With Islam at the center of several explosive situations around the world, one of Michigan's most prominent Muslim leaders, Imam Hassan Qazwini, headed to Rome on Monday night for five days of Catholic-Muslim talks focused on interfaith strategies for making peace.

"It's a very promising sign that the Vatican is promoting this dialogue," Qazwini said as he prepared to fly off to meet Wednesday at the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI. That meeting is to be followed by four days of talks between Catholic leaders and Muslim clerics from around the world.

Among issues likely to be discussed, Qazwini said, will be protests around the world over cartoons of Muhammad, recent riots in France involving Muslim immigrants, tensions over Europe's growing Muslim population and clashes in Iraq among factions within Islam.

"About 50 scholars are supposed to be there to work on improving Christian-Muslim relations at this very important time," said Qazwini, head of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn.

"I think this is especially hopeful, because we had heard that this new pope might take a harder line with Islam than his predecessor."

In fact, Catholic and Muslim leaders are continuing to build new working relationships, said the Rev. Francis Tiso, the chief Catholic liaison to Islam at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C.

"We're making tremendous progress," he said Monday. "Every time our leaders meet to build bridges, we are showing the rest of the world that this kind of dialogue is possible."

Tiso is not involved in the Rome conference, but he called such initiatives important. He publishes materials for study groups across the United States and posts many of the publications at www.usccb.org/seia/interdialogues.shtml. Tiso also organizes regional Catholic-Muslim dialogues, including a major conference planned for metro Detroit this September.

The Rome conference is to start with the papal meeting, organized by Washington, D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

The subsequent sessions are cohosted by scholars from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.; Muslim scholars from seminaries in the Middle East, and a think tank based in Oslo, Norway, called the International Peace Research Institute.

"I want to bring to the table some of the concerns of Muslims living in the United States," Qazwini said. "I want to emphasize the importance of interfaith dialogue, which is something new to many Muslims in other parts of the world. Having lived in the United States, I now deeply believe in the hope that comes from interfaith dialogue."