Speakers Find Glimmers of Light in Dominus Iesus

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Protestant sect hosts interfaith conference on controversial Vatican document

At Rome's Waldensian Theological University, located just around the corner from the Vatican, an enormous mural dominates the main lecture hall. It shows a single candle burning above the Latin inscription, "A light shining in the darkness." The irony is rarely lost on visitors to this tiny Protestant island surrounded by a vast Catholic sea.

During an Oct. 27 and 28 conference hosted by the Waldensians in reaction to Dominus Iesus, the recent Vatican document asserting that followers of other religions suffer "grave deficiencies," the candle seemed an appropriate emblem, both for the smiles it evokes and for the conference's aim of dispelling interfaith shadows cast by the tough new Vatican line.

The gathering, brought together Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox and even a …