Zamboanga (AsiaNews) – A prayer "for dialogue and peace, the true scope of the pope's words in Regensburg and which every believer, Christian or Muslim, must seek to pursue", has been drawn up by the Silsilah Muslim-Christian Dialogue Movement to mark the start of Ramadan.

Fr Sebastiano D'Ambra, missionary of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME) and chairman of the movement, which is based in Mindanao, wrote in an open letter that the prayer "could be a great inspiration for members of both communities: it reminds us that the Jihad is the desire for self-purification not violence."

The missionary said: "In dialogue we believe that in every religion we can find elements which bring us closer to God. In this time of history, when sectors of society in this world try to remove God from our life, we have to join our hands to reaffirm the centrality of God."

"This was reaffirmed also by Pope Benedict XVI in the recent lecture in Regensburg where he was initially misunderstood. As the pope said, let us work closer in dialogue".

Finally, Fr D'Ambra urged Christians and Muslims to "be united even in differences, because it remains clear that God is with us in the history of humanity and will, in his mysterious way, guide humanity with love and compassion."