AUBURN — A Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, a Hindu and a Muslim scholar stood together Thursday in a call for peace and unity.

About 60 people attended the discussion at St. Dominic Academy on Gracelawn Road. Hours earlier Pope Benedict XVI met with leaders of several faiths to talk peace in Assisi, Italy.

“We’re having an Assisi in Maine,” said the Rev. Richard Senghas, who organized the meeting for Maine’s Catholic church.

For about 90 minutes, the representatives of the various religions talked about the need for closer relations, deeper understanding and cooler heads.

“Every religion in the world has, at one time or another, been victimized by another in the name of religion,” said Rabbi Hillel Katzir of Temple Shalom Synagogue Center in Auburn. “Almost every religion in the world has victimized others in the name of religion.”

And the foundation of so many religions — including all those represented Thursday — is peace.

“The word ‘Islam’ means peace,” said Reza Jalali, an Islamic scholar who teaches Islam at Bangor Theological Seminary.

Jalali spoke poetically about his faith, quoting the 800-year-old words of a Muslim mystic who talked of peace and unity. And he talked of the minority of today’s Muslims who use their beliefs as a sword.

“The moderate voices are there,” Jalali said. “The fact that we don’t hear about them is the fault of the media. Also, we have to be careful that we speak about 1.4 billion Muslims.”

The violent ones cannot speak for so many, he said.

Monsignor Michael Henchal, vicar general of the Catholic Diocese of Portland, insisted that Christians have their own difficult history.

“I think we should be very careful about throwing stones, because there’s an awful lot of glass around our house,” he said. 

He talked about Rome’s Jewish ghetto built by Popes, the expulsion of Jews and Muslims by the Catholic heads of Spain and the violent troubles in Northern Ireland, where Protestants and Catholics clashed.

“I don’t want to be forced to defend that,” Henchal said. “That’s cultural and political and economic. That had nothing to do with the Christian faith.”

Ashok Nalamalapu, who practices Hinduism and works in the Sadhana Spiritual Center in South Portland, was the most optimistic of the four.

His teachers have taught him that “all religions are good,” he said. All search for the divinity within us.

“Fundamentally, I believe that all religions say the same thing,” he said. “That is to be good and to do good.”

Nalamalapu also believes that the violence will one day end.

“Amazing things are happening in this world,” he said. “People are finding peace. People are stepping up. It’s a matter of time that people are going to live peacefully together.”

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