A message from the Church's top official for inter-faith dialogue to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan referred implicitly to the row provoked by recent remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI, which were seen as insulting to the Islamic faith.
The message addressed to "Dear Muslim friends" by Cardinal Paul Poupard, said: "The particular circumstances that we have recently experienced together demonstrate clearly that, however arduous the path of authentic dialogue may be at times, it is more necessary than ever."
Poupard referred to "the serious problems which affect our times -- injustice, poverty, tensions and conflicts between countries as well as within them", adding that "Violence and terrorism are a particularly painful scourge".
"As Christian and Muslim believers, are we not the first to be called to offer our specific contribution to resolve this serious situation and these complex problems?" he said.
"Without doubt, the credibility of religions and also the credibility of our religious leaders and all believers is at stake. If we do not play our part as believers, many will question the usefulness of religion and the integrity of all men and women who bow down before God."
He added: "The world has need, and so do we, of Christians and Muslims who respect and value each other and bear witness to their mutual love and co-operation to the glory of God and the good of all humanity."
Poupard's call was the latest in a series following the pope's controversial address in September in Regensburg, Germany, when he quoted a medieval Christian emperor equating Islam with violence.
It came weeks before the pontiff's scheduled visit to Turkey at the end of November, his first trip to a Muslim majority country since he took office.
The pope later apologised for the offence he had caused without explicitly retracting the comments themselves.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said last week the visit would offer a chance for dialogue between religions, which the Church wanted to see continue.
Catholics and Muslims can and should share values "which are essential for the fate and future of humanity", he said, adding that this was what should be read into the pope's address last month.
Bertone said the speech was "a call for co-operation between the Christian and Muslim faiths to share ... the common moral objectives which our modern world cannot renounce".
But the head of the Catholic Church in Italy, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, explicitly linked Islamic radicalism to terrorism at a church conference in Verona on Friday, while stressing "the duty to build peace".
"The challenge that international terrorism represents ... is only one aspect of a much wider problem that one can sum up in the religious, social and political revival of Islam and the determination to be new protagonists on the world stage which is shared, at least partially, by Muslim people," he said.
"This major process affects us closely" in the religious, social, economic and political spheres, he said, "because in the context of substantial migration the Islamic presence has become strong in Europe and Italy".
Runi, who is due to step down in a few months, added: "The awakening of Islam is accompanied by other important developments, with other great nations like China and India as protagonists."

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006