The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue

What the Dicastery covers today

Articles 147 to 152 of Praedicate Evangelium define the Dicastery's mission in six brief points. The founding text first sets its exact scope:

“The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue promotes and fosters relations with members and groups of religions that are not included under the Christian name, with the exception of Judaism, whose competence belongs to the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.” — Pope Francis, apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, art. 147^[7]

This exclusion of Judaism is no administrative detail: it expresses the theological conviction, already present in Nostra Aetate no. 4, that the bond between the Church and the Jewish people is of a different nature from dialogue with other religions, since the ancient Covenant lies at the very foundation of Christian Revelation — hence the attachment of this specific dialogue to the ecumenical dicastery rather than to the interreligious one^[8]. Article 148 then specifies the spirit and purpose of dialogue with other traditions:

“The Dicastery sees to it that dialogue with the followers of other religions takes place in a fitting manner, with an attitude of listening, esteem and respect. It fosters various forms of relations with them so that, through the contribution of all, peace, freedom, social justice, and the protection and safeguarding of creation, as well as spiritual and moral values, may be promoted.” — Praedicate Evangelium, art. 148^[9]

Article 149 adds two structuring details: the Dicastery “promotes a true search for God among all men and women” through action, theological exchange and spiritual experience, and it is tasked with helping diocesan bishops form those engaged in interreligious dialogue — a formative competence that explains the presence, within the Dicastery, of commissions specialised by religious area^[10].

Internal commissions and interdicasterial cooperation

Article 150 establishes, under the direct authority of the prefect and in cooperation with the episcopal conferences, internal commissions specialised by religious tradition — the oldest and most structured being the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims, created as early as 1974^[11]. Article 151 requires the Dicastery, whenever the matter so demands, to proceed “by common agreement” with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and, if necessary, with the dicasteries for the Eastern Churches and for Evangelization — a clause of doctrinal coordination guaranteeing that no dialogue initiative may stray, even implicitly, from the magisterial teaching on the salvific uniqueness of Christ and the Church^[12]. Finally, article 152 entrusts the Dicastery with planning its initiatives in agreement with the particular Churches and encouraging them to take their own local interreligious initiatives^[13].

What falls outside its remit

Three points delimit the Dicastery's exact scope. First, Judaism belongs exclusively to the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, by reason of the unique spiritual bond recognised by Nostra Aetate between the Church and “the stock of Abraham”^[14]. Second, dialogue with persons of no declared religious belonging — atheists, agnostics, seekers of meaning outside any constituted tradition — belongs, since Praedicate Evangelium art. 158, not to the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue but to the Section for Culture of the Dicastery for Culture and Education^[15]. Third, and this is the most decisive clarification doctrinally, the Dicastery never takes the place of the explicit proclamation of Christ, which remains the task of the Dicastery for Evangelization: interreligious dialogue is, in the constant formula of the magisterium since 1991, “intimately connected” with the evangelical proclamation “but not interchangeable” with it^[16].

An institution older than its founding text

A rare fact in the history of the Roman Curia: the institution predates the conciliar text that would give it its doctrinal foundation. The Secretariat for Non-Christians has existed since 19 May 1964, while the declaration Nostra Aetate — On the Relations of the Church to Non-Christian Religions — was only promulgated by Paul VI on 28 October 1965, at the close of the fourth and final session of the Second Vatican Council^[17]. The conciliar text, the shortest of the sixteen documents of Vatican II, opens with an affirmation of the unity of the human race:

“All peoples comprise a single community, and have a single origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth; they also have but one final end, God, whose providence, manifestations of goodness and designs of salvation extend to all.” — Second Vatican Council, declaration Nostra Aetate, no. 1, 28 October 1965^[18]

What the Council acknowledges — and what it never gives up

No. 2 of the declaration formulates the principle that would govern, for six decades, the whole action of the Dicastery: esteem for what is true in other religions, without ever renouncing the proclamation of Christ as the unique way of salvation.

“The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. […] Nevertheless, she proclaims, and is in duty bound to proclaim without fail, Christ who is ‘the way, the truth and the life’ (Jn 14:6), in whom men find the fullness of religious life.” — Nostra Aetate, no. 2^[19]

This twofold affirmation — recognition of a “ray of that truth which enlightens all men” in non-Christian religious traditions, and the firm, non-negotiable proclamation of Christ as the fullness of religious life — is taken up almost word for word by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which speaks of a search for the “unknown yet near God” present in religions, a search the Church regards “as a preparation for the Gospel”^[20]. The conciliar text then devotes one paragraph to Islam (no. 3) and a long development to Judaism (no. 4), before concluding, in no. 5, with a condemnation of all discrimination based on religion — the doctrinal foundation of the religious freedom simultaneously promoted by the declaration Dignitatis Humanae of the same Council.

“The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and who has spoken to men. […] Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet; they honour His virgin Mother, Mary, and at times even devoutly invoke her.” — Nostra Aetate, no. 3^[21]

1964: Paul VI and the apostolic letter Progrediente Concilio

On 19 May 1964, as the Second Vatican Council entered its third year of work, Pope Paul VI instituted by the apostolic letter Progrediente Concilio the Secretariat for Non-Christians (Secretariatus pro non Christianis)^[22]. The first president of the new body was Cardinal Paolo Marella, in office until 1973, assisted by Msgr Piero Rossano and Msgr Marcello Zago^[23]. As early as 1966, the Secretariat published a first bulletin, initially entitled Secretariatus pro Non Christianis, later renamed Pro Dialogo — a lasting instrument for spreading doctrinal orientations and reports of interreligious meetings^[24].

1967–1979: the first concrete gestures of dialogue

The apostolic constitution Regimini Ecclesiae Universae of Paul VI, of 15 August 1967, specified the structure and objectives of the Secretariat within the reformed Curia^[25]. That same year, the institution sent its first message of greetings to Muslims on the occasion of the end of Ramadan — a gesture that has since become an unbroken annual tradition^[26]. In 1971, two new sections were created inside the Secretariat, one for Asian religions, the other for traditional religions^[27]. The first Plenary Assembly of the Secretariat was held in 1979, under the new pontificate of John Paul II^[28].

1974: the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims

On 22 October 1974, the Secretariat created within itself the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims, a permanent organ that would become the model for the later commissions provided for by article 150 of Praedicate Evangelium^[29]. A few days later, from 24 to 27 October 1974, a Saudi delegation paid an official visit to Rome — one of the very first direct institutional contacts between the Holy See and a state-level Muslim religious authority^[30].

1984: Dialogue and Mission, the first doctrinal synthesis

In 1984, the Secretariat published a document entitled The Attitude of the Church Towards the Followers of Other Religions: Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission — known by the shortened name Dialogue and Mission. It is the first magisterial text attempting to codify the principles of interreligious dialogue as practised for twenty years by the Roman institution, already distinguishing the many forms of dialogue from the proper task of missionary proclamation^[31].

1986: the first World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi

On 27 October 1986, at the invitation of John Paul II, more than one hundred and fifty representatives of the world's religions — Christians of every confession, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians, representatives of traditional African religions — gathered in Assisi, the city of Saint Francis, for a World Day of Prayer for Peace^[32]. The event, organised under the aegis of the Secretariat for Non-Christians, drew immediate and lively reactions within the Church: some saw in it a risk of doctrinal confusion between religions. Two months later, on 22 December 1986, John Paul II devoted part of his traditional Christmas address to the Roman Curia to dispelling this misunderstanding:

“With it and through it, we succeeded, thanks be to God, in putting into practice, without any shadow of confusion or syncretism, our common conviction of the transcendent dimension of peace.” — John Paul II, address to the Roman Curia, 22 December 1986^[33]

The Pope specified that the participants had come not to pray together with a single common voice, but to be together to pray, each according to his own tradition and “in the search for truth”^[34] — a distinction that became the official key for reading every interreligious meeting organised since by the Dicastery.

1988: Pastor Bonus and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue

By the apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus of 28 June 1988, which reorganised the whole Roman Curia in the wake of Vatican II, John Paul II raised the Secretariat for Non-Christians to the rank of Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, whose competences were set in articles 159 to 162 of the new constitution^[35]. That same year, the Council published the letter Pastoral Attention to African Traditional Religions, completed in 1993 by a similar text for the Americas, Asia and Oceania^[36].

1991: Dialogue and Proclamation, the reference doctrinal text

On 19 May 1991, the feast of Pentecost, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue published jointly with the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples the document Dialogue and Proclamation — Reflection and Orientations on Interreligious Dialogue and the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the fruit of five years of joint work between the two dicasteries^[37]. This text, whose doctrinal analysis is developed further in this article, remains to this day the most complete magisterial reference on the relationship between dialogue and mission.

1993–2011: new Assisi gatherings and diversification of dialogues

In 1993, a second prayer gathering was held in Assisi, centred on the conflict in the Balkans^[38]. Throughout the 1990s, the Council also diversified its gestures of recognition towards other traditions: greetings sent to Buddhists for the feast of Vesakh from 1995, then to Hindus for Diwali from 1996^[39]. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, John Paul II convened a new World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, on 24 January 2002^[40]. Under Benedict XVI, a third great meeting was held on 27 October 2011, for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first gathering, bringing together some one hundred and eighty religious representatives under the title Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace^[41]. In 2013, the Council published a new pastoral synthesis, Dialogue in Truth and Charity^[42].

Four forms of dialogue, with no order of priority

Dialogue and Proclamation distinguishes, in its no. 42, four distinct forms of interreligious dialogue, establishing no order of priority among them:

“The dialogue of life, where people strive to live in an open and neighbourly spirit, sharing their joys and sorrows, their human problems and preoccupations; the dialogue of action, where Christians and others collaborate for the integral development and liberation of people; the dialogue of theological exchange, where specialists seek to deepen their understanding of their respective religious heritages, and to appreciate each other's spiritual values; the dialogue of religious experience, where persons, rooted in their own religious traditions, share their spiritual riches.” — Dialogue and Proclamation, no. 42, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, 19 May 1991^[43]

This typology, systematically taken up by the Dicastery in its later documents, makes clear why the concrete practice of dialogue goes far beyond the much-publicised great meetings such as Assisi: it covers everyday coexistence in multi-faith neighbourhoods, humanitarian cooperation, academic colloquia between theologians of different traditions, and the discreet sharing of experiences of prayer and contemplation between monks and mystics of different traditions.

Dialogue never replaces proclamation

Here lies the most decisive doctrinal ridge of the whole dossier. Dialogue and Proclamation affirms without ambiguity that the explicit proclamation of Christ remains, beyond every form of dialogue, the ultimate end of the Church's mission:

“The proclamation of the mystery of Christ remains nevertheless central […]: evangelization will also always contain — as the foundation, centre, and at the same time, summit of its dynamism — a clear proclamation that, in Jesus Christ […] salvation is offered to all people, as a gift of God's grace and mercy.” — Dialogue and Proclamation, no. 75, quoting Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, no. 27^[44]

The document then specifies, in no. 77, that dialogue and proclamation “are both intimate and interrelated, but not interchangeable”, and recalls in no. 82 that dialogue “cannot simply be replaced by proclamation, but remains oriented towards proclamation insofar as the dynamic process of the Church's evangelizing mission reaches in it its summit and fullness”^[45]. This doctrinal clarification finds a direct echo in the declaration Dominus Iesus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, published on 6 August 2000 under the signature of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, which explicitly warns against any relativist drift:

“The Church's constant missionary proclamation is endangered today by relativistic theories which seek to justify religious pluralism, not only de facto but also de iure (or in principle).” — Dominus Iesus, no. 4, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 6 August 2000^[46]

The same text specifies, in no. 22, that interreligious dialogue “is a part of the Church's evangelizing mission” but is “but one of its actions” and “radically excludes an indifferentist mentality ‘characterized by a religious relativism which leads to the belief that one religion is as good as another’”^[47]. It is precisely to guarantee this doctrinal coherence — between the pastoral openness of dialogue and the firmness of the teaching on the salvific uniqueness of Christ — that article 151 of Praedicate Evangelium requires the Dicastery to coordinate its initiatives with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith^[48].

An unprecedented text of cooperation with Sunni Islam

On 4 February 2019, during the first visit of a pope to the Arabian Peninsula, Francis signed in Abu Dhabi, alongside the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together^[49]. The text firmly condemns the religious instrumentalisation of terrorism, calls for the protection of the places of worship of every confession, and affirms the full citizenship of religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries^[50]. This dimension of the document — the unequivocal condemnation of violence committed in the name of religion, the defence of Eastern Christians, the call for freedom of conscience — was widely welcomed, including by Catholic voices hardly suspected of indulgence towards political Islamism.

The sentence that sparked the theological objection

One sentence of the document nevertheless provoked a serious and public doctrinal controversy within the Catholic Church itself:

“Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.” — Document on Human Fraternity, Abu Dhabi, 4 February 2019^[51]

The objection, formulated notably by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, deserves to be presented in its full force: to place in a single list the diversity of the sexes — positively willed by God according to Genesis 1:27 — and the diversity of religions amounts, on a literal reading, to making the very plurality of false religions an object of God's positive will, which would frontally contradict the constant teaching that there is but one true religion revealed by God^[52]. It is a theologically serious objection: it rests not on mere sentimental unease, but on a precise technical distinction, familiar to all scholastic theology, between what God wills positively — the good — and what He merely permits without approving it (voluntas permissiva, in the scholastic vocabulary publicly taken up by the Pope, which accounts for the existence of evil and error without making God their author).

Pope Francis's public clarification

Contrary to what some superficial commentaries on this dossier claim, this clarification did not remain confined to a private exchange: Pope Francis gave it publicly, at the general audience of 3 April 2019, two months after the Abu Dhabi signing, while commenting on his recent journey to Morocco:

“Why does God allow there to be so many religions? God wanted to allow this: the Scholastic theologians used to refer to God's voluntas permissiva. He wanted to allow this reality: there are many religions […]. But what God wants is fraternity among us.” — Pope Francis, general audience, 3 April 2019^[53]

This public clarification, by explicitly taking up the scholastic vocabulary of voluntas permissiva, confirms the reading proposed by the most critical theologians of the Abu Dhabi text themselves^[54]: the diversity of religions is not willed by God in the same way as the diversity of the sexes or the dignity of the human person, but merely permitted, within the order of a Providence that respects human freedom without ever approving the resulting error — just as Catholic tradition teaches that God permits sin without willing or approving it. Bishop Schneider, while welcoming this clarification as a step in the right direction, continued to request a formal correction of the text itself, judging the oral answer insufficient to dispel all ambiguity in a document already widely disseminated and quoted as the foundation of interreligious educational programmes across the world^[55]. This episode illustrates a constant rule of the Catholic theology of dialogue: no pastoral formula, even one signed by the Pope himself, may be read apart from the constant body of the Church's doctrine on the uniqueness of Christ and the Church as the way of salvation, recalled without ambiguity by Dominus Iesus^[56].

The meaning given by John Paul II remains the key

The Abu Dhabi episode rejoins, at bottom, the older controversy aroused by the Assisi meetings: in both cases, the objection concerns the risk of suggesting, in the very language of dialogue, that all religions are of equal worth before God. And in both cases, the magisterial answer is identical in structure: to reaffirm, without withdrawing a word of the dialogue gesture itself, that it in no way touches the unique truth of Christian Revelation. That is the whole point of the distinction drawn by John Paul II as early as 1986 between “being together to pray” — the respectful juxtaposition of distinct traditions, each faithful to its own identity — and “praying together”, which would suppose a communion of faith that does not exist between Christians and non-Christians^[57].

Sixty years after Nostra Aetate: the message of Leo XIV

On 28 October 2025, for the sixtieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate, Pope Leo XIV presided, in the Paul VI Hall, over a celebration entitled “Walking Together in Hope”, bringing together delegations of the world's great religious traditions alongside the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue^[58]. In his address, the Pope explicitly took up the same doctrinal prudence that has governed the dossier for six decades, refusing to make dialogue an end in itself detached from the conviction of faith:

“Authentic dialogue does not begin with compromise, but with conviction, with the deep roots of our own belief. Dialogue is not a tactic or a tool, but a way of life, a journey of the heart that transforms all those involved.” — Pope Leo XIV, address for the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, 28 October 2025^[59]

This formula — dialogue rooted in conviction and not in compromise — fairly sums up the constant line followed by the Dicastery since Paul VI: a dialogue of charity and real listening, which asks none of its participants to relativise their own faith, and which is distinguished in this both from aggressive proselytism and from the indifferentist relativism denounced by Dominus Iesus.

Current structure

According to the official data available in the summer of 2026, the leadership of the Dicastery stands as follows:

Source: official biography of Cardinal Koovakad, Holy See Press Office^[60], and official history of the Dicastery^[61].

Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, the first Indian prefect

Born on 11 August 1973 in Chethipuzha (India), ordained a priest on 24 July 2004 for the Syro-Malabar Archeparchy of Changanacherry, Msgr George Jacob Koovakad entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in July 2006: nunciatures in Algeria (2006–2009), Korea (2009–2012), Iran (2012–2015), Costa Rica (2015–2018) and then Venezuela (2018–2020)^[62]. Attached to the Section for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State from July 2020, he was put in charge, from 2021, of organising the apostolic journeys of Pope Francis^[63]. Appointed titular Archbishop of Nisibis of the Chaldeans on 25 October 2024 and ordained a bishop on 24 November following, he was created a cardinal by Francis on 7 December 2024, before being appointed prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue on 24 January 2025^[64][65] — becoming the first Indian, and the first prelate of the Syro-Malabar rite, to lead this institution. Under Leo XIV, he notably accompanied and commented on the first great African journey of the pontificate in 2026, stressing the role of religions as “a privileged path to peace”^[66].

The succession of presidents and prefects since 1964

This succession of prefects — Italian, Belgian, Nigerian, English, French, Spanish, Indian — illustrates, as with the other great dicasteries of the Curia, the resolutely universal dimension of an institution whose mission is precisely to represent the Catholic Church before the totality of the world's religious traditions.

• Nostra Aetate (1965) — the founding conciliar text of contemporary Catholic interreligious dialogue.
• The Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity — the body competent for ecumenism among Christians and for dialogue with Judaism.
• The Dicastery for Evangelization — the instance entrusted with missionary proclamation properly so called, distinct from interreligious dialogue.
• Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — guarantor of the doctrinal coherence of every dialogue initiative with magisterial teaching.
• Islam — a doctrinal presentation of the Muslim faith and the apologetic questions it raises.
• Judaism — a presentation of Judaism and its unique relationship with the Catholic Church.
• Hinduism and How to answer the objection of multiple religions? — for the doctrinal questions raised by religious plurality.
• The Roman Curia — all the dicasteries, tribunals and offices through which the Pope governs the Catholic Church.