Catholics. Jews. Muslims. Hindus.

Bishops. Sheiks. Rabbis.

Though the participants at this week’s International Prayer for Peace represented a diverse group of faiths, they shared a common goal – promoting inter-religious dialogue in the pursuit of peace.

Uniting behind the conference’s title, “The Courage of Dialogue,” religious leaders emphasized the power discussion can have in promoting peace relations between countries and cultures and eliminating universal evils like war and poverty.

The annual gathering, first established by the late Pope John Paul II in 1986, was the first to be held in the United States. Georgetown was selected as the host site in October 2004.

Opening Wednesday night with a special ceremony in Gaston Hall, the event featured panel discussions yesterday morning and afternoon on a range of issues, ranging from the role of religion in promoting peace, to genocide prevention to the world’s HIV/AIDS epidemic.

At the event’s opening ceremony, speakers highlighted the importance of the conference as a means to help improve interfaith dialogue and spread peaceful solutions to universal problems.

Professor Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Catholic lay association and one of the event’s sponsors, said that prior prayers for peace have already had a noticeable affect on bridging inter-cultural relations.

“Men and women who ignored each other have begun to see each other as brothers and sisters,” he said.

Riccardi said that religion can play a vital role in solving international cultural crises where political leaders have failed. The first international prayers in the late 1980s helped lead to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, he said.

But prayer is only one part of the puzzle toward peace, attendees said. Dialogue begins to build bridges, which helps to build peace.

“[It] is the only way to stop the leap toward the clash of civilizations, because it is the only way to understand each other,” Vincenzo Paglia, the Bishop of Terni, Italy, said.

Ricardi described conversation as a means to defeat those who would use religion as a weapon to gain power through fear.

“The dominion of fear is a victory for those who want to terrorize people,” he said Wednesday evening. “On these days, men and women of different religions have shown their will not to be dominated by fear.”

And attendees sought to defeat that fear by engaging in spirited conversation that sought to create bridges between leaders from all corners of the earth.

But speakers at yesterday’s panel discussions did not limit themselves to the abstract. Nearly everyone had a unique story to tell that exemplified the pacifying effect of inter-cultural interaction.

Andrea Bartoli, a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, said that although some of the most horrendous acts of violence are often committed in the name of religion, they really represent a failure of religion, which instructs the love of all individuals.

Lisa Palmieri-Billig, a member of the American Jewish Committee in Italy, agreed.

“When there is killing, when there is war, one can only conclude that there was no dialogue, or that it failed.” She said that dialogue among communities can serve as a “preventative medicine” which will avert future conflicts between cultures.

Many others recalled memories in which they had witnessed firsthand the benefits that society experiences when dialogue is encouraged.

Arunima Sinha, a Hindu leader from Religions for Peace living in South Carolina, told a story about growing up in her own multicultural community. When she was young she said that she would often get together with neighboring children and build boats from newspapers to navigate streams during torrential rain storms. The children were often from different races or religious heritages.

“We did not know whose boat was whose, but we just kept clapping and cheering for each other,” she said.

As conference participants prayed throughout campus yesterday afternoon, they gave thanks for what they had, and hoped for a happier future.

And then came the majestic closing ceremony in front of Healy Call yesterday evening where religious leaders formed a procession, lighting candles inside the candelabrum that has followed the annual prayer in cities on four continents over the past twenty years.

As the flames flickered, everyone engaged in a rousing round of “This Little Light of Mine.” Students could be seen snapping their fingers to the beat as they walked past the ceremony.