Last weekend our religious communities were celebrating important feasts. Our Islamic brothers and sisters were commemorating Eid Al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice of Abraham; our Catholic believers were commemorating Pentecost, the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

As we shared our thoughts on these festivities that are lived as an inspiration towards peace and reconciliation, and we looked at the world around us with all its violence and wars, we felt urged to do something. We are aware that our voices might not be heard or acknowledged but we believe that we cannot just be silent.

We feel bound by the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, signed in 2019 by the Grand Imam of Al-Ahzar, Ahman Al-Tayyeb, and Pope Francis.

We both embraced this Document and signed it in December 2019 in the presence of the Governor, John Rankin, as a possible path of collaboration towards a more peaceful and reconciled society.

It is a document that invites all persons who have faith in God and faith in human fraternity to unite and work together, so that it may serve as a guide for future generations to advance a culture of mutual respect in the awareness of the great divine grace that makes all human beings brothers and sisters.

This is our joint call urging peace in the Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank, and other places of conflict, starvation and war. We want to echo the cry of those children and adults alike who suffer from hunger, who are without shelter or safety, who demand that children and youth be able to study in peace.

We pray that political officials from all sides will work towards real and lasting peace, and we reaffirm that respect for international law, especially humanitarian law, is a necessary foundation for justice today, and that any nation is strengthened by upholding it.

We dare to call people of goodwill to pray with us and work strenuously to spread the culture of tolerance and of living together in peace by adopting a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual co-operation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard.

This is what we hope and seek to achieve with the aim of finding universal peace that all can enjoy in this life.

• Emir Saleem Talbot is the Imam of the Bermuda Islamic Cultural Centre; the Most Reverend Wes Spiewak is the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bermuda