Pope to meet Muslim world envoys

[Dale_M]

The talks will be held at the Pope’s residence near Rome will include the head of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Cardinal Paul Poupard, and Islamic representatives in Italy, as well as Muslim ambassadors to the Vatican.

Envoys from Iran, Turkey and Morocco have all confirmed they will attend.

The Pope’s top Vatican advisers will also be present, and Pope Benedict will open the discussions with a speech that he has been writing during the weekend, says the BBC’s David Willey in Rome.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5376556.stm

 

[Holly3278]

I pray that the Pope would continue to engage in such interfaith meetings and that he would be safe in doing so.

 

[bones_IV]

The media needs to stop with their culpas. It gets old after a while.

 

[beckers]

just notice that after the meeting. Yahoo had it as a news point that the pope asked muslims and christian to be non violent and now is not on the homepage. Interesting that peace is not promoted in the mainstream news…

Also

And that the Iraq’s ambassador to the Holy See said Benedict’s address to the envoys should end the anger over the university address.

“The Holy Father stated his profound respect for Islam. This is what we were expecting,” Iraqi envoy Albert Edward Ismail Yelda said as he left the 30 minute meeting. “It is now time to put what happened behind and build bridges.” news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060925/ap_on_re_eu/pope_muslims_13

 

[Dale_M]

just notice that after the meeting. Yahoo had it as a news point that the pope asked muslims and christian to be non violent and now is not on the homepage. Interesting that peace is not promoted in the mainstream news…

Yes, I agree that peace is boring news to the mainstream media and attempts to promote it are not covered nearly as much as attempts to disrupt it.

But, at least at this moment, Yahoo’s news portal has the story listed among its five top stories. It seems that today’s meeting was an important first step, but that it will not satisfy the average man in the street. The silence of the envoys is a little worrisome, too.

Nearly all the other envoys left without speaking to reporters. The embassies of Egypt and Turkey said their ambassadors would have no comment. The Iranian, Indonesian, Lebanese and Libyan embassies did not answer their phones.

Fahmi Howeidi, a liberal Islamic writer in Egypt, said that since the pope did not apologize, protests may continue. “(Benedict) addressed the ambassadors but didn’t deal with the Muslim street, the anger in the street will continue,” Howeidi said in a telephone interview.

Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies at Oxford University, called the meeting “mainly political” intended to improve relations with Muslim states.

“The people that were convinced he was against Islam are not going to change their minds,” said Ramadan, who recently wrote that Muslims must respond to Benedict’s view of the Christian character of Europe and what it means for identity.

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[RWMorris]

This is just what the Pope intended and was one of the major goals pointed to in “The Speech”. It seems that there just may be some of those moderate Muslims we’ve heard about, but not from, around. The media needs to step up and cover these efforts with the goal of encouraging communication instead of sensationalism. **Let’s all pray **that this opens the door to increased dialogue and understanding between Islam and Christianity.

It is possible with God and much prayer.