Regional Interfaith Dialogue, Connecting and Cooperating for Peace and Harmony In the Asia-Pacific region
Following the 2nd Anniversary of his historic environmental encyclical, Pope Francis endorsed the Laudato Si’ Pledge campaign, which was also supported by many other Church leaders. Through the Pledge, the Global Catholic Climate Movement aims to mobilize at least 1 million Catholics to become directly engaged in turning Laudato Si into action to care for the planet.
“Following the previous Agreement of May 28, 1998, and in the light of addresses of Pope Francis and of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Mohamed al-Tayyeb during the historic peace conference at Cairo last April 28, the common engagement is express to pursue the shared reflections, geared to promoting a fruitful and effective inter-religious dialogue, centered in particular on the promotion of peace and the building of a more just world.”
“It’s important, because my religious life was enriched by his explanations to him, it was extraordinarily enriched, and I suppose his with mine”: by these words, spoken in Spanish, on turning to his Argentine friend, Rabbi Abraham Skorka, who spoke just after him, Pope Francis witnesses in a worldwide video-message of religions, inviting the man and woman of the street to “to make friends” with all religions.
People of all faiths are unifying globally to deliver faith-based action on climate change
The Vatican’s dicastery for Interfaith and Interreligious Dialogue has been meeting on the topic of the role of women in interfaith and inter-religious activity. (In practice, at the local and grassroots level, women are centre and front of interfaith efforts, including dialogue.) Here, we bring you the address of Pope Francis to this plenary meeting of the dicastery.
While speaking to an international conference on peace at Al-Azhar, the highest theological and religious institution of Sunni Islam in the world and the oldest Islamic University, alongside its Grand Imam, Pope Francis said this, noting: “Above all and especially in our day, the religions are called to respect this imperative, since, for all our need of the Absolute, it is essential that we reject any “absolutizing” that would justify violence.”
Sources report that those following TED’s annual Conference were promised a surprise “world figure” who would deliver his 18-minute message on the conference theme, “The Future You,” alongside tennis and chess champions, including Serena Williams, and entrepreneurs. Yet, no one expected it to be Pope Francis. The theme of the Pope’s talk was The Future You.
Vatican City, April 5, 2017: Prior to his weekly General Audience Pope Francis met with a Catholic-Muslim delegation from Britain in the auletta of the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall. Pope Francis met with English Cardinal Vincent Nichols and four Muslim leaders from Britain who came to highlight the deep-rooted interfaith relations among the different religious communities in the UK today.
In speaking on an Encyclical of Paul VI, Pope Francis said, It is about integrating different peoples of the earth. The duty of solidarity obliges us to seek just ways of sharing, so that there is not that dramatic inequality between those that have too much and those that have nothing, between those that discard and those that are discarded. Only the way of integration between peoples enables humanity to have a future of peace and hope.
(Vatican Radio) The logo for Pope Francis’ Apostolic Journey to Egypt, which takes place 28-29 April, has been released by the Egyptian Catholic Church.