Pope meets Azeri leaders

Baku Sun, Azerbaijan
Nov 22 2004

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II received Muslim, Orthodox Christian
and Jewish religious leaders from Azerbaijan, calling their visit
Thursday a symbol of tolerance and declaring that religion must never
be used for violent aims.

“No one has the right to present or use religion as an instrument
of intolerance, as a means of aggression, of violence, of death,”
the Pope told the group.

He said Christians, Muslims and Jews must appeal together for an end
to violence in the world “with justice for all.” “This is the way of
religions,” he said.

The audience was scheduled to repay John Paul’s 2002 trip to
Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic and mainly Muslim nation with
a Catholic population of only 300 people.

The Vatican said the Pope wanted to hold up Azerbaijan as an example
of coexistence and cooperation among religions and express hope that
“a full peace in the spirit of reconciliation” may be achieved in the
region — a reference to the country’s conflict with Armenia over
Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave. A cease-fire ended
fighting in 1994 after some 30,000 people were killed and more than
a million people fled their homes.