Media Watch

Church Official Emphasizes Christian Unity

THE GAZETTE (Canada), April 5 — Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Vatican's Council for Promoting Christian Unity, called for ongoing efforts at dialogue between Christians and non-Christians — but not at the expense of unity among believers in Christ, according to The Gazette.

Several attendees at an April 4 conference of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churchmen at Université Laval expressed a concern, according to the paper, that many Christians in Canada were more committed to pan-religious efforts at promoting world peace than concrete attempts to bring Christian churches closer together.

While dialogue with non-Christians remains important, Cardinal Kasper said, ecumenism itself must be firmly based on fundamental Christian doctrines.

The 70-year-old bishop and theologian warned that any talk of a “macro-ecumenism” that included non-Christian faiths could only lead to confusion.

Letter From bin Laden Found in Italian Mosque

XINHUA.NET, April 5 — A 1996 letter from Osama bin Laden was found in the local mosque in Cremona, northern Italy, reported Xinhua.net, a Chinese news service.

Italian police found the letter inviting young Saudis to enlist in a jihad against the United States during a recent raid aimed at turning up terrorist conspirators. The letter called for spectacular attacks on America and on American symbols throughout the world.

The imam of that mosque was arrested earlier in the week along with the one-time head of a Florence mosque and five other Muslims. All were charged with conspiring to help Ansar Al Islam, an Islamic group recently expelled from northern Iraq by American troops.

Pope Meets French Minister Regarding Iraq

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 5 — Pope John Paul II met with French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin on April 4 to discuss the U.S. war against Iraq, which was opposed by the Holy See and the French government, the Associated Press reported.

Their joint statement reflected their shared view that decisions about postwar reconstruction should rest with the Iraqi people, not just the coalition.

The Holy Father and the foreign minister agreed on “the need to abbreviate the suffering of the civilian population as well as the hope that the international community will help the Iraqis to themselves be the architects of the reconstruction.”

“We are concerned about the increasing risk of confrontation,” de Villepin said later at a news conference, “[and about] divisions and fractures between our world and the Arab world.”

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