News and notes from Paul Moses

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who helped free two American hikers held as suspected spies in Iran, had some interesting observations on the hands-on role religious leaders can take in making peace.

Francis's journey to the sultan helped inspire the World Day of Prayer for Peace, which was marked in Assisi on Oct. 27. I opined on that for Reuters' FaithWorld blog.

The Saint and the Sultan was cited in a statement the Franciscan Friars of the United States and Great Britain issued to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack.

For anyone who enjoyed The Saint and the Sultan, the new film Of Gods and Men is a must-see. Inspired by a true story, it is about a group of Trappist monks living in the midst of violence in North Africa.

A Brazilian edition of The Saint and the Sultan is out, published by Editora Acatu and called O Santo e O Sultao: As Cruzadas, O Isla e a Missao de Paz de Francisco de Assis. Thanks to Luciane Sommer for her translation into Portugese.

Thanks to all those who recommended an op-ed I wrote for CNN.com, How Christians, Muslims Can Find Peace. It ran on January 2, following on the bombing of a Coptic church in Cairo.

For an excellent overview of The Saint and the Sultan, check out this interview Kimberly Austin did for the Footnote book program on the Ebru cable TV network.

I spoke about The Saint and the Sultan at Yale on Oct. 5, 2010 to a group of Catholic and Muslim students at the St. Thomas More Catholic Center. The Yale Chaplain's Office and the Muslim Students Association joined the Catholic center in sponsoring the event. This is the second time that I've spoken at campus gatherings organized jointly by the Christian and Muslim chaplains - I did it earlier at Princeton - and it really thrills me to meet students and chaplains with such an interest in improving inter-religious relations. Princeton students started a Christian-Muslim dialogue after I spoke there last year, and the Yale students and their chaplains are planning to do the same. If chaplains and students at other campuses I can get to are interested in doing the same - please contact me!

I enjoyed a great visit to Siena College, near Albany, N.Y., to help launch the college's Damietta Cross-Cultural Center. Building on the school's Franciscan tradition, Siena College President Father Kevin Mullen and the center's director, Oscar Mayorga, have adopted the encounter between Francis and Sultan Malik al-Kamil as a model for Siena's multicultural program.

The Saint and the Sultan has won the 2010 Catholic Press Association Book Award for History - first place. Thanks, CPA!

The conflict over building an Islamic center near New York's Ground Zero shows that we can learn a lot from the way Francis of Assisi and Egypt's Sultan Malik al-Kamil encountered each other during the Fifth Crusade. I've written op-ed articles for CNN and Commonweal magazine about the controversy in New York.

To read varying views on Francis's encounter with Sultan Malik al-Kamil, check out the transcript of a discussion the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture sponsored at Fordham's Midtown Manhattan campus on Feb. 17, 2010. I joined a discussion with author and documentary maker Sister Kathleen Warren, O.S.F., historian John Tolan of the University of Nantes, and Adnan Husain, historian at Queen's University in Kingston, Canda. Peter Steinfels was the moderator.

In his audience at the Vatican on Jan. 27, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the relevance of the encounter between St. Francis and Sultan Malik al-Kamil. "I want to underline this episode of the life of St. Francis, which is very timely," he said, according to a translation from the original Italian provided by Zenit. "At a time in which there was under way a clash between Christianity and Islam, Francis, armed deliberately only with his faith and his personal meekness, pursued with efficacy the way of dialogue. The chronicles tell us of a benevolent and cordial reception by the Muslim Sultan. It is a model that also today should inspire relations between Christians and Muslims: to promote a dialogue in truth, in reciprocal respect and in mutual understanding."

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton spoke about The Saint and the Sultan during his homily at St. Anne Catholic Church in Frankfort, Michigan on January 14, 2010, according to the National Catholic Reporter's Website.

CNN.com ran this op-ed piece I wrote to explore what the encounter between Francis and Sultan al-Kamil can mean for international relations today. It seems that the Crusades are never far off when people talk about religion, war and peace. As I note, President Obama referred to "the cruelty of the Crusades" and to the World Trade Center attack in his Nobel Peace Prize speech when he said, "Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace but the purpose of faith -- for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us."

I've admired the way PoliticsDaily keeps sight of the subject of religion as part of its political coverage. Now, Melinda Henneberger, editor-in-chief of PoliticsDaily, has written on "What Christians and Muslims Can Learn From `The Saint and the Sultan.' " She wrote: "Forget the St. Francis of folklore – or Giotto for that matter -- and make way for a chapter of history that longtime Newsday religion writer Paul Moses says, "in the language of the newsroom . . . was covered up.'' His new book, `The Saint and the Sultan,' reveals a Francis so opposed to the Fifth Crusade that he crossed enemy lines on a peace mission in 1219 – and walked unarmed into the camp of the sultan of Egypt, Malik al-Kamil."