Vatican official visiting UK’s Hindu, Jain and Sikh communities

10 June, 2013 - The president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue is starting a 5-day visit to the United Kingdom on Wednesday to meet Hindu, Jain and Sikh communities of the country. During the June 12-16 trip, Council President, Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran will visit the Hindu BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Temple and the Jain Temple of London, and the Sikh Gurduwara of Birmingham. He will hold seminars in each of these places. Inter-faith meetings and peace prayers in cathedrals are also in the programme. Releasing the schedule of the trip the Pontifical Council cited Pope Benedict XVI saying, it is to “stress and strengthen the good inter-religious relations in the country” and “demonstrate that friendship among religions is in itself a precondition for building peace.” In his Christmas message to the Roman Curia in 2012, Pope Benedict had said that in “man’s present situation, the dialogue of religions is a necessary condition for peace in the world and it is therefore a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities.”