{"id":5706,"date":"2006-09-20T08:20:22","date_gmt":"2006-09-20T08:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/dialogue-in-pakistan.html"},"modified":"2006-09-20T08:20:22","modified_gmt":"2006-09-20T08:20:22","slug":"dialogue-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/dialogue-in-pakistan.html","title":{"rendered":"Dialogue in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bishop takes the initiative:<\/a><\/p>\n

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In Pakistan Catholic and Muslim scholars and clerics met to study the Pope\u2019s Regensburg speech which caused Muslims to protest. The meeting, which took place at the Bishop\u2019s residence, is the initiative of the local bishop, Mgr Joseph Coutts, and Fr Aftab James Paul, director of Interfaith Dialogue and Ecumenism for the diocese of Faisalabad. A committee was formed that includes Bishop Coutts himself, two Catholic priests, four ulemas and another Muslim, Pir Muhammad Ibrahim.<\/p>\n

In opening the meeting, Mgr Coutts expressed his \u201cjoy\u201d to see Muslims and Christians together, but at the same time \u201csadness\u201d for the overall misunderstanding of what the Pope said in Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted this meeting,\u201d he said, \u201cto clarify with our Muslim brothers the meaning of what the Pope said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And Syria’s Grand Mufti:<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe clarifications supplied by the Pope are more than sufficient, although I would ask for, if possible, more explanation.\u201d  With these words, the Sunni Grand Mufti of the Arab republic of Syria, Ahmad Badr El Din El Hassoun summed up a meeting yesterday \u2013 Tuesday \u2013 with the Apostolic Nuncio of Syria, Mgr Giovanni Morandini. In a statement to AsiaNews<\/em>, he added: \u201cThe disapproval of Pope Benedict XVI and his bitterness after the recent reactions are more than an \u2018apology\u2019 for us and a great sign of respect towards the Islamic world.\u201d El Hassoun called on \u201call to respect this great personality, Pope Benedict XVI.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Grand Mufti also thanked the Apostolic Nuncio for bringing a message of brotherhood and peace and said the latest position of the Holy See \u2013 expressed by the Pope himself, by the Secretary of State, by the Vatican Press Office and by some religious leaders \u2013 should be viewed as an expression of the \u201cgood intentions reigning in the hearts of Christian brothers\u201d. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But the president of Pakistan gets his digs in a speech before the UN:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Pakistani leader called for a two-pronged strategy of "enlightened moderation" so that terrorism is tackled head on while at the same time the international community strives to resolve conflicts in the Islamic world.<\/p>\n

"We also need to bridge, through dialogue and understanding, the growing divide between the Islamic and Western worlds. In particular, it is imperative to end racial and religious discrimination against Muslims and to prohibit the defamation of Islam. It is most disappointing to see personalities of high standing oblivious of Muslim sensitivities at these critical moments."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bishop takes the initiative: In Pakistan Catholic and Muslim scholars and clerics met to study the Pope\u2019s Regensburg speech which caused Muslims to protest. The meeting, which took place at the Bishop\u2019s residence, is the initiative of the local bishop, Mgr Joseph Coutts, and Fr Aftab James Paul, director of Interfaith Dialogue and Ecumenism…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDialogue in Pakistan - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/dialogue-in-pakistan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dialogue in Pakistan - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A bishop takes the initiative: In Pakistan Catholic and Muslim scholars and clerics met to study the Pope\u2019s Regensburg speech which caused Muslims to protest. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}