Source: Catholic Information Service for Africa/allAfrica.com
http://allafrica.com/stories/200709041168.html
African religious leaders have praised a more than 25-year-long dialogue between Libya and the Vatican as a positive contribution to good relations between Christianity and Islam.
"Given the global situation between Christians and Muslims which is understood to be very tense because of what happened on 11 September [2001], I think this is a very good contribution," the Rev. Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation told Ecumenical News International.
Noko is convenor of Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa, which met in Tripoli from 27 to 30 August. Libya is predominantly Muslim but there is also a small Catholic presence in the former Italian colony.
Unknown to many people, according to Sheikh Saleh Habimana, the Mufti of Rwanda and the chairperson of the Muslim Councils for East, Central and Southern Africa, representatives of the Catholic Church and Tripoli have been holding discussions over the past 25 years aimed at bridging the faiths.