Vatican City, May 31, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The Qatar Conference on Muslim-Christian Dialogue concluded on May 29 with three closed door meetings between members of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims and an equal number of invited Muslim guests.
Archbishop Fitzgerald presided at a press conference in the afternoon, and was joined by Youssef El-Hage, a professor at Notre Dame University in Lebanon and a member of the pontifical commission, and by Aysha Al-Mannai, dean of the faculty of Sharia, Law and Islamic Studies at the University of Qatar.
The archbishop outlined the history of the Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims within the council, and the background of this second Qatar meeting on dialogue.
The dialogue was an idea of Emir Abdullah bin Khalifa Al-Thani of Qatar, whose country opened diplomatic relations with the Holy See in November 2002. In his opening day speech, he also expressed a desire to see representatives of Judaism in next year’s meeting.