Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran is the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. He is adhering to a policy set forth by the Vatican to respectfully study and build relationships of respect and trust with people of all religions.
(CHRISTIAN WITNESS IN A MULTI-RELIGIOUS WORLD: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CONDUCT)
How much dialog would there be if he refused to turn the other cheek? Jesus didn't die only for the saved.
I'm not sure what that has to do with the issue. I don't have a problem with "dialog" with anyone. However, I do have a problem with His Eminence's description of those who fear Islam as "right wingers", which he uses in a perjorative fashion, and he suggests that this fear is based on "ignorance".
There is a major feast day on the Church's calendar, Our Lady of the Rosary (Oct 7), which commemorates a military victory of Catholic forces over aggressive Islamic forces at the Battle of Lepanto, through the intercession of the Blessed Mother. I presume the Cardinal is aware of this. Were those brave men who went into battle against the Muslims "ignorant" also?
Similarly, Islamic Moors had to be physically tossed out of the Iberian peninsula after years of conquest and persecution of Catholic Spain and Portugal. These are historical facts with which any Catholic, with even a modest familirarity with history, would be familiar. Therefore, in light of this, His Eminence's description of those who fear Islam as "right wingers" is unhelpful at best and downright misleading at worst. Are we supposed to just ignore history? Was Lepanto an aberration and meaningless for today's world? Did we go to war simply because we failed to read the Qu'ran? Catholicism has a long and difficult history in coping with Islamic aggression and violence and that ought to teach us something.
It is most definitely not all a big misunderstanding and today's events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East bear this out.