The consortium not only offers students further occasions for growth and development, but also supports Pope Francis’ vision of interreligious dialogue, said Gabriel Said Reynolds, the Jerome J. Crowley and Rosaleen G. Crowley Professor of Theology. “Pope Francis is clearly signaling to Catholics that part of charity is welcoming the other, offering hospitality toward the other and extending the friendship of Christ to non-Christians as well,” Reynolds said.

The exchange program will begin this fall, with theology students spending up to a year at their selected institution. Each of the four universities has unique advantages for students seeking to deepen their understanding of Muslim-Christian relations, immerse themselves in a new culture and hone language skills in English, Arabic or Italian, Reynolds said.

“The Pontifical Institute offers coursework in both Italian and Arabic to students who come from all over the world, while Saint Joseph University has a highly diverse student body in a majority-Muslim country,” he said. “And Sacro Cuore in Milan has historical connections to the communion and liberation movement within the Catholic Church, as well as a robust, thriving program in Muslim-Christian relations.”

At Notre Dame, the consortium is supported by the Department of Theology’s World Religions World Church program, in which faculty and students research world religions in all of their dimensions, as well as the Church and its theological expressions in diverse cultural settings. Like the consortium, that program seeks to follow Pope Francis’ counsel that “an attitude of openness in truth and in love must characterize the dialogue with the followers of non-Christian religions,” Reynolds said. “Our hope is that through this student exchange, we will help further the Church’s thinking about how to be a positive dialogue partner with the Muslim community.”

Source: University of Notre Dame

Despite a push to fill that legal void in 2017, “Muslims continued to experience difficulties in acquiring permission from local governments to construct mosques or to continue operating existing ones,” the report said. Before the COVID-19 emergency, Italy’s Muslims didn’t regard the cemetery shortage as a priority. The living were more concerned with where to pray, with some resorting to so-called garage mosques. These makeshift places of worship have been connected, with little evidence, to terrorist activity and radicalization, especially since the radical cleric Abu Omar was abducted in Milan in a controversial CIA rendition in 2003.

But many in the Muslim community say the linkage to terrorism amounts to prejudice, mostly from right-wing parties. In 2015, legislators on the right proposed and passed a law to map the “Muslim cultural centers” and introduced a national registry for imams in order to aid police counterterrorism operations.

With few places to pray, there were even fewer places to bury the dead.

Muslim migrants to Italy often pay thousands of euros to repatriate the body of a loved one to the person’s country of origin. According to a 2018 paper issued by the Initiative for the Study of Multiethnicity, a think tank that studies the impact of migrants on Italian society, roughly 90% of relatives of the dead preferred to repatriate the body of a Muslim family member.

The pandemic brought the issue of burial space to the forefront. Since Italy stopped allowing bodies to be sent out of the country on March 1, many had to be buried on Italian soil, and the stricture to hold the burial within 24 hours could not always be honored.

Source: Religion News

The project aimed to raise awareness and insight into the revival of Imam Hussein^(a) movement and held in Italy, Germany, Norway, Austria, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The main purpose of the project was to introduce the Ashura movement and the true face of Islam to the public and non-Muslims in different cities in Europe.

One of the main activities of the union in recent years has been introducing Imam Hussein^(a) to non-Muslims in order to promote and revive his words and ideology. This year, the union distributed bottles of water, roses and informational brochures to non-Muslims in different cities, including London, Bradford, Rome, Turin, Milan, Paris, Bergen, Vienna, Hague, Aachen and Berlin.

These brochures were designed to answer questions about the uprising of Imam Hussein^(a), to demonstrate the true face of Islam and distinguish it from extremism. It is also designed and distributed to confront the wave of Islamophobia in the West and to declare that Islam condemns injustice and terrorism. The brochures are available in indigenous languages (English, Italian, Dutch, French, German, and Norwegian). The brochures also introduced the Arbaeen walk and contained great quotations made by public figures in respect of Imam Hussein^(a).

Volunteers with flags and white scarves with the motto “I am in a battle against injustice. Will you join me?” were offering bottles of water, which symbolizes the thirst of Imam Hussein^(a) and his companions, as well as roses, a symbol of unity and friendship, along with information about the life of Imam Hussein^(a) and Ashura.

It should also be noted that this movement was planned and implemented with the help and support of various Islamic centers in different parts of Europe.

Source: Islam Today Magazine