By the time I arrived in the stadium, nearly every seat was full, and Vatican flags that had been left on the seats were wagging in every section. Large screens showed Francis at a nearby church, which in his address to the congregation he called (with obvious affection) “small” and “new.” He then hopped into an open-backed truck, and we watched him proceed, waving in the familiar papal parade posture, a short distance to the soccer stadium that had been outfitted for celebration of Mass. The only part of the scene that would have distinguished it from another, less historic papal visit was the presence of one member of his security detail wearing a thawb, the body-length white garment traditional in Abu Dhabi.

He entered the stadium like a matador, cruising back and forth before each section of seats, so no one was denied a close look and an opportunity to cheer. When he passed by me, about 10 feet away, he smiled broadly and squinted to avoid being blinded by the Gulf sun. He looked energetic—younger than 82—and he must have been grateful that in the heat of Abu Dhabi, his regalia was a heat-reflecting white.

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Francis delivered his homily in Italian, with Arabic translation. I wondered whether he would speak about universal subjects, given the inherent controversy of his being in Abu Dhabi at all; a sermon about loving one’s neighbor would provoke less controversy than, say, a sermon about the Trinity, or another subject likely to spur polemics from Muslims who see a triune god as a form of polytheism.

In fact his choice of subject was classic and sublime. He spoke of the Sermon on the Mount, and he stressed the power of Christians to maintain their faith even in conditions of weakness, poverty, and oppression. Because nearly all the Catholics in the Emirates are members of the underclass, the topic must have been heard by all—or at least the small minority who speak Italian or Arabic—as a message of solidarity with guest workers who will never rise into the Emirati elite, but whose riches lie in the cultivation of Christian love in their hearts.

And then, finally, came the Eucharist. I am not Catholic, but I grew up attending Communion rites, observing from the sidelines as my Christian-school classmates gobbled the body of Christ and drank his blood. If you are exposed to this rite early enough in life, I think, you never fully register how strange it is, how weirdly it combines the sophisticated with the feral. Witnessing the rite in this foreign environment allowed me to experience it perhaps as a Muslim might for the first time. When the altar bells rang onstage, signaling the imminent transformation of food into corpse, I shuddered with a new appreciation of the uncanny.

These frissons, whether of religious ecstasy or of cannibalistic transgression, will wear off with time. But at least a few repercussions of the papal visit will be permanent. The Catholic population of the Emirates will remember the visit—and, perhaps more important, the decision of Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MbZ), to invite him. (The crowd’s roars of excitement at the pope’s entrance were only slightly louder than the grateful applause at the mention of MbZ’s name, later in the ceremony.) Western countries will remember that by inviting a Christian idolator to perform sorcery on the peninsula of the Prophet, Abu Dhabi took a step away from Islamists, a step that cannot really ever be taken back.