by Understand the Times with Roger Oakland
Twenty years after the World Day of Prayer for Peace, the Italian city of Assisi will again be a point of interreligious meeting and prayer on Sept. 4-5.
The World Day that Pope John Paul II convoked in St. Francis’ city in October 1986 was unprecedented. It saw, gathered alongside the Pontiff, representatives of the great world religions, from the Dalai Lama to the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury.
A process got under way there, which the Community of Sant’Egidio took especially to heart, engendering in turn the International Encounters of Religions.
These meetings have progressed, year after year, across Italy’s main cities and European capitals — and recently Washington, D.C. — offering an opportunity for dialogue and for religious differences to be surmounted.Read more of this news story.
