29 May 2007
Pope Benedict XVI has decided to restore the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, which is also in charge of dialogue with Islam, a year after he downgraded its role. The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone, said in an interview with the Italian newspaper ‘La Stampa’ that the Council for Inter-religious Dialogue would again become ‘a dicastery in its own right’. In March 2006, Benedict had put the Council under the auspices of the Vatican's culture department and assigned its president, archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, as papal nuncio to Egypt.
Both Catholics and Muslims in inter-faith dialogue had criticized the earlier move, with many saying it sent a negative signal to the Islamic world. Vatican sources said that Bertone's comments meant the department would soon get its own head again. In his September speech in Regensburg, Germany, the Pope quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor as saying that Islam had only brought evil to the world and that it was spread by the sword, a method that was unreasonable and contrary to God's nature. He later expressed regrets about any misunderstanding it may have caused among Muslims.
It is not clear if the archbishop Michael Fitzgerald will be reinstated as president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. The archbishop, a fluent Arabic speaker, is much respected as a negotiator for the Vatican within the Muslim world.
