The Imam of Al-Azhar in an interview to the Vatican media after his audience with the Pope: “He is a man of peace, with him we resume the path of dialogue.” Islam has nothing to do with the violence and we denounce the deviations. There are more Muslim than Christian victims.
For the first time in the Vatican, the Grand Imam of the Sunni Islamic University thanked Francis for his words on the respect due to religions and invited him to Cairo.
The meeting with Muhammad al-Tayyib, imam of Al-Azhar: peace, rejection of terrorism and “the situation of Christians in the context of conflict and tension in the Middle East, and their protection.”
Ending a five-year freeze in relations, Pope Francis is set to meet the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Mosque, Ahmed el-Tayeb, in the Vatican on Monday. The al-Azhar mosque and university complex in Cairo, Egypt, is widely considered the most prestigious institution in the Sunni Muslim world.
Just to put things into perspective, Sunnis make up 80 per cent -90 per cent of the world’s Islamic population, meaning there are roughly 1.3 to 1.5 billion Sunni Muslims. There are also 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, by far the world’s largest Christian denomination.
It rarely happens that the head of the Catholic Church accepts an award. Yet, Pope Francis--as had been the case with St. John Paul II--has accepted the International Charlemagne Prize, one of the most important European awards that are usually given to the figures marked by playing a role for the sake of European values and unity. The prize is intended to shed light on some of the points he had highlighted at the European Parliament (on January 25, 2014) and at the United Nations (on September 25, 2015).
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad Twal on Sunday, May 15, 2016 presided over the solemn Mass of Pentecost in the presence of the faithful, in the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition, a few meters from the Cenacle on Mount Zion.
For those gathered at an extraordinary Jubilee General Audience at St Peter’s Square Saturday, 14, May Pope Francis said piety is not necessarily about devotion but more like “pity.” The pope’s catechesis for the occasion developed piety as one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
“When we hear this word,” he said, “we think of a certain religiosity or devotion, but its meaning is much richer; like our word ‘pity’, it has to do with compassion, with mercy.”
Easter celebrations, this year, have a significance. They coincide with the Jubilee Year of Mercy which was proclaimed by Pope Francis and adopted by various Churches of the world. The concept of mercy has a necessity and a beauty since it is the noblest deed a human being may ever undertake. You have several models that created "treasures" out of mercy, not through transient deeds or with the intention of showing off, but rather by serving humanity through the attainment of the civilization of love and the culture of mercy.
One hundred years ago in Portugal, an angel appeared to three peasant children. He appeared three times in the coming months. Then six months later on May 13, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared.
She kept her appointment with them on the thirteenth day of the month for the next six months, and in visions gave them prophetic secrets about the future. Then on October 13, 1917 she appeared before them and made the sun spin and dance for tens of thousands of witnesses.
That’s what happened at Fatima…or did it?
The meeting between the Pope and Albanian Sufi spiritual leader Baba Edmond Brahimaj sends out a clear message against the fundamentalist impulses that became the legacy of the war in Bosnia Herzegovina
