NEW YORK, Aug. 31 (CWNews.com)

    Religious leaders attending a peace summit at the United Nations this week on Thursday began signing a declaration committing themselves to global peace, calling for equality of women and men in all areas, and declaring all religions equal.

    The document, titled, "Commitment to Global Peace," condemns all violence committed in the name of religion and is to be signed by the 1,000 envoys before they end their four-day meeting on Thursday, although Cardinal Francis Arinze, the papal representative at the event is not expected to sign because of the provisions contradicting Catholic teaching.

    The Millennium World Peace Summit was marred over controversies that many of the topics and presentations were dominated by liberal-leftist agendas, the exclusion of the Dalai Lama because of Communist China's protests, and organizer Ted Turner's enthusiastically received anti-Christian comments.

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