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| Dialogue among the Religions. The Vatican Prepares the Guidelines |
| 2008-06-12 |
| Enough with the ceremonies. And more conviction in proclaiming the Gospel. New signs of openness come from Saudi Arabia. Algerian philosopher Mohammed Arkoun criticizes the pope, but even more the cultural void in the Muslim world ROMA, June 11, 2008 – The plenary meeting that the pontifical council for interreligious dialogue held at the Vatican last week was the first of this pontificate, and took place with a new president – Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran – and with experts who were also newcomers to a great extent. And the aim of the plenary session was itself new: to develop new guidelines for the bishops, priests, and faithful in relating to other religions. This objective, Cardinal Tauran said, was decided "after many years of hesitation over its appropriateness." On Saturday, June 9, at the end of the three-day meeting, Benedict XVI received the participants in the Sala del Concistoro. He encouraged the publication of the guidelines because, he said, "the great proliferation of interreligious meetings in today's world requires discernment." This last word is used in ecclesiastical language to urge critical analysis and the choices that stem from it. In effect, the relationship with men of other religions has been and is being practiced in different and sometimes contradictory ways within the Catholic Church. In the Muslim countries, for example, the most widespread practice among Catholics is that of the silent testimony of Christian life. There are reasons of prudence that justify this practice. But against those who justify it always and everywhere, the congregation for the doctrine of the faith published a doctrinal note last December 3, presenting instead a thesis previously voiced by Paul VI in "Evangelii Nuntiandi" in 1975: "Even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run if it is not [...] made explicit by a clear and unequivocal proclamation of the Lord Jesus." The guidelines that the pontifical council for interreligious dialogue is preparing to publish will point in this direction. In introducing the plenary assembly, Cardinal Tauran said: "We know that the Holy Spirit works in every man and every woman, independently of his religious or spiritual creed. But on the other hand, we must proclaim that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God has revealed to us the truth about God and the truth about man, and for us this is the Good News. We cannot hide this truth under a bushel basket." Speaking to 200 representatives of other religions during his recent visit to the United States, Benedict XVI expressed himself no less clearly: "It is Jesus whom we bring to the forum of interreligious dialogue. The ardent desire to follow in his footsteps spurs Christians to open their minds and hearts in dialogue. [...] In our attempt to discover points of commonality, perhaps we have shied away from the responsibility to discuss our differences with calmness and clarity. [...] The higher goal of interreligious dialogue requires a clear exposition of our respective religious tenets." This does not eliminate the fact that there is common ground for action among men of different beliefs, as the guidelines will insist. Introducing the plenary session, Tauran also said: "The Ten Commandments are a sort of universal grammar that all believers can use in their relationship with God and neighbor. [...] In creating man, God ordered him with wisdom and love to his end, through the law written within his heart (Romans 2:15), the natural law. This is nothing other than the light of intelligence infused within us by God. Thanks to this, we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God gave us this light and this law at creation." During the same days when the pontifical council for interreligious dialogue was holding its plenary assembly at the Vatican, there were new developments in relations between the Catholic Church and Islam. In Saudi Arabia, in the holy city of Mecca, king Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud inaugurated on June 4 a conference of 600 representatives from the vast Muslim world, with the aim of "telling the world that we are the voice of justice and moral human values, of coexistence and dialogue." To this end, Abdullah confirmed his desire to "organize meetings with brothers belonging to other faiths," in particular Judaism and Christianity. Islamism, according to the Saudi sovereign, "has defined the principles and opened the road for a dialogue with the faithful of other religions," and this road "passes through the values common to the three monotheistic religions". These values "reject treason, alienate crime, and combat the terrorism" practiced by "extremists among [our] own people," who "have joined forces in a flagrant aggressiveness to distort the rightfulness and tolerance of Islam." Spoken by the king of Saudi Arabia – a nation of rigid Wahhabi Islamism and the place of origin of Osama bin Laden and of most of the authors of the attacks on September 11, 2001 – these words are of indisputable significance. At the Vatican, "L'Osservatore Romano" emphasized them in its reporting. Moreover, King Abdullah said that he had gotten the "green light" for his project of interreligious dialogue from the Saudi ulema, and that he wants to consult with Muslims of other countries as well about the possibility. At the conference in Mecca, he brought together in a single room the sheikh of the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, Sayyid Tantawi, a leading Sunni authority, and the Shiite ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president of Iran and member of the Assembly of Experts, the center of the regime's supreme power. In Israel, the proposals of King Abdullah were received favorably by the Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger, and the Sephardic chief rabbi Shlomo Amar. The final statement of the conference, called "The Appeal from Mecca," announced the creation of an Islamic center for relations among civilizations. This will organize moments of dialogue with representatives of other religions, cultures, and philosophies, and will promote the publication of books on this topic. |
| Posted by:mrp |