[Toronto • February 19, 2006] The Muslim Canadian Congress has condemned attacks on Churches in Pakistan and Nigeria that have led to the death of 15 Christians, including women and children. In an appeal to Muslims across the world, the Muslim Canadian Congress is urging them to resist the temptation of participating in public demonstrations
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Prominent national Canadian Muslim organizations and umbrella groups have signed an unprecedented statement praising Canada’s collective response to the cartoon controversy, saying Canada has “made Canadian Muslims proud.” “Despite a few small occurrences, Canada’s collective response to this controversy has allowed us to overcome this crisis and strengthen our democracy,” says Dr. Tyseer Aboulnasr, a
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[Toronto • 17.2.2006] The United Church of Canada has sent a letter to the Islamic Council of Imams expressing the church’s “deepest regret that the name of Muhammad has been so tragically misused in the depictions of cartoons first published in Europe, but now also in Canada.” The letter strongly condemns the publication of the
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[Porto Alegré, Brazil • 14.02.2006] Christians and Muslims should work together to “put out the fire” caused by the controversial publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, according to Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches. The publication of the cartoons, which first appeared last year in a Danish paper
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The review, Oasis/al-Waha/Nakhlistan, was launched on 7 March 2005 to promote an open and respectful dialogue with Islam, and to support Christian minorities in predominantly Muslim countries. Initially, Oasis will be published twice a year. Edited by a committee of experts from around the world, it is published in four editions: English-Arabic, English-Urdu, French-Arabic and
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The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission has produced a new document on the Blessed Virgin Mary that it hopes will advance the cause of communion. The Commission submitted the document entitled “Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ” to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and to the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury together with the Anglican
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On Monday 29 March I left Glasgow for the third Building Bridges seminar convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury and hosted by John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University in Washington. A few days earlier, the former Archbishop George Carey, the man responsible for hosting the first of these seminars at Lambeth Palace in 2002, had made front-page headlines after delivering a public lecture in which Islam and Muslims had come under severe criticism over a variety of political and theological issues. “It is sad to relate”, he said, “that no great invention has come for many hundred years from Muslim countries.” “During the past 500 hundred years,” he continued, “critical scholarship [in theology] has declined, leading to strong resistance to modernity.” Dr Carey added that moderate Muslims must “express strongly on behalf of the many millions of their co-religionists, their abhorrence of violence done in the name of Allah.” Much to the dismay of many Muslims and non-Muslims, in subsequent interviews, Dr Carey remained steadfast that he had not meant to offend the Muslim community.
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Pope John Paul, who celebrated his eighty-first birthday this week, is a man in a hurry. In the twilight days of his long papacy, he is expanding the perspective of his by now traditional pastoral visits around the world and he is laying down markers for the future. These concern the future relations of the Roman Catholic Church both with the separated Orthodox Christian Churches, and with the other monotheistic religions, Islam and Judaism.

Hence the first-ever visit this month by a pope to a mosque, the impressive Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Twenty years ago it would have been inconceivable that a pope from Rome should remove his shoes, put on white slippers and traverse one of the great Holy Places of Islam for a meeting with the Grand Mufti and other clerics in the courtyard of the mosque.
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