mouraria Foundation, which has been working since 2008 to recover the neighborhood. “In the first decade of the 21st century, Mouraria, the cradle of fado and home to several waves of immigration, was perceived as an unsafe place, torn apart by economic and social tensions.”
According to the Foundation, “living like an abandoned place in the city, situations related to drug trafficking and consumption in broad daylight, broken families, dirty streets and poverty were normal.”
In 2012, the Lisbon City Council began to improve the public space and implemented a Community Development Plan that significantly improved the neighborhood.
The Foundation runs Portuguese courses for immigrants, as well as study aid projects and support for undocumented foreigners.
The multicultural neighborhood, however, risks losing its character due to gentrification and tourism, which has become a major source of income for Lisbon.
Filipa Bolotinha, general coordinator of Renovar a Mouraria, told Diário de Notícias in June of this year that “it is increasingly difficult for migrants to continue living in Mouraria. Now the houses are rehabilitated, but they are no longer available due to the prices “.
Understanding Mouraria in the light of WYD
The mix of religious traditions, the harsh reality of migration, the complexity of surviving in urban environments and Mouraria’s historical contributions to the culture of Portugal give a competitive quality to the Pope’s words about harmony.
It may be that the Holy Father wanted to see in Mouraria what he described later in his speech as his hope for Europe: “I dream of a Europe, heart of the West, that uses its ingenuity to put out sources of war and light lights of hope; a Europe that knows how to rediscover its young soul, dreaming of the greatness of the whole and going beyond its immediate needs; a Europe that includes peoples and individuals, without pursuing theories or ideological colonization”.
How to make that dream come true? In the Gospel presented to young people on World Youth Day, according to Pope Francis.
“Young people from all over the world, who cultivate a desire for unity, peace and brotherhood, young people who dream, challenge us to make their dreams of good come true. They are not in the streets to shout in rage, but to share the hope of the Gospel”.
In some way, the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all lands, and even others of different faiths, exist as a neighborhood of harmony on World Youth Day, a fulfilled and hopeful Mouraria, challenged by her to “sail together towards the future” with greater charity, caring for our common home and with more openness to a life defined by evangelical values.
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