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For those of us who are Christians — Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox alike — everybody acknowledges a unique role of the Pope in the life of the Christian community....I hope it will lead to a greater participation on the part of people who aren’t Christians. I went out of my way to welcome them, as I thought it would feel strange to them to attend a Christian event. But as I mentioned about our speakers, we even have an atheist speaking. We simply looked for the best speakers. Now, we’ve asked him to speak about subjects in a way that would not be contrary to Church teaching, but our goal was to have the best quality presentations and the best knowledge available. Twenty-four percent of our speakers are not Catholic. Most of them are Christians. A significant number are Jews. We have a Mormon leader who is talking about how Mormons keep families together, because they have a great reputation when it comes to family life, and we have an atheist who is speaking, which is very interesting.

Encouraging to see who he does and does not acknowledge as his fellow Christians.

Not quite sure what yo're pointing to. Is it because he lists Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox as Christians, and --- not Mormons?

If that's it, it shouldn't be surprising. Mormons are not Chrisians in the historic sense. They do not have a Nicene Christology and do not recognize Jesus as the Only-Begotten Son, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the three persons are are the One God; they do not believe in the Trinity. They do not believe in the closed Canon of Scripture, which means that public revelation ceased with the death of the last Apostle.

The Ctholi Church does not believe that a MOrmon baptism is a valid bBaptism, because they mean something entirely diffeent b i. In contrast, th Catholic Church recognizes almost ll other Christian ecclesial cmmunities' pracice of Baptim as valid. If a Calvinist, for instance, were to be received into the Catholic Church, he or she would not be re-baptized. Three is one Baptism, and they've got it, that's it, with very few exceptions (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses.)

Or was it something else that caught your eye?