Palgrave-Macmillan has published Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue: Religious Thinkers Engage with Recent Papal Initiatives (2018), co-edited by Harold Kasimow, George Drake Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, and the Rev. Alan Race, author of the classic text in the theology of religions titled Christians and Religious Pluralism (1983). On Aug. 29, Kasimow and Race presented Pope Francis with aplaque of the cover of the book.
Beginning with the personal foreword by Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a close friend of Pope Francis, and followed by a selection of the pope’s writings, the book consists of 12 essays by men and women from many parts of the world. The contributors write from the perspectives of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Humanism. Each author elaborates on how Pope Francis’s openness to dialogue and invitation to practical collaboration on global concerns — particularly ecological sustainability and worldwide poverty — represents a significant and hope-filled achievement.