Islam and Christianity in Europe

(Vatican Radio) The pastoral challenges of promoting dialogue with Islam as an integral part of the Church’s mission is the focus of a three day meeting which concludes in London on Friday, under the auspices of the CCEE, or Council of European Bishops’ Conferences.
Catholic experts from across Europe have been exploring the question of religious identity and discussing how to integrate interfaith dialogue with promotion of their Christian faith.
Among those addressing the conference were the president of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Britain’s first female Muslim minister, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi.
To find out more, Philippa Hitchen spoke with the interfaith adviser to the Catholic bishops conference of England and Wales, Katherina Smith-Muller who says there is a growing awareness of how dialogue and evangelization can work together for the good of all the different faith communities…

Listen:

“I think what is emerging is that there is not necessarily a tension between the two…we have looked at the Vatican document ‘Dialogue and Proclamation’ which makes the point that interreligious dialogue is always a part of mission in the Church without necessarily wanting to convert in the process…..when we strengthen Muslim and Christian identities, we do both communities a favour….”

Mgr Peter Fleetwood also advises the Catholic bishops conference of England and Wales and is a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. He warns against making broad generalizations about relations with Muslims in the many different European countries present at the meeting…

“There’s no generic answer, but people often give generalized answers and that’s probably a big mistake……what’s on the agenda is less about the political intent of people…..what we’re talking about is the origin of the feelings of whether I belong to a Muslim group or tradition, or the whole Ummah of Islam, or just to my local mosque – all those different forms of belonging are what we’re discussing and the same for Christianity…”

Finally, let’s hear from one of the bishops taking part in the three day meeting: Bishop George Frendo is auxiliary bishop of Tirana, the capital of Albania which he says is a model for Christian.-Muslim relations
“ In Albania, religion has never been monopolised by politicians and this is the main reason why interreligious relations present no difficulty there...."