As Communities of Believers, In Orders That Others May Come To Our Faith or Come
To Close To It?
All of us here today are well aware that we
share a commitment to the faith of Abraham, there are nevertheless considerable
differences in the way our three religions envisage the relation of God with
man.
Judaism recognizes a covenant between God and his people; unlike the
Christians; however, Judaism does not accept Jesus Christ as the Mediator
between God and man. Islam, while recognizing Jesus as a prophet, does not
accept him as a Mediator. Indeed, a Muslim holds that he needs no intermediary
between himself and God. Every Muslim believer addresses God without an
intermediary, as is clearly expressed in the rites or the prayer ritual (Salat)
and in those of the pilgrimage to Makkah.
Islam is, however, a “missionary” religion in which each of the
faithful has the duty of proclaiming the message of God (da’wah). The
Christian religion is likewise missionary, in which between God and man there
exist bonds of filial love. While not excluding an openness to conversion,
Judaism would not, I think, normally consider itself missionary in the same
sense. But whatever the difference in approach between our religions, I would
like just to say that one thing on the matter of proclaiming of the religious
message: accepting the right of each of our religions of Abrahamic faith (and
naturally, the right also of other religions) to proclaim their message freely,
we must do it in such a way that freedom of others is always respected. God is a
God of freedom and does not ask for an adherence extorted by violence.
“Let the man who wants to follow me..” was the formula used by
Christ. He refused to invoke fire from heaven as some of his disciples one day
ask him to do; He said to them: “you do not know of what spirit you are”.
When he has honestly given witness to his faith and reach the frontier of the
human conscience, the apostle (be he Christian, Muslim, or whatever) must leave
to that conscience the full right of decision, excluding any form of the
constriction, be it open or hidden. There have been examples of the opposite in
the past; it is better to put these behind us and not repeat them. The essential
norm and condition for accepting a religion or not should be based on the human
person’s freedom of conscience.
My dear friends, there is not time for me to develop this point. I only
mention in passing that the Declaration of Religious Freedom published in 1965
after two years of intense debate and reflection, remains one of the major texts
of the Second Vatican Council. It expresses clearly in what way the Church to
which I belong is able to respect the freedom of other Churches and religions
without thereby diminishing in any way her commitment to the faith of Abraham
and the Gospel of Christ. I hardly need to add that in the United States this
principle or religious freedom is well understood since the Founding Fathers,
when framing the First Amendment in 1791, clearly affirmed the right of the
person and communities to the free exercise of religion in society.
But let me return to our main discourse. We do, I believe, have two clear
obligations to men and women who do not share our Abrahamic faith or who have no
religious faith at all. And it seems to me that these duties could be accepted
and practiced not only by those of us who are Christians, but also by our Jewish
and Muslim brothers:
a)
The first
duty is to open the way to a clear and loyal dialogue with all of our fellow
men. To open does not, of course, mean to impose! The substance of the book of
Martin Buber, “Life in Dialogue”, from which I quoted above, is summed up in
the phrase: “In the beginning there is relationship”. This reminds me of two
proverbs on a similar theme. One is the Arab proverb: “man is the enemy of
what he does not know”, and the other is an African proverb of the Wolof
people which says: “when you begin by dialogue, you reach a solution”.
Between our religions there have been too many periods of separation and
silence. Our Vatican Secretariats, one for Christian Unity, another for
Non-Christians (with two commissions, one for relations with Judaism, the with
relation with Islam, both of them established on the same day, 22nd
October 1974), another Secretariat for non-believers, together with the world
Council of Churches and so many other international organizations (among which I
limit myself to mentioning the Kennedy institute, the Interreligious Peace
Colloquium that is our host, the Standig Konferrenz von Judan, Christen and
Muslims in Europa, etc), are all bearing fruit in the exchange of ideas and
friendship. As one of the final statements of the Broumana Colloquium, organized
by the World Council of Churches in 1972, put it: “ the common search for the
will of God is growing”.
What will be the fruit of these increased meeting and dialogues? It is
difficult to say. What is certain is that they are not without value. As
Fr.Michel Lelong has observed in his recent book, “Deux fidelities, une
esperance”, “however serious political conflicts may be, it is
unacceptable that faith in God should aggravate them”. Even if the religions
themselves provide no solution, they must nevertheless always be elements
helping towards true and just peace.
b)
The
second duty is to do what can be done so that those who are believers in one God
nay attract and inspire others, and especially non-believers, to find faith in
him. It can never be repeated sufficiently that it is not a question of making
“ a solid front of believers against unbelievers”. That would, basically,
damage the very spirit of religion itself. The dialogues and the encounter of
our three religions of Abrahamic faith, and of these with other religions, must
be a joining of hearts before becoming a meeting of minds.
The Qur’an reminds the Muslims that “ the closest in friendship are
those who are not puffed up with pride”, and “ Be courteous when your argue
with the people of the Book”. A famous hadith says; ”No one among you
will be a true believer as long as he does not desire for his brother what he
desires for himself.” As far as Christians are concerned, St. Paul warns us:
“Let us cease judging one another”, and again: “Leave no claim outstanding
against you, except of mutual love”.
I should like to close with a final wish, a final hope. But rather than
doing this with my own pedestrian words, let me quote to you from three
different sources, each of them touching different aspects of our theme.
Firstly, a rabbinical teaching: “What in all of human speech is the
most fundamental phrase? I did not hesitate for a moment before crying out with
all my voice: “Listen Israel: the Eternal is out God, the Eternal is One! Is
not this the highest phrase of all, the phrase without equal in heaven and on
earth? Then I asked myself: but what in this sublime phrase in the most
fundamental word? I replied to myself that without any doubt it is the word “ekhad”,
meaning one. Finally I asked myself: And of all the words in human speech, which
would be the most eminent among those whose letters, when added together, have
the same numerical value as the holy word ‘ekhad’, whose value is thirteen?
I did have to search for long: at my fingertips, deep in my heart, at the centre
of my soul, there was the word ‘ahavah’: love”.
Secondly, a poem by the Senegalese poet and journalist Niaky Barry. It
expresses the desire to draw together, at least in the heart, our religions of
Abrahamic faith together with the other religions of mankind. I shall quote it
in French and then hazard a translation in English:
"Ah,
frere de l'universal- c'est dans le no yau central de ton'ame- que j'erigeri le
Sanctuaire du Dieu Ultime-d'ou Synagogue, Temple, Englise Mosquee-seront en
harmonie-dans les flots mouvants do ton elan vers l'lnfini".
"Ah, brother of all things- it is the
central reaches of your soul- that I will build the Sanctuary of the Everlasting
God- where Synagogue, Temple, Church and Mosque- will dwell in harmony- amidst
the surging waves of your longing and search for the infinite".
Thirdly and lastly, a poem by Edwin Markham. In his desire to unite all
in understanding and brotherhood, he has written these words, with which I
close:
"He
drew a circle that shut me out,
Heretic,
rebel, a thing to flout.
But love
and I have the wit to win;
We draw a
circle that took him in".
Editor Note:
No Muslim thinker has claimed that any exegesis can or did "
abrogate" any verse of the Qur’an. The Cardinal must have therefore meant
the supplanting of one exegesis with another in somebody's mind. However,
because of the frozenness of Arabic lexicography and syntax since the revelation
of the Qur’an, exegesis can indeed establish its conclusions critically.
