AFP, Vatican :
When Pope Francis becomes the first pope to visit the Arabian peninsula on Sunday, he takes another important step in his efforts to build bridges with Islam and confirms inter-religious dialogue as a keystone of his papacy.
In the long, complicated and often bloody history of papal relations with the Muslim world, Argentine pontiff Jorge Bergoglio stands out for his fraternal language and broader desire to reach out across religious divides.
Pope Francis said he was looking to write a new page in relations between religions with his visit to the United Arab Emirates.
“I am happy… to write on your dear land a new page in the relations between religions, confirming that we are brothers although different,” he said in a video message to the Emirati people released on Thursday. Francis has made boosting ties between Christianity and Islam a cornerstone of his papacy.
“Pope Francis is different from his predecessor Benedict XVI because he prefers interpersonal encounters to theological subtleties,” said Valentino Cottini who teaches Islamic-Christian relations at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome.
Retired German pope Benedict XVI, a theologian, spoke the most about Islam, giving 188 speeches on the subject.
But years of glacial relations followed his decision to quote a XIVth century Byzantine emperor who spoke of “the evil and inhuman things” brought by Prophet Mohammed.
