A view of Paris from atop Notre Dame Cathedral. Wiki Commons.RedTracker| The Vatican has launched a series of public dialogues with atheists and agnostics worldwide, report’s Canada’s National Post. The first event was held in Paris this past week, a country where a strong secular culture has rejected religion and specifically Catholicism as a leading voice in civic debates.

The dialogues, called “Courtyard of the Gentiles” after the part of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem where Jews and non-Jews met, will continue in at least 16 cities in Europe and North America over the next two years. They include Italy, Albania, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, Russia and the United States.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican’s culture minister, told participants at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) the dialogue was meant not to confront believers and atheists but to seek common ground.

Evidence of our own confusion and distrust of the Vatican lies in quotes from former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, addressing an honour killing in Italy, in which a Pakistani murdered his daughter in Italy, for behaving as freely as Italian youths.