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Pope Meets With Holy Land Rabbi, Imam, Druze

November 13, 2011

By Nicole Winfield From Huffington Post VATICAN CITY — A delegation of Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Druse religious leaders in Israel met Thursday with Pope Benedict XVI in a high-profile display of their efforts to promote interfaith peace initiatives in the region. The Council of Religious Leaders in Israel was created in 2007 in Jerusalem to bring together Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders in Israel to raise awareness about the need for interfaith dialogue and cooperation in the Holy Land. The audience with the pope was designed in part to boost the profile of the council, which counts among its members representatives of Israel’s Islamic, or Sharia courts. Sheik Kiwan Mohamad, who heads an association of some 500 imams in Israel, said the fact that the council exists was proof that people of different faiths can live together peacefully, even amid the political unrest in the Middle East. “Islam is a religion of peace that loves life and condemns any act in the name of religion against the very principles of the religion,” he said. “The people who act in this way are selfish; they do so for themselves and out of personal motives and interests.” Click here to read the full article