Papal greeting for Iraqi delegates to inter-religious talks

March 29, 2017

“We are all brothers, and where there is brotherhood there is peace,” Pope Francis said in his greeting to a group of Iraqi religious leaders, gathered at the Vatican for a conference sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue.

The Pope observed that the participants in the event—Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, Yazidis, and Christians—all trace their faith to the patriarch Abraham, so that “we have a common father on earth.” He went on to say that “we are all different and all the same, like fingers on a hand. There are five fingers, they are all fingers, but they are all different.”

The dialogue among the Iraqi leaders, the Pope said, is “a road toward peace for all.”

 

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Further information:

• Holy Father’s audience with the participants in the meeting of the Permanent Committee for Dialogue between the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Iraqi Superintendencies (Vatican press office)