Newsletter N. 6 - June 2008

Editor: Maria Laura Conte

 

 

Forefront

The Oasis Centre's international networking: rendezvous in Amman

The scientific committee of the Oasis International Studies and Research
Centre will hold its annual meeting in Amman on 23-24 June. Set up in 2003, the Centre has grown in terms of networking and tools (now including a paper edition, a Website, a book series and this newsletter). With five years under its belt it faces the same challenge as it did when it started, namely acting as a link between Christians in predominantly Muslim countries and Christians in the West in ways that bypass the filters of mainstream media and focus instead on everyone's stories and experiences.
On the theme at the heart o the Congress, religious freedom as a "serious case" in the relationship between freedom and truth as well as the possibilities it offers, Card Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice and Oasis Centre founder, discusses with John Allen, Jr of the National Catholic Reporter ( www.ncrcafe.org ). His interview is reprinted here.


Choosing Amman for the Oasis Centre's annual conference was no accident. It reflects the Centre's specific interest in directly knowing the places and experiences it covers and in widening the berth of its cultural reflection starting with concrete accounts of meetings like the one at the Our Lady of Peace Centre, offered by director Majdi Dayyat.
 


Correspondence

From a Kosovo overwhelmed by a wave of radical change that began with the proclamation of its independence a few months ago, Engelbert Zefaj, coordinator of the Youth Advisory Center in Pe/Peja, tells us the story of Muslims who rediscovered their Christian roots and converted back to Catholicism;

From Sudan Fr Pacifico Salvatore, Combonian Provincial in Khartoum, talks to us about the great obstacles the census taking process faced in the great African country which is just now taking slow and haphazard steps towards a stable peace;

From Paris Mgr Francesco Follo, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to UNESCO, writes about the 50th anniversary of the UN body, focusing on how the idea of freedom and rights has widened its horizon in these last five decades.
 

Books Reviews

Maurice Borrmans,Chrétiens et mususlmans, quatre parcours d'un dialogue possible Massignon, Abd-el Jalil, Gardet et Anawati, Urbaniana University Press, 2008 

By Silvana Jellici Formillan

______________________

Aldo Ferrari (editor), Popoli e Chiese dell'Oriente Cristiano (Peoples and Churches of the Christian East), Edizioni Lavoro, Rome 2008

By Martino Diez

 _____________________

Jean-Jacques Pérennès, Georges Anawati, un chrétien égyptien devant le mystère de l'islam (Georges Anawati, an Egyptian Christian before the Mystery of Islam), Cerf, Paris 2008

By Maria D'Agostino

______________________

Cristiani in Pakistan. Nelle prove la speranza (Christians in Pakistan or where hope is tested), interview with Shahbaz Bhatti, Marcianum Press, Venezia 2008

By Natalino Bonazza