Christian-Muslim dialogue spreading like the Internet

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - Christian-Muslim contacts are multiplying around the world as networks of religious officials and scholars confer in parallel to improve ties between the world's two largest faiths, a leading Muslim participant says.

Aref Ali Nayed of the Common Word dialogue drive launched by 138 Islamic scholars said the Internet was making contacts among experts quicker and easier while serving as a paradigm for the decentralised dialogue that suits the information age.

A senior Vatican official recently said there might now be too many Christian-Muslim dialogues and they risked overlapping, but Nayed said the opposite was the case in the information age.

"There can never be too many dialogues," said the Libyan theologian, who is senior advisor to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme in Britain. "This network of networks needs to continue to grow."

Normally pursued in occasional formal conferences, top-level contacts between Christian and Islamic leaders have stepped up since the Sept. 11 attacks rekindled long-standing tensions. The Common Word group was only launched last year but has already held productive talks with many different church leaders.

"That's the power of the Internet," Nayed told Reuters. "In the old days, it would have taken years to reach the consensus we've reached quite quickly through modern communications."

The Vatican and the Common Word group held a pioneering meeting on Nov. 4-6 that pledged religious freedom for faith minorities. Saudi King Abdullah has visited the Vatican and held interfaith sessions in Madrid and at the United Nations.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told Reuters after meeting the Common Word group that the current profusion of dialogue efforts "sows a bit of confusion".