http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE49T54420081106
Catholics and Muslims to fight terror and defend faith.
Thu Nov 6, 2008 3:31pm By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Catholic and Muslim leaders at unprecedented Vatican meetings vowed on Thursday to jointly combat violence committed in God's name, to defend religious freedom and to foster equal rights for minority faith groups.
After three days of meetings, the 58 scholars and leaders -- 29 from each faith -- issued a joint declaration that also appealed for respect for religious figures and symbols.
The meetings came two years after the pope gave a speech hinting Islam was violent and irrational, sparking angry protests in the Middle East. The Muslim participants formed a group to challenge that and seek better mutual understanding.
The joint manifesto, A Common Word, called for dialogue based on shared principles of love of God and neighbor.
"We profess that Catholics and Muslims are called to be instruments of love and harmony among believers, and for humanity as a whole, renouncing any oppression, aggressive violence and terrorism, especially that committed in the name of religion, and upholding the principle of justice for all," said the statement describing the talks as "warm and convivial."
Religious minorities were "entitled to their own places of worship, and their founding figures and symbols they consider sacred should not be subjected to any form of mockery or ridicule," it said.
The Vatican has long defended minority Christians in places such as Saudi Arabia, where they cannot worship publicly, and urged safety for Iraqi Christians. Muslims in western countries say they face discrimination and suspicion by the majority.
The declaration's words about avoiding mockery or ridicule reflected continued Muslim concern about the 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that sparked violent protests in the Islamic world.
VAST FIELD FOR COOPERATION
Earlier in the day, Pope Benedict received the delegations at the Vatican and said the faiths should cooperate much more.
"There is a great and vast field in which we can act together in defending and promoting the moral values which are part of our common heritage," the German-born pope said.
"Let us resolve to overcome past prejudices and to correct the often distorted images of the other which even today can create difficulties in our relations," he added.
The Abu Dhabi-based Bishop of Arabia Paul Hinder said he discussed with Muslim delegates the Vatican wish's to build churches in Saudi Arabia for Catholic migrant workers there.
"I don't think we'll get any right away, but things are changing," he told journalists.
The Vatican has also participated in interfaith talks launched this year by Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, who will meet at the United Nations in New York next week with other heads of state to further promote his initiative.
These and other dialogues reflect a new urgency Muslim leaders have felt after the September 11 attacks, the "clash of civilizations" theory and the pope's 2006 speech in Regensburg showed a widening gap between the world's two largest faiths.
Benedict said the Catholic-Muslim Forum, the official name for this dialogue now set to take place every two years, was "now confidently taking its first steps."
The Catholic delegation included Vatican officials, Catholic scholars of Islam and bishops leading minority communities in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Three were women.
The Common Word group, an independent union of Islamic thinkers from across the Muslim word, sent Sunni and Shi'ite religious leaders and scholars from the Middle East, Africa, Asia and western countries, including two women.
Ingrid Mattson, a convert who heads the largest Muslim organization in North America, said the Common Word represented "the broad mainstream of the Muslim world ... Those who oppose us, their voices will become increasingly marginalized."
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Isn't it about time?
PEACE!
XOXO
Anne
I think so
ReplyDeleteSounds more like intimidation to me. Muslims are good at that. This will be one of those "we'll have to wait and see" moments in time.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure why these words resonate at this moment, but these mean something...
ReplyDelete"I lift my lamp beside the golden door"
I believe this is a (too) LONG awaited for opportunity.
There is a hope for peace. Is this not what we all ultimately want?
I wish everyone could know and appreciate that not all Muslims are bad people; just as all Catholics and Protestants are not all good people.
The references as such are too vague, and too prejudicial.
For in the end we ALL know God, whatever we choose to call Him while we walk on Earth.
XOXO
Me
This, from "The Catholic News Service"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801242.htm
Notice who had the gumption to bring this all about, to write to the Pope.
"The reality of engagement between believers of different traditions is overwhelmingly one of conviviality; but extremists on all sides veil this by using language of exclusion and contempt,"
Vatican, Muslim representatives establish Catholic-Muslim Forum
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Representatives of the Vatican and of the 138 Muslim scholars who wrote to Pope Benedict XVI last October proposing a new dialogue have established the Catholic-Muslim Forum.
The forum will sponsor a seminar in Rome Nov. 4-6 with 24 scholars from each side, according to a statement released at the end of a March 4-5 planning meeting at the Vatican.
Pope Benedict will meet with the seminar participants in November, the statement said.
Accepting the central topic suggested by the 138 in their letter to the pope and other Christian leaders, the seminar planners have said the theme will be "Love of God, Love of Neighbor."
The Nov. 4 session will focus on the theological and spiritual foundations of Christian and Muslim teachings about the obligation to love God and one's neighbor. The second day will focus on "human dignity and mutual respect" and the third day will be a conference open to the public, the statement said.
Aref Ali Nayed, director of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Jordan, told reporters at a press conference that "the atmosphere was quite positive and welcoming" during the planning meeting.
He said there was a discussion about comments by some Catholic leaders, including Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, that it was difficult or impossible to engage in a theological dialogue with Muslims. The 138 scholars have insisted they want to discuss common theological and spiritual principles and not focus on political or social questions.
"I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding which was clarified through the two days of meetings," Nayed said.
The Muslims did not refuse to discuss concrete social or political issues, he said.
"What we meant was that addressing social-political issues should be rooted in the revelation of God and in the theological teachings of our two communities," because believers judge situations based on their faith, he said.
While Nayed said many Muslims still were upset over Pope Benedict's use of a negative quote about Islam during a 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, the Common Word initiative -- as the dialogue between the Muslims and Vatican has come to be known -- was designed to help people look forward with hope.
"This whole initiative is about healing; it is about healing the wounds of a very pained and, in many ways, destroyed world," he said.
At the press conference, the Muslim delegates expressed their concern over the Feb. 29 kidnapping of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, and offered their prayers for his release.
"We also take this opportunity to remind our fellow Muslims that it is against the Prophet's (Mohammed) teaching to even touch religious leaders and monks and priests," Nayed said. "Religious leaders and religious symbols must be respected."
Nayed also said he understood that Pope Benedict was concerned about restrictions on religious freedom faced by Christians in some majority Muslim countries, but he hoped the Catholic-Muslim Forum would be a place where leaders from both sides could strengthen their commitment to religious freedom for all people without having the meeting turn into an exchange of "a list of grievances."
Mainly, he said, the Muslim scholar