Pope Francis greets a diplomat during an audience with the diplomatic corps at the Vatican. PHOTO: AFP
Pope Francis on Friday called for the Roman Catholic Church to ‘intensify’ its dialogue with Islam and with non-believers, condemning the ‘spiritual poverty’ of the developed world.
“It is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam,” the new pontiff said in an address to foreign ambassadors at the Vatican.
“It is also important to intensify outreach to non-believers so that the differences which divide and hurt us may never prevail, but rather the desire to build true links of friendship,” he said.
The Argentine pope said he wanted to ‘build bridges connecting all people’ and said this was particularly significant for him personally because of his own Italian immigrant roots.
“This dialogue between places and cultures [that are] a great distance apart matters greatly to me,” he said.
Francis referred to it as a ‘dialogue between one end of the world and the other, which today are growing ever closer, more interdependent’.
The pope also returned to a favoured theme of his predecessor Benedict XVI, who battled against rising secularism in Europe in his pontificate.
“It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called rich countries particularly seriously,” the 76-year-old said, adding that this ‘endangers the coexistence of peoples’.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 23rd, 2013.
COMMENTS (6)
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Pope's intentions are absolutely and definitely rightful but who will understand USA to understand the excellent,much the best and peaceful Pope's inner intentions?????
before you guys jump to grab ET's neck, do check that the report is from AFP (Associated French Press)
@antony: Completely agree with your comment. The two words most abused and deliberately so, are secularism and democracy. Pope Francis comes across as genuine and has made a great start.
Pardon me if my thinking is wrong. But i didn't liked one thing which you wrote as ''Argentine Pope''. The reason is that the personality is Pope of whole christian community not just of Argentina. Whatever his birth place is but now that personality is the Pope.
ITs atrocious to misrepresent what Pope said in this article as he is against rising secularism .. There is no mention of secularism .In fact building bridges with non believers and extending friendship to one and all is the crux of secularism and which he has emphasised..Just because muslims dont like secularism does not mean you can misinterpret what Pope said.