Iranian Shi'a Muslims in dialogue with Catholic monks

What were a group of Iranian Shi’a Muslims doing at the Benedictine Abbey of Sant Anselmo here in Rome in mid September?

Well they were attending a meeting sponsored by a group of monks who promote monastic interreligious dialogue. One which brought together for three days nine Iranian Shi’a Muslims led by Doctor Mohammad Ali Shomali and eleven representatives of Western monasticism.

But here the plot thickens. Why would an organisation such as Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, which by definition deals with all things monastic, sponsor a meeting with a group of people from the International Institute for Islamic Studies of the Iranian City of Qum, given monasticism as an institution does not exist in Islam. Well as the Secretary General of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue , Benedctine Father Willilam Skudlarek explains to Veronica Scarisbrick : " they may not have monastic orders but they have monastic practices most specifically that they pray five times a day ,like monks gather for prayer at certain times of the day ..."
In this interview Father Skudlarek also affords some background to this meeting which as he told Veronica stemmed from a tragic event which took place in Muslim territory alright , but not in Iran at all, rather in Algeria.
You may know the story. It’s recounted in a well known award winning film. The title is , “Of Gods and Men” and draws inspiration from a true life story about the French Trappist monks killed at the Monastery of Tibherine in 1996 . A community led by the Prior Christian de Chergé who a year before his death spoke to the European delegates of Monastic Interreligious dialogue explaining : “how when we say religious dialogue we’re not just talking about monk to monk or nun to nun, or Buddhist to Catholic, Hindu to Catholic . We are talking about the dialogue of religious experience."
A programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick.
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