Denver, Colo., Feb 16, 2006 / 22:00 pm
Sandro Magister, one of the world’s foremost experts on the Vatican and religious relations, told a crowd gathered in Denver last night that while there is some hope for the future, he thinks that deep self-reform is necessary for Islam to assimilate to the modern world and be able to truly coexist with Christianity.
Following his talk, entitled ‘Christians, Islam and the Future of Europe’, Magister, who writes for Italy’s L’Espresso magazine, discussed the difficulties and perhaps fatal differences between Islam and a traditionally Christian Europe.
Moving from intellectual dialogue within the Muslim world to the heated debate over whether or not to include Turkey in the European Union, the mostly Catholic crowd struggled to find hope for peace between what Magister laid out largely as diametrically opposed worldviews.
Speaking in Italian through an interpreter, Magister said that while historically, Christianity and Islam have some common roots and a record of genuine intellectual exchanges, that these have by and large been deserted for centuries.