Muslim Group To Meet In Vatican On Interfaith Relations

Common Word, a group of Muslim leaders and scholars, will meet for three days beginning tomorrow in the Vatican with Catholic officials including the Pope. Reuters today reports that the group wants to develop better interfaith relations, including a joint crisis management plan that could diffuse tensions such as those that arose in 2006 after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The group would also speak out against persecution of Christians in Iraq. The group has previously met with Protestant leaders. It was formed, issuing the Common Word manifesto, last October partly in response to a speech by Pope Benedict XVI in Regensburg that was seen by Muslims as offensive.