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Bishop Paul Hinder was elected as Auxiliary Bishop for the Vicariate Apostolic of Arabia by Pope John Paul II on December 12, 2003 and On January 30, 2004 he was ordained Bishop in Abu Dhabi.
On March 21, 2005 Bishop Hinder was elected Vicar Apostolic of Arabia, by Pope John Paul II, to be head of the Catholic Church in the six countries, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula. He succeeded Bishop Bernard Gremoli who had served as Bishop in the region from 1976.
Bishop Hinder also holds many consular roles and is on various Pontifical councils including the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. He is also a member of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants, all of these positions he has served since 2009. Bishop Hinder has time and again referred to himself as the ‘Bishop of Migrants’. He was also a member of the Catholic delegation of the first meeting of the Catholic-Muslim Forum held in Rome in November 2008.
In May 2011, the Vatican re-organized the region’s responsibilities and formed two Vicariates; one the Vicariate of Northern Arabia, which includes Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the second the Vicariate of Southern Arabia, which includes United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen. Bishop Hinder was given the charge of the Southern Arabia region and resides in St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Bishop Hinder 76 years old is a native of Switzerland and joined the Capuchin Order in 1962 in Luzern where he studied philosophy and theology and was ordained as a Catholic Priest in July 1967.
In addition, he obtained a doctorate in theology in 1976 specializing in Church Law, or Canon Law as it is known, from the Universities of Munich, Germany and Fribourg, Switzerland.
He has also served as a Provincial Superior of the Capuchins in Switzerland and was the General Councillor of the Capuchin Order with residence in Rome from 1994 to 2003. In this role he was responsible for the French, German and Dutch speaking Capuchins in Europe, Canada and the Middle East.
Bishop Hinder is multi lingual and has fluency in German, French, English and Italian; he also speaks some Spanish.