The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, headed by its president, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, sponsored a conference at the Vatican that called for increased interreligious cooperation as a necessity for promoting peace and avoiding war. The conference concluded on January 18, 2003, with Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain and Zoroastrian participants proposing initiatives that emphasized the unity of the human community and the joint responsibility of all peoples to work for peace.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, attended the symposium and said that each religion must undergo a careful self-examination of its scriptures and give greater emphasis to those that promote peace and harmony. Additionally, he said that religious leaders must work together to bring about peace by their clear teachings and by bearing pressure on governments to resist war. "The call to war in the name of God does not belong to any religion," he said.

The conference meeting was a continuation of the work done in October 1999, on the topic "Toward the Third Millennium: Collaboration for Dialogue Between Religions," and the Day of Prayer for World Peace held in Assisi, January 24, 2002. [See the CCJU Perspective, vol. IX, n. 1, Summer 2002]

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue is the Vatican office that dialogues with religions other than Protestant Christians and Jews, as outlined in the 1965 document, Nostra Aetate. Cardinal Walter Kasper is president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews which works to bring greater understanding between Christians and Jews.




 

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