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Christians should be highlighting the differences not the similarities in our religons.

With the exception of Christianity, practically all the worlds religions teach that man should do what is good (though definitions of good vary dramatically) and that if he achieves enough good instead of bad, he will have saved himself.

Like the others, Christianity exhorts others to do good.

But unlike the others, Christianity never agrees that man can save himself by doing more good than bad. Only if a man is perfect would he save himself. And since scripture says repeatedly that noone is perfect, that path is out. The other path is to be forgiven and that is where Jesus comes in as the sustitutionary payment.

If Cardinal Law understood Christian and Muslim theology, he could never bow and pray to Allah, confusing him with the one true God.

Belloc has an essay where he calls Islam the first external heresy of Christianity and he makes a good case, so I'm less sure than either of you as to the absolute true nature of Islamic monotheism. Islam venerates Jesus, Mary and Joseph for example. It treats the infidel and heretic who are Jews or Christians differently (and better) than pagans, for another example. All that said, I think it would be sinful for me as a practicing Catholic to attend a prayer service in another faith. I am certain it would be were I to worship "their" God, if their God was NOT the Triune God. Since I am reasonably sure that Islam rejects the Trinity, I am reasonably certain worship in an Islamic Center's services would be sinful for me. Even if I weren't certain, doubt would clearly be present and moral doubt should be enough to stop us from action to prevent us from the clear possibility of mortal sin.

As Sink noted above, His Holiness kissed the Q'ran. Perhaps hierarchs are bound by different rules than I was taught, or perhaps I misunderstood that part of the Ten Commandments about "No other God".

2084 God makes himself known by recalling his all-powerful loving, and liberating action in the history of the one he addresses: "I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The first word contains the first commandment of the Law: "You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him.... You shall not go after other gods." God's first call and just demand is that man accept him and worship him.

2085 The one and true God first reveals his glory to Israel. The revelation of the vocation and truth of man is linked to the revelation of God. Man's vocation is to make God manifest by acting in conformity with his creation "in the image and likeness of God":
There will never be another God, Trypho, and there has been no other since the world began . . . than he who made and ordered the universe. We do not think that our God is different from yours. He is the same who brought your fathers out of Egypt "by his powerful hand and his outstretched arm." We do not place our hope in some other god, for there is none, but in the same God as you do: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

2086 "The first commandment embraces faith, hope, and charity. When we say 'God' we confess a constant, unchangeable being, always the same, faithful and just, without any evil. It follows that we must necessarily accept his words and have complete faith in him and acknowledge his authority. He is almighty, merciful, and infinitely beneficent. Who could not place all hope in him? Who could not love him when contemplating the treasures of goodness and love he has poured out on us? Hence the formula God employs in the Scripture at the beginning and end of his commandments: 'I am the LORD.'"

> Christians should be highlighting the differences not the similarities in our religons.

Paul did both. On Mars Hill he first established common ground and then preached his doctrine. But that was open public space. We have no record of him joining in worship at a pagan temple in order to then preach. Neither can I imagine him doing so.

We do have him in Jewish synagogues, but at a time when Jewish-Christian relations were still amicable. When the hostilities became too great, even that seems to have come to an end (acts 18.6).

IOW, I have no problem with a Christian being at an open public meeting with those of other faiths. I do have major problems with what Law did here.