14/09/2005

Religious leaders unite for peace

Israel ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger was among the 300 religious leaders assembled in Lyon from Sunday to Tuesday for the 19th annual dialogue session organized by the Sant�Egidio catholic community.

Cairo�s Al-Azhar University dean Ahmad Al-Tayeb and French Islamic council chairman Dalil Boubakeur were also among the participants.

Peace hopes

The meetings aimed to forge solid links and find common ground between the various faiths through debates on peace. The religious leaders also discussed the ways of separating faith from war.

The archbishop of Lyon Philippe Barbarin was one of the co-organisers of the event. �Violence and terror make a lot of noise, the struggle for peace is entitled to make some too,� he said.

Atheists also participated in the forum which consisted of 24 separate discussions and was followed by a mass prayer on Tuesday.

Secular France

This was the first event of the Sant�Egidio peace reunion to take place in France, a country that is strongly attached to its secular identity.

Last year, French MPs voted a law forbidding religious signs, such as veils and kippas or skullcaps in schools.

But although the French feel strongly about the separation between State and Church the government invested itself in the uniting gathering.

Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy and former minister and European Parliament chairwoman Simone Veil were among personalities who attended the Lyon ceremonies and the state contributed 600,000 euros to the event.

Complaints have been filed following this financing, but Lyon�s mayor Gerard Collomb dismissed them. �The law on secularity doesn�t exclude religions but assures they are all treated in the same way,� he said.

�The state cannot ignore the religious message anymore,� Richard Prasquier, a member of the board of CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, told EJP.

�Religion can be either the best or the worst of things. Religious messages have great influence and, in certain cases, their implications can be dramatic. State officials know they have to act determinately so that the message transmitted to the communities is one of hope and tolerance,� he added.

Shirli Sitbon