By TwoCircles.net staff reporter
London/Rome: Religious leaders and scholars from the Muslim world will meet Pope Benedict XVI for an unprecedented audience in November after a historic summit between Vatican prelates and their Muslim counterparts.
It is likely that 24 representatives from each faith would take part in the inaugural seminar of a permanent Catholic-Muslim Forum. The forum will meet every two years. The first will be in Rome, from 4-6 November. The third day will conclude with a Papal reception. The location will alternate between the Vatican and a Muslim country.
Last year, 138 Muslim scholars wrote to the Pope and other Christian leaders, pleading for dialogue between the two faiths to reduce tensions between Islam and the West. It was issued by Jordan’s Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought and was the second open letter from the institute to the Vatican. The first was sent after the Pope’s 2006 Regensburg address, which left Muslims angry after he quoted a Byzantine Emperor. The Pope later said he had been misunderstood.