Close encounters

Ash Wednesday

Catholic News Service:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- One of Sunni Islam's leading clerics has accepted Pope Benedict XVI's invitation to meet for talks in Rome, the Vatican said.

Grand Sheik Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi of Cairo's al-Azhar University, a world-renowned center of Islamic scholarship, agreed to the encounter "with satisfaction," the Vatican said Feb. 20. No date was announced for the meeting.

It would be the pope's highest-profile encounter with an Islamic leader since his September speech in Regensburg, Germany, that sparked controversy and criticism throughout the Muslim world.
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Pretty straightforward. The charm offensive visiting lecturer series continues on, which is good.

I find it interesting though that the word 'encounter' is used. It brings to mind aliens meeting humans and divers encoutering whales in clear blue water...