Vatican City, Jul 13, 2016 / 05:20 am
Less than two months after one of Sunni Islam's highest authorities came to the Vatican following several years of icy relations, Pope Francis has sent a representative to Egypt's Al-Azhar University in a bid to relaunch dialogue between the two.
In accordance with "the explicit wish of Pope Francis," Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is currently in Egypt for an official visit to the Al-Azhar University, according to a July 12 press release from the Vatican.
Bishop Ayuso will be accompanied by the Vatican's ambassador to Egypt, Archbishop Bruno Musarò, for a July 13 meeting with Sunni academic and politician Mahmoud Hamdi Zakzouk, who is a member of the university's Council of Senior Scholars, director of the Al-Azhar Center for Dialoge and Egypt's former minister of religious endowment.
According to the Vatican's press release, the meeting "will consider how to resume dialogue between the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Al-Azhar University."