Pope Francis has been a symbol of unity in fostering interreligious friendship and dialogue throughout his papacy.
“Interreligious dialogue helps to promote peace, especially in a time when “bellicose rhetoric has sadly come back into fashion”, the Pope said.
Pope Francis encouraged people of all religions to promote diversity, peace, and care of creation.
Francis, 88, fostered those connections by making more than 45 international trips, including historic visits to the Middle East, where he met with people of other faiths including Jews and Muslims.
During his visit in February 2019 to the United Arab Emirates, Pope Francis offered an image of the Church seeking to build bridges and deepen relations with other religions.
Remarkably, the ‘Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,’ also known as the Abu Dhabi declaration, signed by Pope Francis and the highest authority among Sunni Muslims, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayyeb.
For among its conclusions, it launched the Declaration as “an appeal to every upright conscience that rejects deplorable violence and blind extremism; an appeal to those who cherish the values of tolerance and fraternity that are promoted and encouraged by religions.”
Pope Francis become the first Pope to complete a visit to Iraq And met with the highest authority among Iraq’s Shia Muslims, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
Moreover, Pope Francis would become the first Pope to complete a visit to Iraq, despite challenges of security and the Covid-19 pandemic, during which he also met with the highest authority among Iraq’s Shia Muslims, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Leader of the world’s Catholics pointed out the importance of his meeting with the Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf, stating: “This meeting carried a global message that violence in the name of religion is a violation of religion itself, and all religions are obligated to cooperate to promote peace and teach it to others.”
He recalls the Ayatollah’s joint appeal to the great powers “to abandon the language of war, prioritizing reason and wisdom.” The Pope appreciates a phrase from their meeting: “Human beings are either brothers in religion or equals in creation.”
He also renewed his prayers that Christians and Muslims may always be “witnesses of truth, love and hope, in a world scarred by numerous conflicts and therefore in need of compassion and healing.”
Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis would personally participate in numerous interfaith summits and interreligious encounters
Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis would personally participate in numerous interfaith summits and interreligious encounters, making time on nearly every Apostolic Visit to meet with leaders of other religions.
Even after some health battles and some uncertainty about his dream coming to fruition, Pope Francis travelled in September 2024 to the Indonesia, the country that has the largest population of Muslims worldwide, with more than 240 million. That would be the first leg of his whirlwind four-country Apostolic Journey, before continuing to Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore.
At the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, the world’s largest, the Pope and Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar signed the Joint Declaration of Istiqlal 2024 on Fostering Religious Harmony for the Sake of Humanity, which called for collaboration among religious leaders to react to two “serious crises” they said “the world is facing,” namely dehumanization and climate change.
Pope Francis visited synagogues in Rome, New York, and elsewhere, and often expressed his closeness to his Jewish brothers and sisters, frequently issuing categorical condemnations of anti-Semitism. He also recognized in the footsteps of his predecessors the horrors the Jewish people have faced, and condemned the Shoah.
Francis was remembered for his calls for inclusivity and efforts to foster solidarity among Catholics, other other religious communities and even atheists. “All religions are paths to God. I will use an analogy, they are like different languages that express the divine,” Francis said.
