REFILE-Vatican cardinal says world obsessed by Islam
Wed 11 Jun 2008, 14:43 GMT
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY, June 11 (Reuters) - The world is obsessed by Islam,
according to the Vatican's
point man for relations with other religions.
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran also said he did not want an impression to grow
that there are
different cl***** of religion.
Tauran's department, the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue,
oversees relations
with all non-Christian religions except Judaism and is preparing new
guidelines for Catholic
dialogue with them.
The new guidelines will not have special emphasis on Islam, Tauran said in
an interview with
the religious website terrasanta.net which specialises in Holy Land
affairs.
"No, it has to have regard for all religions. What was interesting about
our discussions was
that we did not concentrate on Islam because in a way we are being held
hostage by Islam a
little bit," he said.
"Islam is very im****tant but there are also other great Asiatic religious
traditions. Islam is
one religion," he said.
"Yes, the people are obsessed by Islam."
Tauran said he would be travelling to India soon and there he wanted to
"give this message that
all religions are equal".
"Sometimes there are priorities because of particular situations, but we
mustn't get the
impression there are first-class religions and second-class religions".
In March, the Vatican and Muslim leaders agreed to establish a permanent
official dialogue,
known as "The Catholic-Muslim Forum", to improve often difficult relations
and heal wounds
still open from a controversial papal speech in 2006.
Catholic-Muslim relations nosedived after Pope Benedict delivered a
lecture in Regensburg,
Germany, that was taken by Muslims to imply Islam was violent and
irrational.
CHURCH IN SAUDI ARABIA?
Muslims around the world protested and the pope sought to make amends when
he visited Turkey's
Blue Mosque and prayed towards Mecca with its Imam.
Tauran declined to discuss what he knew of re****ts of talks between the
Vatican and Saudi
Arabia aimed at eventually opening a Church there. In March, official
Saudi media said King
Abdullah, who held an unprecedented meeting with Pope Benedict last year,
planned to launch an
effort at dialogue between Islam, Christianity and Judaism to help end
inter-religious tension.
There are 1.2 million Christians in Saudia Arabia, nearly a million of
them Catholics. Most are
migrant workers and are not allowed to practice their faith in public or
wear signs of their faith.
Tauran said he believed talk of building a church in Saudi Arabia was
"premature". He expected
a gradual evolution that would start by Christians being allowed to hold
services in hotels or
embassies.
Tauran described the falling Christian population in the Holy Land because
of instability and
conflict as "a disaster because the place where Christ lived, died and
rose again could become
a museum, and this is precisely what we don't want". (Editing by Robert
Woodward)
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL11141808.html
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