From Breitbart (tipped by Mr. W. Kirkehøyden).
Christianity and Islam have more in common than people think, Pope Francis said Wednesday, and the two religions defend common values that are necessary for the future of civilization.
“Despite the diversity of cultures and traditions, the Christian and Islamic worlds appreciate and protect common values: life, family, religious sense, honor for the elderly, the education of the young, and others as well,” the pope told the crowds gathered in Saint Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience. The pontiff devoted his weekly address to recapping highlights from his recent three-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, the first visit ever from a pope to the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.
“In an era like our own,” Francis said, “in which the temptation is
strong to see a clash between the Christian and Islamic civilizations
and to consider religions as sources of conflict, we wanted to give a
clear and decisive sign, that it is possible to come together, to
respect one another and to dialogue.”
On Monday, the pope met with Emirate leaders and signed a
joint declaration together with Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam
of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, condemning “acts of murder, exile,
terrorism and oppression” carried out in God’s name.
We “resolutely declare that religions must never incite war, hateful
attitudes, hostility and extremism, nor must they incite violence or the
shedding of blood,” the document reads. “These tragic realities are the
consequence of a deviation from religious teachings.”
In Wednesday’s address in the Vatican, Francis said that the text
served to jointly affirm “the common vocation of all men and women to be
brothers and sisters because they are God’s sons and daughters, and we
condemn all forms of violence, especially those with religious
motivation.”
On Tuesday, the pope celebrated
an outdoor Mass in Abu Dhabi with the attendance of an estimated
170,000 faithful, the largest public act of Christian worship ever held
on the Arabian Peninsula.
At this high-point of his historic three-day visit to the United Arab
Emirates, the pontiff told the faithful to be “oases of peace” during
his homily, in which he also urged them to live by the Beatitudes
preached by Jesus.
The pope called the trip “short but very important,” declaring that
it represents “a new page in the history of dialogue between
Christianity and Islam and in the commitment to promote peace in the
world on the basis of human brotherhood.”
“A pope went to the Arabian Peninsula for the first time,” Francis
said Wednesday. “And Providence wanted it to be a pope by the name of
Francis, 800 years after the visit of St. Francis of Assisi to the
sultan al-Malik al-Kamil.”
“I often thought of Saint Francis during this journey: he helped me
to keep the Gospel, the love of Jesus Christ in my heart, while I was
living the various moments of the visit,” he said.
The pope said that during the trip he prayed that “dialogue between
Christianity and Islam might be a decisive factor for peace in today’s
world.”