Pope's meeting with participants in inter-religious peace congress in Naples

(Oct. 20, 2007) Pope Benedict is making one-day trip to the southern Italian city of Naples on Sunday, Oct, 21, where he is scheduled to meet participants in an international inter-religious congress on peacemaking initiatives. Pope Benedict will travel from Rome by helicopter in the morning and will proceed to the downtown Plebiscito square where he will celebrate Mass and recite the midday Angelus prayer.
In the afternoon the Pontiff will go to Naples seminary to preside over the start of a major inter-faith conference, in which some 200 representatives from the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu religions from over 70 countries will gather for three days of dialogue on violence. Officially titled “For a World Without Violence - Religions and Cultures in Dialogue,” the inter-religious meeting is being organized by the Rome-based worldwide lay Catholic association, the Community of St. Egidio. Among those attending the meeting are spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox Churches, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Anglican head English Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, Israel’s chief rabbi Yona Metzger, the imam of the United Arab Emirates, Ibrahim Ezzeddin, Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano as well as heads of state of Tanzania, Malawi and Equador.
Recently, 138 Muslim leaders sent an open letter to Pope Benedict and other Christian figures of the world proposing similarities between the faiths as a basis for peace and understanding between the followers of the two faiths that make up more than 55% of the world’s over 6.6 billion population.