Vatican cardinal in London to promote interfaith relations

June 14, 2013

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, has begun a five-day visit to the United Kingdom to promote interfaith relations. On June 13, he visited BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir (Neasden Temple) in London, Europe’s first traditional Hindu temple.

During the visit, Father Martin Genari, prior of the Dominican Priory in Cambridge and a scholar of Hinduism, delivered an address entitled “Catholics and Hindus: The Practice of Compassion as a Contribution to Peace.” Father Genari discussed St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of mercy and, citing the examples of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said that Christians are called to imitate Christ’s self-sacrificial love in the Passion and work for reconciliation. Christians, he added, have also “found in [Mahatma] Gandhi and in his teaching a model to follow and promote as the means to realizing a more peaceful world.”

 

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Further information:

• Cardinal Tauran meets leaders of London's Hindu community (Vatican Radio)
• Cardinal Tauran visits the Baps Shri Swaminarayan Hindu temple in Neasden (Catholic Church in England and Wales)
• BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir (Neasden Temple)