Rebuilding after tsunamis requires cooperation, Vatican official says

Published: 2005-05-16

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Rebuilding Southeast Asia after December's devastating tsunamis will require continued cooperation between the area's Buddhists and Christians, said a top Vatican official. The Dec. 26 disaster triggered "an outpouring of prayers, expressions of compassion and acts of generosity on a scale the world has rarely witnessed," said Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Many people of different religions came together to help the victims and map out the future of their communities, he said. "The long-term requirements of reconstruction call, however, for a continuation of these interreligious expressions of solidarity," the archbishop said in an annual message to Buddhists. The Vatican released the written message May 16 as Buddhists worldwide prepared for the May 22 feast of Vesakh, which commemorates the principal events in the life of Buddhism's founder, Siddhartha Gautama.

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