Islam has now overtaken Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reports.
Monsignor Vittorio Formetti, who is in charge of the Vatican yearbook, was quoted as saying that Roman Catholics now constitute 17.4 percent of the world’s population while Muslims make up 19.2 %. The number of Catholics has not changed much, while the number of Muslims continues to rise. However, when combining all Christian faiths, the number reached 33%.
Earlier this month Pope Benedict XVI met with five Muslim leaders in order to prepare for a large interfaith conference scheduled to take place later this year. The preparatory talks are part of a Muslim call for dialogue after a controversial speech the pope made in 2006 linking Islam to violence, which sparked worldwide anger among Muslims.
Pope Benedict has since tried to make amends, and during a visit to Turkey he prayed in the famous Blue Mosque, together with its imam.
On of the main areas of disagreement for the upcoming conference is what issues to discuss. According to one of the participants in the preparatory meeting, the Muslim leaders are more interested in discussing theology, who is God and who are our neighbors, and other apolitical questions. The Vatican, on the other hand, is pushing for questions such as religious freedom, the use of religion to incite violence and the status of Christian and other minorities in Muslim countries.
Saudi Arabia’s King ‘Abdallah Bin ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz, who meet with the pope last year, recently announced plans for an interfaith conference including leaders of Islam, Christianity and Judaism.