EUROPE/ITALY - Monasticism builds bridges between religions - Conference on Islam and Christianity organised in Assisi by European Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Commission

Friday, 9 July 2004

Rome (Fides Service) - A Conference ‘Islam and Christianity’ organised by the Italian branch of the Commission for Monastic Interreligious Dialogue will take place for 15-18 July at St Joseph’s Benedictine Monastery in Assisi. The conference intends to respond to a call made by Pope John Paul II in Assisi: “In God’s name I call on all religions to work for justice and peace on earth”. Speakers at the conference will include two Benedictines Father Bernard-Joseph Samain, theologian at Orval Abbey Belgium and Father Daniel Point theologian at En Calcat Abbey in France; Muslim Prof. Hassan Khorzom, docent at the University of Damascus, will reflect on aspects of the Koran, on the 99 names of God, and the figures of Jesus and Mary of Nazareth. The objective of the Conference is to deepen knowledge of Islam to demonstrate that Muslim fundamentalism is only a minority and must be fought from within Islam itself.
The aim of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Commission is to encourage reciprocal encounter and understanding between religious men and women of different religions through hospitality, shared times of prayer, meditation, contemplation, silence, love of nature, theological reflection. The initiative was started in 1960 as a response to the “Fidei Donum” Encyclical 1957 (Pope Pius XII) which called for monasteries to be built in young Churches. Benedictines and Cistercians started a mission to help monastic implantation AIM. To deal with monastic formation a series of meetings were organised in Africa and in Asia. In 1973, for the first time Christian and non Christian monks met in Bangalore, India, to compare experience of God. With the encouragement of what was then the Holy See’s Secretariat for Non Believers, within the framework of AIM in 1977 two commissions were set up to deal with interreligious dialogue one for North America and Canada MID and one for Europe DIM. In recent years DIM in has increased its relations with monks of various religions, Hindu, Buddhists, Tibetan, Japanese Zen. Japanese monks spent some time in Christian monasteries in Europe and vice versa. The same exchange has been experienced by American Christian monks and Tibetan Buddhist monks. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 9/7/2004 - Righe 24; Parole 328)


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