Dicastery Calls Hindus and Christians to Paths of Peace
For Deepavali, Rome invokes the Spirit of Assisi: shared prayer and fraternity against war and political misuse of faith.
The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue has sent a message to Hindu communities for Deepavali, the feast many faithful will mark on November 8, 2026, urging Hindus and Christians to walk together on paths of peace.
Titled “Hindus and Christians: Let Us Live Together Paths of Peace in the ‘Spirit of Assisi’,” the text is signed by Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, prefect of the dicastery, and by its secretary, Indunil Janakaratne Kodithuwakku Kankanamalage. It was released in late October 2026, a few days after the fortieth anniversary of the Day of Prayer for Peace that Saint John Paul II convened on October 27, 1986—an encounter that gave lasting form to the “spirit of Assisi” and has shaped interreligious dialogue ever since.
Prayer and Fraternity Against Violence
The message proposes two concrete paths. The first is prayer, offered by each community from within its own tradition while respecting the other. Such prayer, the dicastery teaches, can overcome differences and “disarm hearts, minds, and lives.” The second is universal fraternity, inspired by Saint Francis of Assisi: recognizing the face of God in others and standing in solidarity with the poor and the weak.
The text warns against wars, conflicts, and “the use of religion for political purposes.” For the Holy See, authentic religions are by their nature called to promote peace and to reject every form of violence. The dicastery recalls Benedict XVI, who described dialogue as a “vital necessity” and cautioned that violence is a deformation of religion that helps destroy it. It also cites Pope Leo XIV, who holds that interreligious dialogue plays “a decisive role, because at the center of the great spiritual paths there is a message of peace.”
Faithful to Rome’s Line on Dialogue
By linking Deepavali greetings to the Assisi anniversary, the dicastery places contemporary Hindu-Christian relations inside the Church’s settled teaching: religions are not instruments of power, and believers are summoned to peace without relativizing their own faith. Prayer remains rooted in each tradition; fraternity does not erase difference. The message thus renews a Roman insistence that dialogue serves truth and charity together, never political calculation or the sacralizing of conflict.
Hindus and Christians are invited to live that witness in daily life—especially wherever religion is dragged into partisan struggle—so that hearts may be disarmed and the weak protected. The feast of lights becomes, in this reading, an occasion to choose peace as a shared duty before God.