Editor's note: Paul Moses, professor of journalism at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, is the author of "The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace" (Doubleday, 2009).

Speaking hours after a terrorist attack killed 21 people in a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would hold an interreligious meeting in October in Assisi, Italy, to discuss with other religious leaders how religion can promote world peace.

It would mark the 25th anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Peace that Pope John Paul II held there on October 26, 1986. The choice of Assisi, a town in Central Italy, as the venue is certainly not for its access to an airport: It is chosen as the home town of St. Francis, the beloved Christian saint whose generosity of spirit and constant striving for peace are exemplified in a remarkably amicable encounter he had with Egypt's Sultan Malik al-Kamil in the midst of the Fifth Crusade in 1219.

Read the full opinion piece on how Christians and Muslims can find peace