The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue recently held the sixth Buddhist-Christian talk in Taiwan that ran from Nov. 13 to 16 and bore the theme "Christians and Buddhists: Let's Walk Together the Way of Nonviolence."
From Monday to Thursday, delegates from 18 mostly Asian countries gathered in Taiwan for the Buddhist-Christian talks. During the inaugural session, PCID Secretary Bishop Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot discussed the role of the Dicastery since it was founded in 1964, the Vatican Radio detailed.
For more than 50 years now, the PCID has been talking and collaborating with Buddhists in different parts of the world, and the first of such a dialogue took place at the Fokuangshan Monastery in Taiwan in 1995.
For this year, PCID wants to send a message to Buddhists for the Vesakh festival to address the urgent need of cultivating a culture of peace and nonviolence. The message comes amid the rise in the number of terror attacks, domestic violence, wars, and other forms of conflicts.
"Terrorism is on the increase, as well as the number of people killed in terrorist attacks and most victims are women and children," said Bishop Guixot.
In addition, the bishop said people's hearts can become numb to other's sufferings if nationalism, sexism, racism, religious and ethnic fundamentalism, and caste are left uncontrolled. He concluded that Buddhists and Christians need to cooperate and join forces in defeating this ongoing trend of violence.
PCID president Cardinal P Jean-Louis Tauran participated in the concluding session of the Buddhist-Christian talks in Taiwan on Thursday.
Meanwhile, PCID held its fourth Muslim-Christian forum in Berkeley, California, on Nov. 6-8. The details of the gathering were made available by the Vatican on Nov. 10, Crux reported.
Members of the Catholic-Muslim forum confirmed the two religious communities' belief that the most important of all human rights was freedom of conscience and religion. In line with this thought, they pledged to "respect, preserve, and promote" the said rights so that they will be able to flourish individually and collectively.
(sources:Christian Dairy)
