Rome (Reuters) - Pope John Paul said on Wednesday religion could not justify conflict and both Christian and Muslims should repudiate violence.
"Religion must never be used as a reason for conflict," the Pope told pilgrims at his weekly general audience in an address on the effects of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"Christians and Muslims, together with the believers of all religions, are called to firmly repudiate violence and build a world that loves life and grows in justice and solidarity."
As the Pope spoke, Christian and Muslim leaders held a hastily organized conference a few blocks from the Vatican to discuss how religions could help heal the wounds of the attacks and increase mutual understanding.
Both sides at the conference, hosted by the Sant 'Egidio Peace community, said Islam could not be held responsible for the deeds of a few of its adherents.
"We must avoid going after scapegoats," said Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the archbishop of Milan who is seen my many progressives as a possible successor to the Pope.
"Terrorists must be identified and disarmed but that cannot be done if an entire culture, or religion or nation is held responsible. We must be on guard against all simplifications and never identify one religion as the source of evil and violence," he said.
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Islamic theologian and director of the Sunna Research Centre in Qatar, said that in the wake of the attacks the world had to avoid what he called "a return to the old crusades."
"We will not accept that a great religion, practiced in a great nation, is branded as the religion of violence and terrorism because of the actions of a few people," he said.
Washington has held Saudi militant Osama bin Laden responsible for the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington and has demanded that Afghanistan's Taliban government hand him over or face the consequences.
Al-Qaradawi said that those who carried out the attacks in New York and Washington were the products of a "deformation" of Islam.
"I categorically exclude that a Muslim who was truly and correctly committed to his religion could have carried out such an act," he said.
WESTERN PHOBIA OF ISLAM
"We want the West to rid itself of its fear of Islam, that is stops considering it a clear and present danger," he said.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican's department for Inter-Religious Dialogue, said an eventual U.S. response could not be seen "as a war against a religion or against a people but as a war against terrorism."
But Kasper, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference, was severe with Afghanistan's Taliban government.
"This is a very terrible government. As we know its doesn't respect the human rights of its own people. I think this government protects terrorists, of course," he said.
"The civilised world has a right to come to a conflict also with this government because it must also defeat those who help the terrorists," Kasper said.
"They are not some isolated people. There is a whole network and we must destroy it but without shedding innocent blood as much a possible," Kasper said.
"We have to defeat terrorists and find them and bring them before tribunals. There is a right to self defence but this should not be against religions or cultures," he said.