Pope Francis told the tiny Catholic community in predominantly Muslim Morocco on Sunday that their mission was not to covert their neighbours but to live in brotherhood with other faiths.

Francis has used his two-day trip to stress inter-faith dialogue. He has also backed Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s efforts to spread a form of Islam that promotes inter-religious dialogue and rejects violence in God’s name.

Morocco’s 23,000 Roman Catholics – most of them French and other European expatriates and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa – make up less than one percent of the population of 35 million.

“Christians are a small minority in this country. Yet, to my mind, this is not a problem, even though I realise that at times it can be difficult for some of you,” he said at a meeting with Catholic community leaders in Rabat’s cathedral.

Conservative Catholics have criticised the pope’s opposition to organised or aggressive recruiting of potential converts.

“The Church grows not through proselytism but by attraction,” Francis said to applause.

“This means, dear friends, that our mission as baptised persons, priests and consecrated men and women, is not really determined by the number or size of spaces that we occupy, but rather by our capacity to generate change and to awaken wonder and compassion,” he said.

Moroccan authorities do not recognise Moroccan converts to Christianity, many of whom worship secretly in homes. Conversion from Islam to Christianity is banned, as it is in many Muslim countries, and proselytising is punishable by up to three years in prison.

“The problem is not when we are few in number, but when we are insignificant,” Francis said, adding that Catholics were called to be an integral part of inter-religious dialogue in a world “torn apart by the policies of extremism and division”.

At a Mass for about 10,000 catholics in a sports arena before he was due to return to Rome, the Pope also stressed the need for inter-religious dialogue, saying people should resist “classifying ourselves according to different moral, social, ethnic or religious criteria”.

On Saturday, Francis and King Mohammed VI visited an institute the monarch founded to train imams and male and female preachers of Islam.

Morocco promotes itself as an oasis of religious tolerance in a region torn by militancy. It has offered training to Muslim preachers from Africa and Europe on what it describes as moderate Islam.

At Saturday’s event, Francis praised the king for providing “sound training to combat all forms of extremism, which so often lead to violence and terrorism, and which, in any event, constitute an offence against religion and against God himself”.

Also on Saturday, Jewish leaders joined Christian representatives in the front row at two events presided over by the pope and the monarch on interfaith dialogue.

Francis’ appeal for inter-religious dialogue was made more poignant on Sunday by the presence in Rabat cathedral of Father Jean-Pierre Schumacher, a 95-year-old French monk who survived what is known as the Tibhirine massacre in Algeria.

In March 1996, seven French monks were kidnapped in a monastery in the central Algerian village of Tibhirine during the civil war between the government and Islamist rebel groups.

The monks were held for about two months and found dead, except Schumacher, who managed to escape.

More than 100 African migrants managed to force their way into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco on Wednesday when hundreds tried to storm the highly fortified border, a Spanish police spokesman said.

Television images showed some of the migrants with bloodied arms and legs, apparently caused by the razor wire that tops the border fences, cheering as they walked towards a temporary reception centre. Most of them were young men.

“I love Spain!” shouted one. Some were draped in European Union and Spanish flags.

More than 3,800 migrants have crossed the Moroccan border into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla so far this year, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. The route accounted for 14 percent of the total 27,600 who arrived, mainly by sea, between January and July, a 130 percent increase on the previous year.

Five migrants were injured in the jump, and seven Spanish policemen suffered burns caused by a corrosive substance thrown by the migrants, the spokesman said.

During a recent visit to Spain, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez agreed to increase dialogue with Morocco to handle migrant inflows to Spain, which is now the main destination for people seeking a better life in Europe.

EU leaders have failed to agree a long-term plan on where to house migrants since brokering a convoluted deal in June that appeared designed to appease divergent views rather than provide concrete solutions to the crisis.

Eight days ago, five European Union countries agreed to take in 141 migrants on board the Mediterranean rescue ship Aquarius, a move that ended a four-day standoff in which Spain, Tunisia and Malta refused the ship entry.

Christian convert Loubna and her husband Kamal marry in a small ceremony in a meeting room of a human rights group in the Moroccan capital, ignoring threats from people in their conservative hometown in the north of the Muslim kingdom.

The couple are part of a tiny minority who have converted to Christianity and are demanding legal recognition of their marriage. Islam is the religion of state in predominantly Sunni Muslim Morocco where only Muslim and Jewish marriages are deemed legal.

“From now on I have to wear niqab (face veil) if I want to walk in the streets of my hometown,” Loubna said after the ceremony.

The centuries-old tiny Jewish community is recognised in the constitution as part of the Moroccan identity. The roughly 3,000 Jews have their courts governing personal status matters as well as inheritance and burial.

“We want to be treated on an equal footing with Moroccan Jews,” said Chouaib El Fatihi, coordinator of the Christian committee at the Moroccan association for religious rights and freedoms.

“We want to be recognised as Moroccan Christian citizens and to enjoy the right to legal marriages and burial ceremonies according to our religion,” he said.

By law, only foreign Christians are allowed to collectively worship in churches, many set up during the French colonial era, and proselytism is punishable by up to three years in prison.

FAITH

Adam Rabati and his wife Farah Tarneem, a Christian couple, refuse to get married according to the Moroccan family code based on sharia.

In a Rabat suburb, the couple live in an apartment-turned-church receiving converts.

“We are running the risk of being accused of fornication punishable under the penal code,” said Adam, who does not have a legal marriage certificate.

Farah, who embraced Christianity two years ago, said obtaining the certificate includes traditions that contradict her faith.

“We suffer from discrimination by authorities which do not recognise us as Moroccan Christians coupled with social pressure and harassment because of our choice of faith,” she said.

The native Christian community is estimated by local leaders at more than 50,000 but no official statistics exist.

In the wake of 2011 “Arab Spring” protests, Morocco adopted a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression and belief. The country has also marketed itself as an oasis of religious tolerance, offering training to preachers from Africa and Europe on moderate Islam to counter extremism.

“Authorities should not continue their double speak on religious rights,” said Mohamed Nouhi, head of Moroccan rights organisation IMDH.

The U.S. State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report criticises Morocco for restrictions on native Christians, Shi’ite Muslims and members of the Bahai faith.

Responding to a Reuters request for comment at a regular news briefing, government spokesperson Mustapha El Khalfi said Morocco is a country of religious tolerance and freedoms.

“The U.S. State Department report contains erroneous allegations and judgments that are not based on scientific data,” he said.

Morocco has dismantled a suspected Islamic State militant cell and arrested 10 women believed to be planning attacks in the North African kingdom, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.

It was the latest in a series of militant cells Morocco says it has broken up, but it is the first time authorities have arrested a group of female suspects.

An Interior Ministry statement said the cell was operating in several regions including the cities of Kenitra and Tangier.

It said the cell members reflected an Islamic State effort to integrate female militants for attacks in the kingdom and they were inspired by the brother of one of them who was involved in bombings in Iraq earlier this year.

Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), the judicial arm of the domestic intelligence service, seized chemicals and bomb-making materials in one of the suspects’ houses, the statement said.

The BCIJ has actively tracked alleged militants since Islamic State seized large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014-2015.

Hundreds of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb states – Tunisia and Algeria – have joined Islamist militant forces in Syria’s civil war. Some are threatening to return and create new jihadist wings in their home countries, security experts say.

Nearby Libya has become a major draw for jihadists from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as Islamic State has taken advantage of widespread chaos there to build a base, operate training camps and take over the city of Sirte.

The Moroccan government believes 1,500 Moroccan nationals are fighting with militant factions in Syria and Iraq. About 220 have returned home and been jailed, while 286 have been killed in battle.

Morocco, an ally in the Western campaign against Islamist militancy, has suffered attacks itself in the past, most recently in 2011 in Marrakesh when an explosion tore through a cafe and killed 15 people, mostly foreigners.