Building on this progress, Secretary Clinton and the OIC Secretary General last year brought together some 20 nations, international organizations and the Vatican in Istanbul to focus on combating religious intolerance.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House

He assumes the papacy at a time when religious intolerance is growing and will be tasked with shoring up confidence in an institution that has been rocked by the sexual abuse of minors by priests.

BBC: Humble Francis brings both change and continuity

Religious intolerance seems to be getting worse.

ECONOMIST: A Survey of Indonesia

Williams, who founded Rhode Island with a colonial charter that included religious freedom, knew intolerance firsthand.

CNN: Why U.S. is not a Christian nation

Saudi Arabia is Islam's birthplace and the ultra-conservative clerics who controlled the education system in the 1980s and 1990s preached a message of intolerance towards other religious groups and what they saw as heretical Muslim sects, a message they have since reformed.

MSN: Saudi steers citizens away from Syrian "jihad"

In this new age of diversity, we need ever more intercultural dialogue and ever deeper curiosity about others, in order to denounce cultural or religious stereotypes that are the seedbeds of intolerance.

UNESCO: OFFICE IN BRASILIA

Bush came back in South Carolina amid a divisive and bitter campaign that left McCain denouncing leaders of the party's religious conservative wing as "agents of intolerance, " and Bush went on to win the presidency.

CNN: McCain wins GOP nomination; Huckabee bows out