Relations with Muslims have improved significantly in recent years, but problems remain on issues like conversion and freedom of worship, the Vatican’s top interreligious dialogue official has said. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, said one of the biggest challenges is to make sure that the greater openness shown by Muslim leaders—the “elites” involved in dialogue—filters down to the average Muslim. So far, that does not seem to have happened, the cardinal said on June 22. Cardinal Tauran recounted an episode in Jordan that occurred a week before Pope Benedict XVI arrived. A Christian woman fell on a street in Amman and asked passersby for help; two Muslim women on the scene walked away, saying they could not assist an infidel, he said. “I don’t think that’s the reaction of a good Muslim. But this is the reality on the street. On one hand we have the elites, on the other the masses,” Cardinal Tauran said.
Challenges Remain in Muslim Relations
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
What is happening to migrants in courtrooms across the country is a complete embarrassment to the justice system and an affront to human dignity.
Being a kid in the summer is all about existing in an eternal present moment, a feeling of freedom and potential that it will never go away.
Father Thomas Hennen, vicar general of the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, has been appointed Bishop of Baker, Oregon.
My writing during these past five years is filled with memories of my long journey with God over a lifetime; but very significantly, it is the expression of my prayer at this later time of my life.