Interreligious committee in Brussels

An Interreligious Committee, which involves Christian, Muslim and Jewish residents in Belgium has been established in the Fraternity "Notre Dame des Nations". A first meeting, very informal and fraternal, was held in the convent of "Chant d'Oiseau" in January 2002. Other meetings, in different places, followed and the desire and the demand to establish themselves as an organised and operative group progressively grew. In the most recent meeting, in December 2002, the participants indicated eight people, representatives of the three religions and the various communities, to make up the first operative nucleus. The founding group is made up of five Muslims of the Moroccan and Turkish communities, of two Franciscans for the Christians (Sr. Hile Vantomme, FMM, and Br. Vincenzo Brocanelli, OFM) and of one Jew, the Honorary President of the Brussels Consistory.

The group was established as The Secretariat of The Interreligious Committee. The headquarters was set up in the Franciscans' place, the coordination was entrusted to Br. Vincenzo, aided by the Secretary, Ait-Baala Latifa, and each member took on responsibility for one of the following areas of action: Youth, women, reflection and communications.

In the founding "Charter", The Committee is given the following objectives: to work for the promotion of the values of mutual respect, human dignity, compassion, solidarity and universal fraternity among all human beings, without distinctions on the basis of race, sex, colour, opinion or religion. The Committee condemns recourse to violence and war as the means of resolving conflict and in practice commits itself to working for rapprochement, peace and harmony between the different religious communities in Belgium.

 Bruxelles