Vatican urges Muslims to respect all faiths

The Vatican has urged Muslims to respect people of all faiths and not exclude them on grounds of religion, race and other personal characteristic.

"They (the Muslims) must ensure culture of peace and solidarity between different religious communities and spread a teaching which honours all human creatures," The Guardian quoted Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran as saying.

Cardinal Tauran is the newly appointed President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, the Vatican's main liaison agency with the Muslim world.

He has also expressed concern about the treatment of Christians in Muslim-majority countries, highlighting the "extreme" case of Saudi Arabia where freedom of religion was "violated absolutely" with "no Christian churches and a ban on celebrating Mass, even in a private home".

Though he did not make a direct link between Islam and violence, Cardinal Tauran described it as the duty of believers to "reject, denounce and refuse every recourse to violence, which can never be motivated by religion, since it wounds the very image of God in man".

"Violence, especially terrorism which strikes blindly and claims countless innocent victims, is incapable of resolving conflicts and leads only to a deadly chain of destructive hatred," he was quoted as saying.

It may be mentioned that relations between the Vatican and Muslims soured after Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14th century Byzantine Emperor and triggered a wave of condemnation and violence. At least two people -- an Iraqi priest and a Somali nun -- were killed in the ensuing unrest.