The President, Mrs McAleese, yesterday renewed her call for a new inter-religious global ethic which would lay down guidelines for human behaviour - to create the conditions for a sustainable world order in the next millennium.
The President issued her call during a speech to the World Community for Christian Meditation at San Miniato Monastery in Florence, a community directed by an old friend of hers, Benedictine priest Father Laurence Freeman.
Mrs McAleese is in Italy on a five-day visit which culminates in a Vatican audience with Pope John Paul II tomorrow. She meets the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, on Saturday.
Reiterating many of the themes touched on in an address to the European University Institute in Florence on Tuesday, she called on the faithful and the leaders of all religions worldwide to have the courage to rise above "our doubts" and work together towards realising a vision that acknowledges the "interdependence of all human beings on this small planet".
Speaking to an audience that included Buddhists, Jews, Anglicans and Lutherans as well as the Archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Silvano Piovanelli, the President called for a re-examination of the meaning of ecumenism.
On the verge of the new millennium, she said, ecumenism could not be taken to mean the lowest common religious denominator but rather a unity that respected and celebrated diversity.