Vatican City, Mar 5, 2008 / 09:06 am
Members of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue met with Muslim leaders March 4 and 5 to establish a 'Catholic-Muslim Forum'. The forum’s first seminar will be held in Rome, November 4-6, 2008 and is designed to respond to calls for dialogue between Catholics and Muslims.
The meeting, which ended today, was a result of the open letter “A Common Word” signed by 138 Islamic leaders in October 2007. The letter points out similarities between Islam and Catholicism such as the belief in one God and being founded on “goodwill, not violence.”
Pope Benedict responded to the letter in November 2007 by stressing that the path to true dialogue lies in “effective respect for the dignity of every human person, on objective knowledge of the religion of the other, on the sharing of religious experience and, finally, on common commitment to promoting mutual respect and acceptance among the younger generation.”
Vatican analyst Sandro Magister sees Pope Benedict’s response, which differed from the original proposal of the 138 Muslim leaders, as “asking Islam to make the same journey that the Catholic Church made under pressure from the Enlightenment. Love of God and neighbor must be realized in the full acceptance of religious freedom”.