c. 2005 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ At a meeting that underlined the high priority he intends to give to dialogue with other faiths, Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (April 25) invited non-Catholics to join an effort to build world peace through “understanding, respect and love.”

Addressing representatives of more than 30 other religions who had attended his inaugural Mass on Sunday, Benedict said it is “imperative to engage in authentic and sincere dialogue built on respect for the dignity of every human person.”

The emphasis that the new pope has given to ecumenical and interfaith dialogue contrasted sharply with views he expressed when, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he served as the Vatican’s guardian of doctrine and was called “God’s rottweiller” and the “grand inquisitor” for his relentless pursuit of deviations from orthodoxy.

“At the start of my pontificate I address to you and to all the believers of the traditional religions whom you represent, as well as to all those who search for the truth with a sincere heart, a strong invitation to become builders of peace in a reciprocal commitment to understanding, respect and love,” he said.

In his interfaith outreach, and in mildly jocular remarks to German pilgrims in which he recalled seeing “the guillotine moving closer” in the papal conclave as support for his election solidified, the pope seemed to reveal a softer, more pastoral side than was evident in Cardinal Ratzinger.

In the controversial “Declaration Dominus Iesus” issued in September 2000, Ratzinger alarmed the church’s ecumenical partners by saying only Catholics may have “the fullness of salvation” and followers of other religions “are in a gravely deficient situation.”

But as Benedict XVI, starting with a message to the College of Cardinals the day after he was elected, he has seized every opportunity to declare his commitment to dialogue with other faiths. During Sunday’s installation Mass, he called on Catholics to do “all we can” to achieve Christian unity and spoke of “a great shared spiritual heritage” with Jews.

At the audience, Benedict singled out Muslim representatives and said he appreciated the growth of dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

The spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, attended the installation Mass and the audience with the pope on Monday, and expressed confidence in Benedict’s desire for dialogue.

Williams spoke at a joint news conference with English Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor at the Venerable English College, a residence for seminarians established in the 14th century, where both prelates regularly stay during visits to Rome.

“Our mutual hospitality is taken for granted in a way that I think wouldn’t have happened 50 years ago,” Murphy-O’Connor commented.

Williams said he saw three phases in Benedict’s life, first as a theologian in Germany who did “extraordinary and abiding work on the nature of the church and faith,” and then as a Vatican official charged with maintaining “doctrinal precision.”

“Now he is being asked to perform a third task; how he will perform that we don’t yet know,” Williams said, “but he’s given signals of a real willingness to (look at) ways of taking it forward in fellowship with others in the light of the late pope’s encyclical `Ut Unum Sint.”’ In that 1995 document, Pope John Paul II expressed the church’s commitment to ecumenism and offered to re-examine the way papal authority is exercised.

The Anglican prelate said he had a chance to speak only briefly with Benedict at Monday’s audience, but said they “promised to pray for each other.” He also invited the pope to visit England and presented him with a pectoral cross, which incorporated the historic design of the distinctive Canterbury cross.

“The events of recent weeks _ the death and the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the events around this weekend _ have shown a kind of foretaste of a worldwide fellowship gathered for worship glorifying God together,” Williams said.

Benedict gave pilgrims from his native Germany a wry glimpse into his thoughts during the conclave that elected him pope on April 19. He said that as votes for him mounted, he “saw the guillotine moving closer.”

“I prayed to the Lord to choose someone stronger than me, but he obviously didn’t listen to my prayer this time,” Benedict said. “The ways of the Lord are not easy, but we are not made to have it easy, and so I had no choice but to accept.”

Some 5,000 German pilgrims gathered for an unusually relaxed and exuberant audience in the Paul VI Hall inside the Vatican walls. Benedict started off on an informal note when he apologized for arriving 15 minutes late by saying, “Germans are used to being punctual, and it seems I’ve become a bit Italian.”

(STORY MAY END HERE. OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

In early evening on Monday, Benedict drove to the Basilica of St. Paul’s-Outside-the-Walls to pray at what is believed to be the tomb of St. Paul. Walking down the main aisle of the basilica, he shook outstretched hands, took an infant in his arms and greeted a group of the elderly and disabled in wheelchairs.

In an address, the pope linked his “loved and venerated predecessor” John Paul to Paul, who was known as the “apostle of the Gentiles” and considered the greatest missionary of the early church. Benedict said that what impelled John Paul to make more than 100 trips throughout the world was “a similar dynamism” and “the same love of Christ that transformed the existence of St. Paul.”

KRE/RB END POLK