The Pope knows what he is doing. I am not in favor of interfaith efforts in the U.S. because Christians do not know enough about Islam. Muslims who take part in interfaith efforts are, by and large, activists, and they do not go into such efforts with the same spirit of purpose. One of the reasons Christians have a limited knowledge of Islam is because the Bible mentions nothing of it, whereas the Qur’an specifically teaches against Jews & Christians. So Muslim activists come armed & loaded with propaganda and lies.
There should be no interfaith efforts...Christianity is completely at odds Islam. The truth is that you have to choose sides...there is no middle ground when it comes to theology (unless you strip or otherwise ignore scripture)...of course there are secular notions like pluralism or multiculturalism and so on.