A Catholic parish in Milan will set aside space for young Muslims to perform Islamic prayers during its summer oratory program, with the parish priest defending the initiative by saying that Christians and Muslims “pray to the same God.”
On June 8, Father Giovanni Salatino, parish priest of San Giovanni Bosco in the Baggio district of Milan, Italy, announced that Muslims participating in this year’s parish summer camp program will be able to gather for Islamic prayer in a dedicated area during the activities. Salatino presented the initiative as the implementation of a diocesan document emphasizing “interreligious dialogue” which is itself based upon the Vatican II declaration Nostra Aetate.
“Even though there are not many Muslim boys in Baggio, the oratory will be organized so that they too can have their own moment of prayer,” the official statement reads. “I am fortunate to have some older youth leaders who are Muslim; they will therefore be the ones to lead the prayer with the boys.”
“Quite simply,” Salatino explains, “[the Muslims] too will follow, like everyone else, a brief reflection on the value proposed each day (following the storyline of the year, on the life of St. Francis).”
“I imagine the prayer could conclude with the Islamic formula Bismillah, which invokes the name of God, the compassionate and merciful,” the priest concludes. “It is always better to help young people to pray: we pray to the same God, certainly within different religious traditions. And recognizing the other’s identity is in the spirit of the Gospel.”
The announcement comes several months after the Archdiocese of Milan’s Office for Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue published a document in order to reform the Ambrosian oratory system. The document was issued on October 28, 2025. The text redefines the oratory as a “laboratory of interreligious encounter” open to Islamic communities and to moments of non‑Christian prayer.
According to the document, “welcoming everyone, driven by humanitarian and social reasons” is not a dilution of Christian identity, but “to live out the dynamic of the Incarnation, in which God does not suppress diversity, but assumes it.” The San Giovanni Bosco parish initiative is a self-declared practical application of that diocesan document.
The Archdiocese of Milan has been at the center of numerous controversies in recent months. With regard to its increasingly expansive approach to ecumenism, on May 11 the archdiocesan website announced the building of a new “inclusive and futuristic” monastery.
Although formally dedicated to St. Ambrose, the project includes a church, cloister, cultural events areas, and facilities explicitly designed for interaction among different religions. The complex will also incorporate ecological elements such as a “Garden of Religions,” where monotheistic religions will be represented by a plant. Archbishop Mario Delpini’s remarks presented all religions as equally valid paths to God.