New meeting between the Vatican and Al Azhar

By express wish of the Pope, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue will be in Cairo tomorrow to discuss ways to resume dialogue with top Sunni leaders.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The Council for Interreligious Dialogue issued a statement today saying that its secretary, Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, will be in Cairo tomorrow to explore avenues to resume the dialogue with Al-Azhar.

Mgr Ayuso Guixot will take part in a preliminary meeting together with the Holy See’s Apostolic Nuncio in Egypt, Archbishop Bruno Musarò, and Dr Mahmoud Hamdi Zakzouk, member of the Council of Senior Scholars of Al-Azhar University as well as the university’s Director of the Centre for Dialogue.

The visit comes at the express wish of Pope Francis following his historic meeting with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Prof Ahmad Al-Tayyib in the Vatican on 23 May 2016.

Abbas Shuman, deputy to Grand Imam, met with Ayuso Guixot and Musarò at the prestigious Sunni institution on 16 February of this year.