Interreligious dialogue

Riyadh, 20 March (AKI) – No churches
should be permitted in Saudi Arabia, unless Pope Benedict XVI
recognised the prophet Mohammed, according to a Middle East expert.

While Saudi mediators are working with the Vatican on negotiations to
allow places of religious worship, some experts believe it will not
occur without this recognition.

Anwar Ashiqi, president of the Saudi centre for Middle East strategic
studies, endorsed this view in an interview on the site of Arab
satellite TV network, al-Arabiya on Thursday.

“I haven taken part in several meetings related to Islamic-Christian
dialogue and there have been negotiations on this issue,” he said.

“It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a
church in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian
churches recognise the prophet Mohammed.”

“If they don’t recognise him as a prophet, how can we have a church in
the Saudi kingdom?”

Well we can meet them half way since we
already recognize Mohammed as a prophet, a false prophet that is.

Bologna, 23 Jan. (AKI) – In an unprecedented initiative to improve tense relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Muslim community in Italy’s northern city of Bologna, Catholic priests are going to visit Muslims during Easter blessings of the home as a sign of detente. The initiative was promoted by the archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, after Islamists were enraged by statements of his deputy, auxiliary bishop and general vicar Ernesto Vecchi about an "Islamisation strategy" carried out by Muslims in mainly Catholic Italy through kebab restaurants, phone call centres and shops, Turin-daily La Stampa reported on Tuesday.

"Muslims call God with 99 names except the right one, father," Vecchi had also said.

The Bologna diocese will thus try to improve relations with the Islamic community with this new initiative.

"The visit of the priest also means to be an offer of good wishes," Caffarra, who was appointed archbishop of Bologna in 2003 and is slated as a potential successor of Camillo Ruini to head the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), was quoted as saying by La Stampa.

His predecessor, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, made headlines when he criticized Muslim immigrants and called on authorities to favour Christian immigration because "they integrate better in our society."

Perhaps this a prudential response, too bad it isn’t specifically for evangelization. After reading Bishop Vicci’s comment I did wonder about the 99 names for God that Muslims used and so I checked out this Wikipedia article that lists them all and the names are really attributes of God most of which Christians can certainly agree with. Interestingly the 100th name for God is suppose to be hidden – maybe that one is Father.