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Among these events, one of the most interesting took place on Monday at the
Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York, where the Islamic
representative was none other than the president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami.
Mr. Khatami's extensive background in philosophy -- Western as well as
Islamic -- was evident in his speech, in which he commented on ideas of Kant,
Hegel, Nietzche, Freud and Marx, among others.
Several local religious figures also spoke at the event, including his host,
Bishop Mark Sisk of New York, whose jurisdiction includes the Episcopal
cathedral, and William F. Vendley, general secretary of the World Conference on
Religion and Peace, the organization that convened the event.
In an interview, Bishop Sisk said he was especially pleased at how strongly
Mr. Khatami struck two points: a respect for pluralism and a condemnation of
terrorism.
''Clearly, his intention is to share with the West a vision of Islam that
embraces a pluralistic society,'' the bishop said.
''This was not a superficial, 'Oh, you know, we've all got to be good folks
and get along,' '' the bishop said. ''This is someone who has thought very
deeply about matters of faith and meaning and how people understand
themselves.''
In reference to terrorism, according to a transcript, Mr. Khatami lamented
the development of ''active nihilism'' as a social and political force -- now so
dangerous, he said, that it threatens human existence.
''This new form of active nihilism assumes various names,'' he said, ''and it
is so tragic and unfortunate that some of those names bear a semblance of
religiosity and some proclaim spirituality. Vicious terrorists who concoct
weapons out of religion are superficial literalists clinging to simplistic
ideas.''
The Iranian president also said that in ''chaotic times,'' people ought to
turn to God with a view also to reaching out to one another.
''Let us all call unto God and ask him to bestow on us a language to be
understood and a capacity to listen and understand,'' he said.
Dr. Vendley said Mr. Khatami was proposing an alliance of thoughtful,
religiously rooted moderates, from across faith lines, who could offer a vision
for society that used neither materialistic secularism nor religious
fundamentalism as its starting point.
He said the conference would post Mr. Khatami's speech on its Web site,
www.religionsforpeace.org, by early next week. The nation's Roman Catholic bishops made history on Tuesday when they elected
as their president Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., who became the
first African-American prelate to head the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops.
While taking nothing away from that distinction, one might note that Bishop
Gregory also fits a pattern among the men the bishops have elected as their
presidents.
He is known as a consensus-builder, as were other recent past presidents. And
he also serves a Midwestern diocese, as did no fewer than 7 of his 11
predecessors. Four of those men were serving dioceses in Ohio at the time of
their election, while three others came from Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri.
One of the Ohio prelates was Joseph Bernardin, archbishop of Cincinnati when
he was elected in 1974. In 1982, he was appointed Chicago's archbishop, then
named a cardinal the next year, after which he asked the Vatican to elevate a
Chicago priest as auxiliary bishop.
That priest was Wilton Gregory, who went on to serve with the cardinal for a
decade, until the pope dispatched him to head the Belleville diocese.
Bishop Gregory said he had been fortunate to have had mentors who were role
models. Among them, ''in a special way,'' he said, was Cardinal Bernardin, who
''had the courage to ask the Holy Father to name a 35-year-old priest to be his
auxiliary.'' To encourage Jews on Thanksgiving to remember the victims of Sept. 11, the
American Jewish Committee has published a short pamphlet of prayers and rituals
for the holiday meal. Titled, ''America's Table: A Thanksgiving Haggadah,'' it
says the holiday will be different this year, ''because there are more than
5,000 empty places at America's table.''
The text calls for lighting a memorial candle, vividly recalls what happened
on Sept. 11 and closes with prayers and expressions of thanks for civil
freedoms. It also includes quotations from the Bible, two rabbis, Albert
Einstein and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who praised New York in his speech to
the United Nations as having its greatest strength in its ethnic diversity.
A committee spokeswoman said the pamphlet had been posted on its Internet
site, www.ajc.org.
Mr. Khatami, known as a reformer in Iran's Islamic republic, was elected
in a landslide vote in 1997. The event at the cathedral, titled ''The Role of
Religion in the Dialogue Among Civilizations,'' came while he was in New York to
attend a special session of the United Nations General Assembly.
First, but Also One of
Many
Thanksgiving Memorials
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