Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have made it clear that keeping a healthy connection with the Muslim community is a priority for the Papacy.

In a 1991 letter written by Pope John Paul II, addressed to "my beloved Muslim brothers and sisters," the Pope said this:

To all Muslims throughout the world, I wish to express the readiness of the Catholic Church to work together with you and all people of good will to aid the victims of the war and to build structures of a lasting peace, not only in the Middle East, but everywher...

I close my greeting to you with the words of one of my predecessors Pope Gregory VII, who in 1076 wrote to Al-Nasir, the Muslim ruler of Bijaya, present day Algeria: “Almighty God, who wishes that all should be saved and none lost, approves of nothing in us so much as that after loving him one should love his fellow, and that what one does not want done to oneself one should not do to others. You and we owe this charity to ourselves especially because we believe in and confess one God, admittedly in a different way and daily praise and venerate him, the Creator of the world and Ruler of this world.” (emphasis added).ⁱ

Pope John Paul II wrote this in 1999:

MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS ADORE THE ONE GOD

Like Christians and Jews, Muslims look upon Abraham as a model of submission to God's will and know that in God we find our origin and end...

Along the path marked out by Abraham in his submission to the divine will, we find his descendant, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, who is also devoutly invoked by Muslims, especially in popular piety...

We Christians joyfully recognize the religious values we have in common with Islam. Today I would like to repeat what I said to young Muslims some years ago in Casablanca: "We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection" (Insegnamenti, VIII/2, [1985], p. 497). The patrimony of revealed texts in the Bible speaks unanimously of the oneness of God (emphasis added).ⁱⁱ

John Paul also visited Syria in May 2001, prompting the following report:

Pope John Paul heads to Malta on Tuesday to beatify two priests and a nun, after a landmark journey to Syria in which he became the first pope to enter a mosque.

He urged Arabs and Israelis to be merciful and forgiving seekers of peace even amid news of more bloodshed in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, including the Israeli killing of a Palestinian baby girl in Gaza.

"We pray to you for the peoples of the Middle East. Help them to break down the walls of hostility and division and to build together a world of justice and solidarity," he said.

But the highlight of the Syria trip was when the Pope stepped into the Great Umayyad Mosque in the heart of the Old City of Damascus on Sunday.

After making history, the pope, who revolutionized ties with the Jews by visiting Rome's synagogue in 1985, said it was now time to turn the page with Islam too.

"For all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended one another, we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and to offer each other forgiveness," he said in his address to Muslim religious leaders.ⁱⁱⁱ

The Catholic News Service writes this in memory of John Paul II's ecumenical efforts:

More than any pontiff in modern history, Pope John Paul II made important overtures to non-Christian religions, using documents, prayer meetings and personal visits to open the doors of dialogue. Pope John Paul advanced the church's sometimes-difficult relations with Islam by visiting a mosque, speaking to Muslim groups on his foreign trips and insisting on full religious freedom in countries under Islamic law.

In August 1985, when he visited Morocco at the invitation of King Hassan II, he became the first pope to visit an officially Islamic country at the invitation of its religious leader.There, at a historic meeting with thousands of Muslim youths in Casablanca Stadium, he emphasized that "we believe in the same God, the one God, the living God." In May 2001, the pope became the first pontiff in history to enter a Muslim place of worship when he visited the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, Syria. He paused to pray at a memorial to St. John the Baptist inside the mosque in an event that was televised around much of the Muslim world.

Pope John Paul was convinced that prayer could bring believers together, an idea that inspired the 1986 World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, Italy.That unprecedented gathering at the pope's invitation drew leaders of Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Unitarians, traditional African and Native American religions and many others. Together, under the roof of the Basilica of St. Francis, they all prayed, side by side, with Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant leaders for world peace (emphasis added).^iv

In 2006, Benedict went so far as to pray in a mosque with Muslim people:

Pope Benedict ended a sensitive fence-mending visit to Turkey on Friday amid praise for visiting Istanbul's famed Blue Mosque and praying there facing towards Mecca "like Muslims."

His first visit to a mostly Muslim country, held under tight security for fear of protests by nationalists and Islamists, was highlighted by a series of conciliatory gestures culminating in a stop on Thursday afternoon in Istanbul's famed Blue Mosque.

Istanbul Grand Mufti Mustafa Cagrici, who prayed with him there, said Benedict had faced Mecca and stood like Muslims do when they pray aright. "These were very nice gestures," he told NTV television (emphasis added).^v

As we see from the table below, Allah and God cannot be the same entity. How can the Pope say that Muslims and Catholics worship the same God?

If God and Allah are not the same, what is the Papacy trying to accomplish by unifying Christians and Muslims? Is this the kind of unity God calls us to in Scripture, or merely another step towards accepting the New Age universal Christ said to satisfy all religions?