Dialogue between Christians and Muslims is a “vital necessity”, says Pope "'As an example of brotherly respect with which Christians and Muslims can work together,' [the Pope] said, 'I'd like to quote a few words Pope Gregory VII addressed in 1076 to a Muslim prince in North Africa who had been benevolent towards Christians under his rule. Pope Gregory VII spoke of the special charity Christians and Muslims owed each other because 'we believe and confess one God, albeit in different ways. Every day we praise Him and venerate Him as Creator of the centuries and ruler of this world (PL 148, 451).'"
Asia Times, 11.28.06
Church-Islam dialogue: the path starts from Regensburg’s Pope "Benedict XVI’s speech at Regensburg received a lot of criticism but it in fact launched an effective model for Islamo-Christian dialogue: refusal of violence, love of truth, interpretation, mission. The only way to go beyond the trivially tolerant appearance of dialogue promoted by many Muslims and by a good part of the Catholic Church...Benedict XVI seems to suggest to Muslims: we must read the text in its context; and this is fundamental for beginning an Islamo-Christian dialogue. We must reread the sacred texts to see "the circumstances of revelation" In this, the Pope is resuming the healthy tradition of interpretation which was alive in the 9th century. Unfortunately, this no longer occurs in contemporary Islam."
Asia News
Reflections of a British Muslim Extremist “British activist Ed Husain was seduced, at the age of 16, by revolutionary Islamist ideals that flourished at the heart of educated British culture. Yet he later shrank back from radicalism after coming close to a murder and watching people he loved become suicide bombers. He dug deeper into Islamic spirituality, and now offers a fresh and daring perspective on the way forward.” Speaking of Faith
“Daniel Pipes has suggested that ‘mak[ing] a distinction between the mainstream Islamists and the fringe ones [is] like making a distinction between mainstream Nazis and fringe Nazis. They’re all Nazis, they’re all the enemy.’ Is this the case? Suppose that, to continue Pipes’s analogy, there had been Nazis who clearly rejected violence, as some who call themselves Islamists have done. Would they not have been meaningfully distinguishable from Hitler’s crew? An anathema so sweeping as Pipes’s can lead to classifying individuals or groups wrongly, or overlooking important transformations in attitude… [R]adical Islamism is a fragile and perishable ideology, and, unless we surrender, there is little possibility that it will triumph. The only question is how much damage it will do before it implodes… anyone who can help us to forestall the worst is worth our trouble to cultivate.”
