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On April 16, the United Muslim-Christian Forum (UMCF) held an interfaith event in Owego, New York, featuring Christian and Muslim speakers, including the mayor of the town. Its Web site proudly hosts a photo of Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan holding a UMCF sign. Far from the model of tolerance it casts itself as, the UMCF is a front for an anti-Semitic, Islamic extremist group named Muslims of the Americas (MOA), and the keynote speaker warned that Allah will destroy whoever supports Koran burnings, and possibly the entire country. The MOA was exposed in the Christian Action Network’s (CAN) 2009...

A priest and close friend of Pope Francis says the pontiff's idea for an upcoming inter-religious soccer match for peace shows his keen interest in promoting the topic on all levels of society. “The hope is that after this football match, this sports event, there will be an impact that raises awareness for peace,” Father Guillermo Karcher told CNA Aug. 25, explaining to other journalists that “the Pope's concern for peace is very great.” “He sees in this event, this punctual message of the match for peace, a very positive element that gives a contribution, because it's necessary to try...

AUSTIN (KXAN) — As the surge of unaccompanied minors into America continues, organizations around the country are doing what they can to help, including here in Austin. On Tuesday, Austin Interfaith spoke at the Travis County Commissioner’s meeting. Representatives say that Austin is ideal to being a recipient of the children; it is a welcoming city and has the resources necessary to do so. For Ofelia Zapata, the future of migrant children hits close to home. “When you see on TV how the children are mistreated by officers…these are babies.” Zapata is a member of Austin Interfaith and is on...

>On June 8, 2014 — Pentecost Sunday — the Vatican hosted an “interfaith event” that included prayers by Christian priests, a Jewish rabbi, and a Muslim imam. The occasion was well-publicized in advance by the Holy See as a “pause in politics” that would promote peace between the Israel and the Palestinians. During his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority the previous month, Pope Francis had invited Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to attend the event. Both leaders accepted the invitation, and sat with the Pope while prayers were said and chanted in the...

Post navigation← Older postsWho Edited the Tape? That’s what everyone wanted to know about the notorious 18½-minute gap in Richard Nixon’s Watergate tape, for which Rosemary Woods eventually took the fall. Now it appears that something similar happened with the Vatican’s tape of the interfaith prayers-for-peace from last Sunday, giving us even more reason to dub this controversy “Imamgate”. As we reported in last night’s post about the imam’s prayer at the Vatican, there seems to be nothing controversial in the chanted Arabic in the prayer and that spoken in his subsequent remarks. However, a reader and commenter named ritamalik...

Reverend Deborah Lindsay, Minister of Spiritual Care at First Community Church in Ohio, is a YouTube viral video star because of her call on Christians to avoid anti-Muslim sentiment. Unfortunately, her chief outreach partner is a Muslim Brotherhood-tied mosque named the Noor Islamic Cultural Center. A video of her sermon, uploaded in September 2010, has been viewed over one million times. Her outreach to Muslims was also the subject of an article in the Columbus Dispatch. In it, she is quoted as comparing jihad to Lent. […] The audience, especially non-Muslims like Rev. Lindsay, is led to believe that this...

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has commended the efforts exerted by Pope Francis to revitalize interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims. Ihsanoglu made the comment during his first meeting with the pope at the Vatican on Friday. The secretary-general pointed out that today the presence of Muslims in historically Christian countries has expanded, while some OIC countries either have native Christian communities or have witnessed in recent years the arrival of Christians as guest workers.

One Catholic Church in Charlotte fired music director Steav Bates-Congdon after he married his longtime male partner. Now another has pulled out of hosting the city's largest interfaith service rather than allow Bates-Congdon to be part of the team planning the annual event. Mecklenburg Ministries’ 38th annual Thanksgiving Interfaith Service is still on for Nov. 26. But it’ll be held at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Dilworth, not at St. Matthew Catholic Church in Ballanytne – Charlotte’s biggest house of worship. And Bates-Congdon, now music director at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fort Mill, will play a prominent role in the...

SHAKEN, if not humbled by the destruction of old Catholic churches in the provinces of Cebu and Bohol after a powerful 7.2 quake hit Central Visayas last Tuesday, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle on Friday apologized for the sins of the Church against non-Catholics and even the poor. Tagle made his apology on the last day of the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization (PCNE) at the University of Santo Tomas, a 3-day event that sought to rekindle the Catholic faith. “In memory of Blessed Pope John Paul II and his collaborators before the year 2000, including Pope Emeritus Benedict...

(Vatican Radio) The death of several hundred migrants off the Italian island of Lampedusa this month has focused international spotlight on the broader, complex questions of EU policies regarding immigration and integration. According to one American Muslim leader, the United States model of integration has much to teach European countries at the present time. Syrian-born Imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat is founder and president of the Civilizations Exchange and Cooperation Foundation, which is based in Baltimore, in the United States. The organisation works to promote cooperation, rather than confrontation, between young people of different religions, cultures and backgrounds. He spoke to...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis, like Islam's Sufi mystic theologians and poets, "is trying to do good for the sake of the Good One, motivated by love and compassion," said the president of the Islamic Affairs Council of Maryland. Mohamad Bashar Arafat, a Syrian who has lived in the United States for more than 20 years, was visiting the Vatican and speaking to groups in Rome in early October as a guest of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See as part of the U.S. State Department's international speakers program. In an interview with Catholic News Service, Arafat said...

Every bishop is called to be “a servant of communion” working tirelessly to overcome divisions so that differences become a treasure and not a source of conflict, Pope Francis has said. The Christian community should be “like a great mosaic in which every small piece joins with others as part of God’s one great plan”, the Pope said yesterdat as he celebrated the feast of Ss Peter and Paul and bestowed the pallium on 34 archbishops from 19 countries. snip Pope Francis said that when he gave the archbishops their palliums as a sign of communion, it was not a...

Israel is the center of the world “in so many ways,” the archbishop of Canterbury said Thursday in Jerusalem. He stressed Israel’s legitimacy and right to security, and also spoke, in the context of persecution of Christians by Islamists in the Middle East, about the Christian imperative to “love our enemies.” It was his maiden visit to the region since being appointed to one of the highest positions in the Protestant Church. The Most Reverend Justin Welby, who has a Jewish father, is the leader of the Church of England and of 80 million Anglicans worldwide. He was enthroned in...

(Vatican Radio) The Islamic-Catholic Liaison Committee held its 19th Meeting in Rome, on June 18th and 19th, presided over for the Catholic side by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and presided over for the Muslim side by Prof. Hamid bin Ahmad Al-¬Rifaie, President of the International Islamic Forum for Dialogue. The theme of the meeting was ‘Believers confronting materialism and secularism in society’ and at the conclusion of the meeting the Catholic and Muslim delegations agreed upon the following six points: 1) Christianity and Islam affirm the inseparability and complementarity between the material and...

An interfaith gathering in London to pray for peace has been pronounced a welcome first by the president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran. The event, held at Westminster Cathedral Hall on 13 June, was the highlight of a four-day visit by the cardinal, who told The Tablet that the gathering was uniquely British and "beautiful". The London gathering was inspired by the Day of Prayer for Peace convened by Pope John Paul II in 1986 at Assisi. Representatives of nine religions delivered prayers and reflections in their own tradition, then placed a pot of white...

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder congratulated Cardinal Jorge María Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, on his election as Pope Francis I on Wednesday. "Pope Francis I is no stranger to us. In recent years he attended many interfaith events co-organized by the WJC and our regional affiliate, the Latin American Jewish Congress," Lauder wrote, adding he had met Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 2008. Lauder praised the new pope as "an experienced man, someone who is known for his open-mindedness ... a man of dialogue, a man who is able to build bridges with other faiths". "We...

Or lack thereof. In case today’s previous posts didn’t highlight the failure of Islamic interfaith dialog, Robert Spencer presents his latest personal experience via PJ Lifestyle » Building Bridges Between Christians and Muslims: A Case Study.: Does the diocese and the [Boston] Globe think that if people like me are silenced that no one will ever again “link Islam to terrorism” or depict “Islam as an inherently violent religion”? Unfortunately, jihadists will continue to do both of these things. ~ Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch While Christians face escalating persecution from Muslims in Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and elsewhere, the...

Everyone has an opinion about the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Some say that Palestinians started it with their rockets aimed at Israel territory, while others say that Israel was using disproportionate force and killing innocent people in Gaza. These points have been debated in the media all over the world. We must realize that following the same paths of hatred and rage will always lead to the same results - pain for both parties, people dying on both sides and a life of fear with no ability to see the hope for the future. It is time for everyone...

Muslims around the world are gathering for Friday prayers, and in one neighbourhood in the US state of Virginia, the worshippers will enter a building that could hardly be further from a traditional mosque. At a time when religious differences are sparking conflict in the Middle East and beyond - it is cooperation between two faiths which is allowing this unique programme flourish.

Thursday, July 8, 2010 A former congressman pleaded guilty Wednesday to serving as an unregistered agent in Washington for a Missouri-based Islamic charity that the federal government said had ties to international terrorism. It was an odd outcome for Mark D. Siljander, who said he wanted to help bridge the gulf between Muslims and Christians. A Republican who attained one of Michigan's congressional seats from 1981 to 1987 with assistance from the Moral Majority, Siljander was outspoken about conservative social issues. Siljander confirmed in a Kansas City, Mo., court that he contacted members of Congress in an effort to lift...