Islamic Prayers, Readings from Quran to be Heard at the Vaticanfor the First Time in History!!!
For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran will be heard at the Vatican on Sunday, in a move by Pope Francis to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Francis issued the invitation to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit last week to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas, Peres, and Francis will be joined by Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders, a statement released by Peres’s spokesperson said, according to the Times of Israel.
Holy See officials on Friday said the evening prayers would be a “pause in politics” and had no political aim other than to rekindle the desire for Israeli-Palestinian peace at the political and popular level, according to the Associated Press.
LOW EXPECTATIONS
The Vatican will broadcast a live feed of the event to viewers across the world.
However, expectations for the event should be kept low, according to Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the custodian of Catholic Church property in the Holy Land.
During his recent journey to the Holy Land, Pope Francis invited Shimon Peres, President of the State of Israel, and Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, to come to the Vatican to “send up” with him “a mighty prayer, appealing to God for the gift of peace.” This interreligious meeting will take place this month on the afternoon of June 8, on the Feast of Pentecost, and the Pope announced that a rabbi and a Muslim [cleric] would be with him on either side.
In an interview granted to Vatican Radio, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See, declared: “We hope that in a place where presently human efforts have failed, the Lord might give wisdom and fortitude to all, in order to build a true peace.” Now it is certain that the Lord Jesus Christ is not the one who will be invoked by Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, nor by the rabbi and the Muslim [cleric] on either side of the Pope, since Judaism and Islam reject the Savior, the Son of God. Francis says that he hopes for a “mighty prayer”, but it will be mighty ambiguous. As at Assisi, the participants will be together in order to prayseparately.
In a message dated May 19 addressed to Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the Pope asserted that this dialogue “does not imply relativizing the Christian faith”. Those are words; the June 8 meeting will be a much more eloquent act. They will put under a bushel basket the message of the one Savior, the Prince of Peace
Father Alain Lorans -
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