The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given increased sensitivity to the dialogue started by the Vatican with the Moscow Orthodox patriarchy, some accusing Pope Francis of having favored this dialogue at the expense of a more decided position in favor of from Ukraine. Such controversies have relegated to the background the substantial advances that dialogue with Islam recorded from the start, in 2013, of this pontificate.
The current pope, taking into account the deep diversity of Islam, has multiplied the exchange channels with different Muslim institutions, as well as with the interreligious dialogue bodies which have often emerged on the initiative of States anxious to improve their international image. The Holy See thus refused to be locked up in dialogue with a single institution, which would not make much sense given the absence of Islamic equivalent of a universally recognized Pope.
democratization Islamo-Christian dialogue
Dialogue with the Muslim world has long been led to the Vatican by narrow circles of specialists. The Pontifical Institute of Arab Studies and Islamology (PISAI) has been installed in Rome since 1964, after the transfer to Italy of the established Institute, four decades earlier, by white fathers in Tunisia. While his initial vocation was to train missionaries in a Muslim environment, he is now devoted to interreligious dialogue, with the publication of the Islamochristiana review, of high academic attire. In addition, within the Roman Curia, a dicastery, a pontifical equivalent of a ministry, the PCID, is intended for interreligious dialogue, with a specific office for Islam. The manager is a Jordanian bishop, trained in a Catholic seminar in West Bank, then a graduate of Pisa, where he now teaches Islamic law. He maintains on behalf of the Vatican relations followed with around twenty institutions, from Morocco to Indonesia, via Jordan, Iran and the Gulf.
This diversity in the exchange was encouraged by Pope Francis, who gave an unprecedented impetus to dialogue with Islam. Years of preparation made possible, in February 2019, the “document on human fraternity, for world peace and common coexistence” signed by Pope Francis, on the occasion of his trip to Abu Dhabi, with the Grand Imam d’Al-Azhar, historical reference of Sunni Islam.
The two signatories refer back to back “atheist and agnostic extremism”, on the one hand, and “religious fundamentalism, extremism and blind fundamentalism”, on the other hand, to categorically condemn “the detestable terrorism “. They are resolutely committed to “full citizenship” and judge “discriminatory” the concept of “minorities, which carries with it the germs of the feeling of isolation and inferiority”. This is a historical break for the Vatican, which has long mobilized in favor of Christians of the East in the name of the defense of “minorities”.
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