Bishop claims Iran visit helped to release hikers
The release in September of U.S. hikers Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal
from an Iranian prison "affirms the importance of the role of religious
dialogue and its end product in this case, public diplomacy," according
to Episcopal bishop John Chane of Washington, D.C.
A delegation
of Christian and Muslim leaders had traveled to Iran at the invitation
of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to "seek ways to define common
ground between our two countries," as Chane put it. One objective of the
weeklong trip was to seek the release of the hikers on humanitarian
grounds, reported Episcopal News Service.
The delegation, which
returned September 19, included Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, former
leader of the Archdiocese of Washington, and Nihad Awad and Larry Shaw,
national executive director and board chairman respectively of the
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
