ASSISI, Italy – Along with other religious leaders with Pope Benedict XVI on pilgrimage to Assisi, he stated that “people who are suspicious of religion cannot be blamed for questioning God’s existence when they see believers use religion to justify violence.”

“All their struggling and questioning is, in part, an appeal to believers to purify their faith so that God, the true God, becomes accessible,” the pope expressed on October 27 during an interfaith gathering in the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels.