About Saudi Arabia (Officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia):
You might wonder why we bothered to put a page on our website describing Saudi Arabia; after all, there are no Catholic Churches here. Approximately 100% of its citizens are Muslim, including many of the thousands of foreign workers here as well. The largest groups of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia come from India, followed by Egypt, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and the Philippines.
The country’s legal system is based on Sharia law, which is interpreted by the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam, known for its strict adherence to the Quran and Hadith, emphasizing a literal interpretation and a cautious approach to reasoning and consensus in legal matters.
While there is no law explicitly requiring all citizens to be Muslim, non-Muslims are not permitted to practice their faith openly and are vulnerable to discrimination and arrest.
In 2023 the country’s population was around 32.2 million, including an estimated 13.38 million non-Saudis. The capitol of Riyadh is the most populous city in the Kingdom, with a population of 7.68 million.
Saudi Arabia’s transition from a relatively impoverished nation to a wealthy one started in the 1960s and accelerated in the 1970s. The discovery and subsequent exploitation of large oil reserves, coupled with the global rise in oil prices following the 1973 oil crisis, transformed Saudi Arabia into a major oil-producing, with oil accounting for approximately 30% of Saudi GDP and 55% of government revenue.
Realizing, of course, that the country cannot rely on petroleum exports forever, it has developed a plan called Vision 2030, an ambitious plan to reduce its reliance on oil and develop a knowledge-driven economy (A knowledge-driven economy, also known as a knowledge-based economy, is an economic system where knowledge, information, and intellectual capabilities are the primary drivers of production, innovation, and economic growth. It relies less on physical resources and more on intangible assets like intellectual property and human capital).
Attending a Catholic Mass in Saudi Arabia:
The Catholic Community in Saudi Arabia is part of the family of the Universal Church whose spiritual head is the Pope. On May 31, 2011, according to a decree of the Holy See, Saudi Arabia was detached from the Apostolic Vicariate of Arabia and included in the newly-formed ecclesiastical territory of the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
There are undoubtedly some private Masses held in the country, but as mentioned above there are no public masses, with one exception. Catholic masses are held in several embassies in the Kingdom. Embassies are sacrosanct and are not considered to be part of their host country, so Saudi law would not apply within the embassy.
Traveling to Saudi Arabia:
In 2023, the country with the most inbound tourists to Saudi Arabia was Bahrain, with 3.4 million visitors. Following Bahrain, the top countries contributing to tourism were Kuwait (2.3 million), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (1.4 million), Qatar (1.1 million), and Oman (455,000). Overall, Saudi Arabia welcomed 27 million international visitors in 2023