Established in 1994, the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS) has been working for decades to achieve HRH Prince Hassan’s vision of religious pluralism and interfaith harmony, according to its director.

RIIFS Director Majeda Omar said Prince Hassan first initiated dialogue between adherents of different faiths in the 1970s.

“Imagine how the world would have been if the call for dialogue was as active forty years ago,” she said, adding that the prince’s vision extended beyond Jordan to include the whole region.

Cardinal John Tong has today published an important article on the Sino-Vatican dialogue, in which he says China “is now willing” to reach an agreement with the Holy See on the appointment of bishops in the mainland, and discusses what such an agreement can or cannot contain.

There has been much speculation in the media in recent times that the Holy See and China are moving closer to reaching an historic agreement on the crucial question of the nomination of bishops. This has provoked different reactions inside and outside the mainland.

At the culmination of weeks marked by violent sectarian clashes and attacks, Patriarch Tawadros II launches a cry of alarm and Sisi invites him to the presidential palace

At this evening’s WYD prayer vigil, Pope Francis said: “People try to make us believe that being closed in on ourselves is the best way to keep safe from harm. Today, we adults need you to teach us how to…experience multiculturalism not as a threat but an opportunity”

The regional conference of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the Middle East, the first ever of its kind, has convened at the Dead Sea region. The six-day conference, organized by the Ecclesiastical Court of the Latin Patriarchate and the Pontifical Lateran University which is specialized in the teaching of Canon Law, aimed at shedding light on the “novelties” in the activities of the Ecclesiastical Courts with regards to marriage, family and other relevant issues.

The Chaldean Patriarch speaks about the recent slaughter of the French priest: by dying at the altar, his blood blended with the blood of Christ. In Europe, terrorist branches are getting a hold on young people who are blinded with resentment

During the Mass celebrated at the sanctuary of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa on Thursday,July 28, Pope Francis said we are always called upon to listen, get involved and reach out, sharing people’s joys and hardships, so that the Gospel is passed on to the world through the transparency of life.

On the flight to Poland, Francis speaks about the murder of the French priest, saying it was down to a conflict of interests and money.

“The world is at war” but what we are living through “is not a religious war,” Pope Francis told journalists travelling with him to Krakow. Fr. Federico Lombardi asked the Pope to comment on the terrible murder of the French priest.

The urge for tough responses runs through some veins of western Catholicism. But the Christian testimony of martyrs has always been of a very different nature.

In wars, there are neither winners nor losers for all are losers. It is an adventure, rather a risk on a road of no return and a procession in a wrong and senseless direction that leads to nowhere. The world nowadays listens again to the words of former Pope John Paul II who in the early 21st century was feeble and weak, but his voice continued to reverberate until now in his attempt to dissuade the world, particularly the United States of America, from waging a war on Iraq. Yet, his voice remained unheeded by falling on deaf ears.