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Religious leaders of many faiths talk peace in Assisi
Pope Francis greets the WCC general secretary in Assisi.
21 September 2016
Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist
religious leaders met this week in Assisi to discuss peace, while across
the ocean in New York City global political leaders assembled at the
United Nations also focussed on a troubled world.
The 18-20 September interreligious conference in Italy organized by
the Community of Sant’ Egidio was titled "Thirst for Peace: Faiths and
Cultures in Dialogue" and drew some 450 religious leaders.
Among participants were the general secretary of the World Council of
Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, and other leaders of the
ecumenical movement, such as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople,
Bartholomew; the WCC president for Europe, Archbishop Emeritus Anders
Wejryd; and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
Pope Francis participated in the closing ceremony of the World Day of
Prayer for Peace in Assisi on the afternoon of 20 September.
Quoting Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Francis said, “We
thirst for peace. We desire to witness to peace. And above all, we need
to pray for peace, because peace is God’s gift, and it lies with us to
plead for it, embrace it, and build it every day with God’s help.”
He said, “Our religious traditions are diverse. But our differences
are not the cause of conflict and provocation, or a cold distance
between us. We have not prayed against one another today, as has
unfortunately sometimes occurred in history.”
Continuing his remarks, the pope said, “Peace means welcome, openness
to dialogue, the overcoming of closed-mindedness, which is not a
strategy for safety, but rather a bridge over an empty space. Peace
means cooperation, a concrete and active exchange with another, who is a
gift and not a problem, a brother or sister with whom to build a better
world.”
The roots of religious extremism
Before a full conference hall, Tveit led a panel on terrorism and religious extremism, entitled “Terrorism – A Denial of God.”
“No one can claim the name of God to use terror or violence,” said
Tveit. “Terror is a blasphemy against God our creator, who created all
of us equally in the image of God. Terror is sin against other human
beings, against the sanctity of life, and therefore against God.
Tveit noted that, “The ideology underlying those attacks is a mixture
of political, cultural and surely religious justifications of violence.
A key factor is the denial of the humanness of the ‘others’ that become
the target.”
“Terror is not a matter of figures or pictures from somewhere, it is
about us as human beings. We can all become the victims of terror,” he
said, telling of how he himself escaped the terror attack in Bologna on 2
August 1980, and how he later was reminded of it when reading the list
of names in the new Bologna station years later. “I could not answer the
question why I should live and not the others on that list. I could
only answer the question: ‘What do I then do?’ My answer was to study to
become a pastor, to use my life in the service for God and all
humanity, sharing the Gospel, working for justice and peace.”
In terrorism, Tveit noted, “The transcendent, transformative and
holistic dimensions of religion are reduced to a totalitarian ideology
that justifies and imposes itself in destructive ways and does not
accept any responsibility for life-giving relationships beyond their own
group and even within their own group as a collective entity.
But religions themselves are part of the problem, he insisted. “We
should be critical and self-critical. There must be space for
self-critique and repentance, for constructive imagination that opens
doors for healing and reconciliation and the life-giving presence of God
who renews all life.” He ended by quoting Psalm 118:17: “I shall not
die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.”
Tveit also participated in a panel on economic inequality, reflecting
on how the increasing gap in income and wealth is at the heart of many
problems in the world. Christians must "mind the gap," he said. Tveit
referred to how faith in the one God, creator of all, based on the
biblical witness, compels us to work toward a fair distribution of
resources. The covenant and the Decalogue (Exodus 20-23) focused on
that, he said, as did the teaching of Jesus. We pray for our need, not
our greed.
The full conference programme included presentations from Nobel
laureates Jody Williams of the USA and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, along
with a lunch with Syrian refugees.
An ecumenism of mercy
At a homily during a Mass on the final day of the conference, Pope
Francis said, “Our heart is the heart of a man or woman of peace. And
beyond the divisions of religions: everyone, everyone, everyone! Because
we are all children of God. And God is the God of peace. There is no
god of war. He who makes war is evil; it is the devil who wants to kill
everyone."
Connecting the ecumenical quest for unity to the search for peace,
Archbishop Wejryd spoke on “Christian Unity: Ecumenism of Mercy,” noting
that Christians today can readily engage in mission together, “not
least in these areas of the world we used to call Christendom.”
“We, as humans, are sent to each other with individual deeds and a
responsibility to build better structures, and we are sent to bring the
biblical narrative that changed and changes the world.”
Wejryd said Ephesians 4 speaks of unity already a reality due to one Father and one baptism.
“And none of us Christians should be comfortable until we can
honestly and wholeheartedly celebrate together and share the Eucharist.”
Preconditions of peace
In his remarks, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said peace “needs a few cornerstones to uphold it even when it is endangered.”
He said, “There can be no peace without mutual respect and
acknowledgment…. There can be no peace without justice; there can be no
peace without fruitful cooperation among all the peoples in the world.”
Bartholomew said humanity needs to be able reflect on where it goes
wrong or where it has not taken care, “because fundamentalisms have
risen, threatening not only dialogue with others, but even dialogue
within our own selves, our very own consciences.
“We have to be able to isolate them, to purify them, in the light of
our faiths, to transform them into richness for all,” he said, Vatican
Radio reported.
Bartholomew was granted an honorary doctorate in international
relations by the University for Foreigners of Perugia during the
conference.
Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby reflected in an ecumenical prayer
ceremony on the misconception in today’s world that money makes one
rich.
“We think ourselves rich,” he said, “Our money and wealth is like the
toy money in a children’s game: it may buy goods in our human economies
which seem so powerful, but in the economy of God it is worthless. We
are only truly rich when we accept mercy from God, through Christ our
Saviour.”
The conference marked the 30th anniversary of the first interfaith
“World Day of Prayer for Peace” held in Assisi first under then-Pope
John Paul II, who has since been elevated to sainthood by the Roman
Catholic Church.
Assisi was the home of St Francis, in whose honour the current pope chose his papal name.
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