From Catholic News Service

Speakers at Vatican meeting discuss correcting confusion about Islam

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- More needs to be done to correct misunderstandings about Islam in Western nations and to promote religious freedom in predominantly Muslim nations, said some speakers at a Vatican conference on migration.

The Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers dedicated its May 15-17 discussions about problems and solutions surrounding people's migration to and from countries with a Muslim majority.

Some experts said there was an unfair discrepancy between the greater religious rights and freedoms religious minorities are guaranteed in the West and the limits placed on worship for Christians in mostly Muslim nations.

The Vatican's foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, told participants that reciprocity was lacking in "a large number of Muslim countries."

Many of these Muslim countries "appeal for full rights for their citizens" who are residing in the West, but they do not often recognize the same rights for migrants of other faiths on their territory, he said in his May 17 speech.

He said the Vatican would continue to call for the protection and promotion of the rights and dignity of all immigrants, even those who reside illegally in a host country.

Governments must recognize that freedom of religion goes "beyond the individual or private realm" and includes religious expression "in collective, personal or communal activities, (and) events with public visibility," he said in his text.

The Vatican's foreign minister said dialogue and cooperation between Christians and Muslims will become increasingly important over the years, making it urgent to overcome current tensions.

Though government leaders may help facilitate interreligious dialogue, the archbishop said that spearheading and maintaining interreligious initiatives are the responsibility of religious leaders.

Meanwhile, the large influx of Muslims coming to traditionally Christian countries has not translated into greater understanding between the two religions, said some speakers.

One U.S. participant, Michael Galligan-Stierle, the assistant secretary for higher education and campus ministry for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that after 20 years of dialogue between members of the USCCB and Muslim scholars misunderstandings about Islam were still rampant in the general population, colleges and universities.

"Americans are full of misconceptions" about the more than 1 billion Muslims in the world, he told Catholic News Service May 16. "For an educated people, how can we be that ignorant especially when one of our images (of Muslims) is that they're ignorant."

He said it was important to foster interreligious dialogue in U.S. universities because the largest number of international students study in the United States. Today's college students are tomorrow's leaders, he added, and they can benefit from contact "with the reality of (the Muslims') world and their richness."

But despite the need for more to be done, Galligan-Stierle said participants were impressed with the quantity of interfaith activities at U.S. colleges and universities.

He said he surveyed 3,000 campus ministers in the U.S. asking them to give programs they run that bring Muslim and Catholic students together.

Initiatives included separate or shared prayer spaces. At one college the priest and Catholic students help the Muslim students roll out prayer carpets when they finish Mass. Some colleges offer food accommodations for Muslims, and Catholics and Muslims may co-sponsor fasts to raise awareness about an issue.

More courses on Islam are being offered in U.S. universities, and the number of programs, invited scholars and seminars on Islam is growing, survey respondents reported.

While U.S. colleges and universities are looking to better respond to Muslim students' needs and students' curiosity about Islam, the so-called "man on the street" remains in the dark about the Muslim world, said one member of the Vatican migrants council.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, N.Y., told CNS that the mass media fail to adequately explain the diversity of Islam and Muslims and the complex reality behind many of today's religious conflicts.

"You'll hear constantly about the Shiites and the Sunnis in Iraq" without the terms being defined, which, he said, is "a disservice."

Offering superficial coverage or not "going to the root" of what is happening in the Muslim world is "not helpful" to interreligious understanding, said the bishop, whose diocese is home to 100,000 Muslims.

"Maybe the media doesn't see it as their responsibility," he said, but "they should tell the whole story of what's going on."

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