Pope, Sant’Egidio Ready for Interreligious Summit

(Sept.01,2009): In Italy, the members of Rome-based lay Catholic Sant’Egidio Community, who are planning an interreligious meeting in Auschwitz, Germany, met Pope Benedict XVI on Monday to discuss plans. The Sept. 6-8 meeting in Krakow and Auschwitz is a continuation of the first interreligious and intercultural meeting called in 1986 in Assisi by late Pope John Paul II. The event titled “The Spirit of Assisi in Krakow” will particularly focus on the topic of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II . Among the participants will be the chief rabbi of Israel, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the president of the Council of European Churches, and a representative of the Orthodox Church of Russia.
Organisers said the program will close with a pilgrimage to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, as a "sign of reconciliation and peace to manifest a radical rejection of violence and war as instruments for the solution of international conflicts.”.