Pope, Indonesian Imam join in call for interfaith harmony
September 05, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: Pope Francis visited the Istiqlal Mosque in Indonesia on September 5, and there joined with the Grand Imam H. Nasaruddin Umar in a joint declaration calling for inter-religious harmony.
“The values shared by our religious traditions should be effectively promoted in order to defeat the culture of violence,” the statement said, emphasizing the need for dialogue and mutual respect.
In his remarks, Pope Francis called attention to the “tunnel of friendship” that connects the mosque with the cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption. The underground tunnel, he said, is both a place where people of the two faiths can meet and a symbol, pointing to “the one root common to all religious sensitivities: the quest for an encounter with the divine, the thirst for the infinite that the Almighty has placed in our hearts, the search for a greater joy and a life stronger than any type of death, which animates the journey of our lives and impels us to step out of ourselves to encounter God.”
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