Vatican City - Muslims must respect people of all faiths and not exclude them on the grounds of religion, race or any other personal characteristic, a senior Vatican official said this week. In a message to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan, the Pope's interfaith expert has called for a "culture of peace and solidarity" between different religious communities and to spread a teaching "which honours all human creatures".
Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran, the newly-appointed president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the Vatican's main liaison agency with the Muslim world, has previously expressed concern about the treatment of Christians in Muslim-majority countries.
In one interview he highlighted the "extreme" case of Saudi Arabia where freedom of religion was "violated absolutely" with "no Christian churches and a ban on celebrating Mass, even in a private home".
The cardinal's Eid greeting does not single out Muslims for criticism - his appeals are aimed at "religious believers" - nor does he make a direct link between Islam and violence.
Instead, he described it as the duty of believers to "reject, denounce and refuse every recourse to violence, which can never be motivated by religion, since it wounds the very image of God in man.
"Violence, especially terrorism which strikes blindly and claims countless innocent victims, is incapable of resolving conflicts and leads only to a deadly chain of destructive hatred," he said.
Relations soured between the Vatican and Muslims after Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor and triggered a wave of condemnation and violence. At least two people - an Iraqi priest and a Somali nun - were killed in the ensuing unrest.