[4] These missions, continuing into the 18th century, focused primarily on providing pastoral care to the local Christians though occasionally they also sought to proselytise Muslims.

[3] Catholic churches, schools, and hospitals were built throughout the country, and until 1961, Sunday mass festivities were broadcast on radio and television networks.

[4] These would often become slaves unless they converted to Islam or were ransomed by their families or by the Trinitarian and Mercedarian orders which were founded for that purpose in the late twelfth century.

[9] The second included Christian mercenaries and exiled Iberian nobles such as the Castilian count Fernando Núñez de Lara or Portuguese infante Pedro of Coimbra who crossed the strait of Gibraltar to offer their military services in North Africa, especially during the ascendancy of the Almohads in the Maghrib between 1147 and 1248.

[12] Sources such as archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez report that a vicus (suburb or village) known as Ebora or Elbora existed outside of Marrakesh where an exclusive Christian population, called contemptuously beni Farkhan by Muslims, lived enclosed by sturdy walls and its own church.

[13] Even the puritanical Almohads tolerated these Christian groups due to the economical value of the trade and the military power they provided, though they prohibited proselytism.

[16][17] The most influential pope was Honorius III whose policy of protecting the existing Christian communities and winning converts among the Muslim population remained prominent in the papal curia into the 1250s.

[18] In his papal bull Vineae Domini custodes from 1225 he exhorted and gave permission to friars from both the newly founded Dominican and Franciscan order to go to Morocco and not only to take spiritual care of the Christians but also convert Muslims, a change from the position of his predecessors.

[16][22] During the dynastical struggle after the death of caliph Yusuf II in 1224, his eventual successor al-Maʾmun started to rely more heavily on the Christian support and also broke with traditional Almohad policy.

Al-Maʾmun asked king Ferdinand III of Castile for support who sent in 1229 some 500 knights in return for the concession that the Christians were allowed to build a church in Ebora and permitted to sound its bells.

[23] After al-Maʾmun died in 1232, his nephew and contender sacked Marrakesh and Ebora, massacring its Christian population including five Franciscan friars.

[24] Al-Maʾmun's son Abd al-Wahid II was able to restore the kingdom, again with the help of Christian soldiers, and by 1237 pope Gregory IX was rejoicing that the Moroccan Church was flourishing and a bishop of Fez is known to have existed since 1233.

[26] Though he again prohibited evangelisation, al-Murtada continued to rely on Christian mercenaries and allowed Catholic priests to take care of their spiritual needs.

When on 2 June 1672 Moulay Ismail forced his nephew and competitor Ahmed Ben-Mahrez to flee and entered Marrakesh, he ordered the Franciscans to move their convent to Meknes, ostensibly for their protection.

[35] After two years, the mission was granted the status of a convent and Father Diego de Los Angeles became superior with the right to vote in the chapter.

Due to his good standing with Moulay Ismail, the latter issued a dahir in which he allowed the Franciscans to remain in the country with thirteen friars and to further establish churches in Fez, Tétouan and Salé.

[3] Upon invitation of archbishop Lefevre, the monastery of Toumliline was founded in 1952 which became host for that International Meetings, conferences on contemporary issues and interfaith dialogue that were attended by Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars.

[51] Nevertheless, the church continued Christian-Muslim dialogue, opening an inter-faith research center in Rabat in 1980-81 and supporting the formation of the Groupe de Recherche Islamo-Chétien in 1977, which still exists today.