Cardinal Tauran Talks About the Latest Development in Christian Muslim Relations

(01 March 08-RV) Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, has just returned to Rome from Cairo, where he participated in a 2-day interfaith conference Feb. 25-26 entitled "Faith in God and Love of Neighbor as the Foundations for Interreligious Dialogue", which was hosted by the historic Al Azhar University.
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, has just returned to Rome from Cairo, where he participated in a 2-day interfaith conference Feb. 25-26 entitled "Faith in God and Love of Neighbor as the Foundations for Interreligious Dialogue", which was hosted by the historic Al Azhar University.
Noting this was his first time at the annual meeting since his appointment as Head of the Council, Cardinal Tauran described the atmosphere as cordial and fraternal.
He said, “we discovered that Christians and Muslims have a lot in common about the conviction that Faith leads to charity and pushes us to love our Neighbor”, and noted that his Muslim colleagues insist the Koran does not limit Interreligious Dialogue.
But, the Cardinal also pointed out that there are countries where the principal of loving our neighbour is not applied, and that there are situations in which Christians don’t even have the possibility of building a church in which they can put their religion into practice. The Muslim delegation acknowledged that this is a problem and agreed more needs to be done to avoid that religions, their symbols and sacred books, be subject to contempt.
Cardinal Tauran cited the words of the Pope when he received the credentials of the Ambassador of Morocco in 2006, stating that the mockery of religious symbols is absolutely not justifiable. He then spoke of a joint comuniquè published by the Catholic and Muslim delegates to the talks, which drew attention to the main point that “Faith in God and Love of Neighbor as the Foundations for Interreligious Dialogue” should be advanced through schools. The Cardinal said “we have a network of high quality Catholic schools in Arabic countries, so I think we should develop this presence and use our schools as a tool for concrete conversation.”
Cardinal Tauran is already looking forward to next year’s interfaith conference here in Rome.