Pope Leo and a Jordanian institute renew the Muslim-Christian dialogue case

In May 2026 Pope Leo received members of Jordan's Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, alongside the Vatican's Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, for a colloquium on human compassion and empathy in modern times — and urged Christians and Muslims to 'revive humanity where it has grown cold.' The address was theologically specific rather than diplomatic: the Pope noted that in the Muslim tradition compassion (ra'fa) is a gift from God, and that al-Ra'oof, the Ever-Compassionate, is among the ninety-nine divine names. He praised Jordan's record of welcoming refugees and warned that technology, for all its connectivity, can dull the emotional response to suffering into detachment. The setting deserves as much attention as the message. The Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies is a standing Jordanian institution, doing scheduled, funded dialogue work decades after the headlines that prompted its founding — which is why a new pontificate's first substantive Muslim-Christian engagement ran through Amman. Dialogue that survives leadership changes is dialogue with an org chart behind it.

This is a QeRN summary by Ahmed Qerni. Read the original at Vatican News: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-05/pope-leo-jordan-institute-interfaith-christian-muslim-compassion.html.