The National Black Catholic Congress represents African American Roman Catholics, and works to evangelize the greater African American community. Valerie E. Washington is executive director. It is based in Baltimore.

Diana Hayes is a retired professor of systematic theology at Georgetown University, gave an opening speech at Sisters, a conference on the role of women’s leadership in Catholicism and Islam, in 2003. The conference took place at the Catholic Theological Union. It began on the first day of the war in Iraq.

The Rev. Patrick J. Ryan is a Jesuit priest at Fordham University in New York, where he serves as McGinley Professor of Religion and Society. Ryan is an expert on Islam and the tensions with the West.

John Borelli is special assistant to the president for interreligious initiatives at Georgetown University. He has been a longtime leader in Catholic dialogue with other religions, especially Islam. For 16 years he was associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Rev. Francis X. Clooney is a Jesuit priest and the Parkman Professor of Divinity at Harvard University. His interest areas include theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India, and the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened through the study of […]

James A. Donahue is president of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., and an expert on interfaith theological dialogue.

See the 2006 International Religious Freedom Report from the U.S. State Department.

Read a Southern California Public Radio story about how Los Angeles Muslims see potential for stronger interfaith relations with the Catholic Pope Francis.

Read a March 29, 2001, BBC report about Pope John Paul II becoming the first pope to visit a mosque.