Muslims,Christians,Jews must improve dialogue-Pope

VATICAN CITY, Oct 12 (Reuters) Pope Benedict said today Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders needed to work harder to improve dialogue and promote ''authentic respect'' among cultures and religions.

Benedict, who became embroiled in controversy over remarks about Islam last month, made the comment during an audience for a delegation of Jews from the Anti-Defamation League.

He said Christians, Muslims and Jews should build on the ''many common convictions'' they share.

''In our world today, religious, political, academic and economic leaders are being seriously challenged to improve the level of dialogue between peoples and between cultures,'' he told the delegation.

''To do this effectively requires a deepening of our mutual understanding and a shared dedication to building a society of ever greater justice and peace,'' he said.

''We need to know each other better and, on the strength of that mutual discovery, to build relationships not just of tolerance but of authentic respect,'' he added.

Muslims around the world protested last month after the Pope, in a September 12 lecture at Regensburg University in his native Germany, quoted 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who spoke of the Prophet Mohammad's ''command to spread by the sword the faith he preached''.

He has said several times since then that his comments were misunderstood.

In his address to the Jewish delegation, the Pope also mentioned the landmark 1965 Second Vatican Council declaration ''Nostra Aetate'' (In Our Time) which revolutionised Catholic relations with Jews by repudiating the concept of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death.

The Pope repeated that ''the Church deplores all forms of hatred or persecution directed against the Jews and all displays of anti-Semitism at any time and from any source''.

Last May he made an emotional visit to the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, mostly Jews, died in what he then called a ''valley of darkness''.

REUTERS MQA VV1942