Yes, conversation is possible even with those persons, religious or otherwise, who believe that they have a monopoly on the truth.These conversations would be difficult, but the potential reward great.

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The importance of a constructive and candid dialogue between Islam and Christianity can hardly be over-stated. Such conversations are, and will always be freighted with history and burdened by the misunderstandings and confusions to which such a long troubled relationship gives rise.

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I believe that it is important that a candidate for president to demonstrate that he or she clearly understands and acknowledges the importance of religious freedom and the place of religion in the lives of many Americans.

I would hope that a candidate himself (or herself) is a person of faith in order that he may have sense of proportion about himself in the context of the enormous power that he will exercise should he be elected President of this great nation. Such an awareness should be an important component in his personal sense of ultimate accountability as he exercises the awesome powers that are reserved to that office.

However, I am not in the least convinced that it is helpful or edifying for presidential candidates to use specifically religious rhetoric in their campaign speeches. Personally, I find such rhetoric cloying: because of political necessity, it is either narrow and sectarian in its appeal or much more likely transparently superficial and self-serving. A further reason for my concern is that those statements of personal belief that are genuine (as I would hope they all would be) have embedded within them some specific religious tradition. This in turn can do little other than confer a certain sense of privilege of place to one particular religious community and suggest, if ever so subtly, a certain inferiority to all others. That, or so it seems to me, is contrary to the spirit, if not the letter of the law, of the separation of church and state.

Yes indeed, care for the environment should be a major priority for people of faith. For Christians there can be little choice.

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The Pope’s statement is just that: a reiteration. There is nothing new in it; it simply restates the familiar position of the Catholic Church. Whenever one enters ecumenical dialogue it is critically important that one stay true to oneself. It is only in that way that it is possible to be a real conversation partner. From time to time it is important to make such clarifications. Especially is this important if the conversations themselves seem to be taking a direction that is not in keeping with the fundamental values that define the conversation partner. That, according to the commentary accompanying the statement, seems to have been his perception.

It is difficult to predict exactly how the Pope’s statement will effect ecumenical relations and the conversations that surround them. Inevitably such moments of clarification contain within themselves at least two different possibilities: one is to chill relations and the other possibility is to further them. The only way to tell the difference in intent between the two is to listen carefully to the next word that is spoken. Is that next word a word of invitation to further deepen a dialogue now reinforced by the always bracing words of a candor that flows from honest humility, or is the next word a word that flows out of an arrogance that, at its’ core, senses no need for the other. Given the Vatican’s long commitment to dialogue I can not but imagine that its hope is the former and not the latter.

I’m sure that many do not care, but I am equally certain that many do. Those who do care are among those who most passionately want God’s message of abiding love made ever more available.

The Pope’s message is a sober reminder of just how “wounded” our divisions have been made us. We are all "wounded" in the sense that our message is muffled. And that, in my view, is a wound that afflicts all Christian communities: the Episcopal Church, the Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostals, independents, the Orthodox and Roman Catholic as well as all the rest. We are all incomplete to the extent that we are cut-off from the fellowship that each has to offer the other.

We should look for a president with wisdom, compassion, courage and integrity: the wisdom to know what he or she does and does not know; the compassion to recognize the integrity and worth of others, even when they disagree; the courage to listen to a wide range of points of view, without pandering to or dismissing them; and the integrity of character, having listened, to make clear and often difficult decisions. We need a president with the energy to stay focused on his or her enormous task, with the experience to understand the fundamental issues that face our great nation, and with the capacity to form and express a real vision of the direction we must take to address those issues effectively, both here at home and overseas. Finally, we need a president who can communicate that vision and those hopes not only to the people of this nation but to the larger world as well.

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The first part of the question is best addressed by members of the Jewish community itself – as they will be its principle authors. We can all hope and expect that they will be as successful in the future as they have been in the past.

All of us in the larger community have a stake in helping to create and sustain an environment in which a religion professed by a minority of people can thrive. The key to this survival, as the Jewish community has so clearly demonstrated over the centuries, is that the core beliefs are held firmly while beliefs and practice more peripheral to those core beliefs are allowed to accommodate to the culture in which the believer finds himself or herself. The perennial challenge before believers is determining exactly what is a core belief and what is a cultural adaptation. If everything is a core belief then religious communities will be progressively isolated from an ever changing culture. If nothing is core then the whole enterprise of faith will fade into the vapor.

The role of a free society is to allow maximum scope for the believers to define what the core belief might be.

The advantage that a religion professed by a minority of citizens has is that it is less likely that there will be confusion between the religion and the culture. Few Jews would imagine for an instant that America is a Jewish nation where many Christians mistakenly believe that the U.S. is a Christian nation. Given that Christians for a large part of our population, if not an actual majority, many may find cultural assumptions about their faith sufficiently resonant with their faith claims that culture and faith become blurred and confused. This is a grave danger for many Christians in America, for example.