{"id":327900,"date":"2016-01-11T08:30:28","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T07:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/muslims-and-christians-ongoing-dialogue\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:02:37","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:02:37","slug":"muslims-and-christians-ongoing-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/muslims-and-christians-ongoing-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"Muslims and Christians: ongoing dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20160111-a\"<\/a>Hermine Schm\u00f6lz, an Austrian, recounted<\/strong>: \u201cAbout ten years ago, I realised I had to do something for the integration of Muslim immigrants, especially the women who we are still not very acquainted with, although they have lived and worked here for years now.\u201d He spoke about this with a member of the parish. Even his friends were enthusiastic about it and together they proposed their project to the parish priest and asked him to provide a venue to begin the project. From then on, it has been a really exhilarating adventure for both the Muslim women taking part in the initiative, and the team members who delineated the program: a Lutheran lady, three Muslim women, one of whom declared that she did not have any religious beliefs and three Catholics who are Focolare <\/a>members. They felt that the immediate focus should be on what the women were really interested in. It was not easy given their difficulties in expressing themselves in the new language. So the organisers tried to make each one feel at ease, creating a cordial and serene atmosphere. \u201cWe always publish the date of the meetings on the journal,” Hermine specified, “and so the group continuously expanded. We try to expound on a different and interesting topic every time: inviting different speakers – politicians, educational experts, social workers, an obstetrician, a doctor \u2013 asking them to dedicate more time also to dialogue with the women who are encouraged to speak up and express their ideas. The children have a special programme in another room, so they may from a tender age, see the importance of intercultural relationships. Every meeting ends with a buffet to which the Muslim women themselves contribute. Other activities are field trips and get-together activities. As an interreligious group, every Christmas we bring gifts to the homeless, involving the ladies in establishing relationships with people of other cultures. And as in a game, for every person contacted we add a pearl onto a necklace, and in the end we try to guess how many pearls have been added. We also have the great fortune to communicate with and get new ideas from the Focolare members of other countries, who are doing similar intercultural projects. The ladies show their appreciation for this type of reciprocal dialogue and integration, and also their husbands are happy about it.\u201d The Focolare of <\/strong>New York<\/a> wrote<\/strong>: \u201cOn 20 December \u2013 we were invited to the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque in Harlem \u2013 which Chiara Lubich visited in 1997 \u2013 to speak at the Seerah Conference.\u201d This is an annual retreat to reflect on the life and teachings of the Prophet and Imam, W.D. Mohammed, a leader of the Afro-American Muslims. The warm reception given to the two guests invited by Imam Pasha and 200 other people was a tangible sign that the seed of dialogue sowed many years ago, continues to bear fruits. It is thus not surprising that the theme precisely chosen for that day was unity, traced through the thoughts of Imam W.D. and Chiara. The retreat ended with a brief video of Chiara Lubich, followed by a round of warm applause that seemed to express everyone\u2019s commitment to that unity she proposed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has just been announced that during the entire Jubilee Year, Pope Francis will be recording a monthly video clip with prayer intentions. The first of these intentions is to promote interreligious dialogue. This has been a reality in the Focolare for many years now, as is testified to by the recent information received from Austria and Harlem (USA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}