Angelo Scola - eng vers » Article

The Tibhirine monks related by the cinema: the reasons for a sucess

ufficiostampa — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:03:39 +0000

The film, Des hommes et des dieux which recently came out in France and recounts the extraordinary events of the of the monks killed at Tibhirine, has been hugely successful.

Card. Angelo Scola

Patriarch of Venice

This is an answer to those who ask whether a desire for God is still present in our times – whether it is reasonable for someone in the Third Millennium to believe in God, to recognize Him as familiar.

I believe that the worldwide success of the film on the Tibhirine monks reflects a burning desire in the men and women of any latitude to meet the face of God; it therefore reflects the real need we all feel for authentic witnesses who may help us keep our gazes focused upwards.

Authentic witness is, in fact, not limited to “giving a good example”. It shines in all its wholeness as a method for practically knowing reality and communicating truth. It is a primary value, standing above any other form of knowledge and communication – scientific, philosophical, theological, artistic, etc.

A luminous example of this method is offered by the very words which Fr Christian de Chergé, prior of the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame de l’Atlas in Tibhirine, Algeria, wrote in his spiritual will, a good three years before he was massacred with his monks: «When the time comes, I would like to be able to have an instant of lucidity that would allow me to ask for the pardon of God and that of men, my brothers, while forgiving with all my heart those who may have hit me… I cannot see how I could, in fact, rejoice in that this people I love could be accused of my assassination. It would amount to paying too high a price for what might be called “the grace of martyrdom”, to owe it to an Algerian, whoever this might be, especially if he should claim to have acted in faithfulness to what he believes Islam is […] after all, I would have been liberated from the most piercing curiosity I carry inside me: to plunge my gaze into that of the Father in order to see His Islamic children the way He sees them: all lit by the glory of Christ, they too as the fruit of His Passion, invested with the gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will be that of re-establishing communion and similarity by playing with differences. For this lost life of mine, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have wanted it whole just for this joy, contrary to all and despite all. And you too, my last-moment friend, who will not know what you would be doing, also for you I want to say my thanks, this à-Dieu [literally: “until we meet in God”], as I contemplate you in God’s face. That it may be given us to meet again, two thieves overwhelmed with joy, in Heaven, if that may please God, our Father, Father of us both».

What is one of the most beautiful pages ever written in the twentieth century gives us a full grasp of how Christian martyrdom contains the fulfilled expression of God’s account of Himself, the one He allows us to give about Him and in His name.

Martyrdom, a grace that God concedes to the helpless and that no one can demand, is an insuperable act of unity and mercy. It is the defeat of any eclipse of God, it is His return in fullness through His children’s offer of their lives. This self-surrender defeats evil, even the so-called “unjustifiable” evil, because it restores unity even with its perpetrator.

Just as Jesus takes our evil on Himself by forgiving us beforehand, so the martyr, like Fr Christian, embraces his murderer beforehand in the name of God’s own gift of love, recognized by everyone as at least absolute and transcendent.

Only a witness that is worthy of faith can move the other’s freedom and sternly invite him or her to make a decision. As Benedict XVI has effectively remembered, we become witnesses only when «through our actions, words and way of being, an Other appears and communicates His own Self».

The Thibirine monks provoke and move us because in their witness «God is exposed, so to speak, to the risk of man’s freedom».

The difficult and fascinating challenge of education. Patriarch Scola’s contribution for the International Meeting of the Italian Cultural Project

ufficiostampa — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:31:17 +0000

“Crises in teaching are not crises of teaching: they reveal a crisis of life and they are crises of life themselves.” Once again it is the genius of a poet like Péguy which, blowing away an array of cliches and superficial analyses, knows how to get to the heart of what at this point is recognived by everybody as the educational emergency. A question that has been chosen as a theme, studied and proposed as an educational challenge by the Cultural Project of the Italian Conference of Bishops, which has devoted to it its first Report-proposal (published as a book under the title The educational challenge, Laterza).

Péguy hits the target: where there is no adequate life nothing can be communicated, it is not possible to educate. The Report-proposal has been built and written based on the well-documented conviction that “the current crisis of education does not concern only single problems, but rather the idea we have of man and of his future. Hence, it is absolutely necessary not to limit ourselves to a sector-by-sector perspective on education, nor is it enough to reflect on pedagogical methods, but what is necessary is an anthropological and essential vision of the educational event as such.” In other words, education is a work that affects all the aspects and interests in a person’s life: family, school, the Christian community, work, business, consumption, the media, entertainment, sport… Nothing in man is left out of this work, because it radically concerns the elementary human experience which is made of work, affections, rest.

We have come to the point of talking about an educational emergency because something has gotten stuck, especially in “stuffed” Europe. In some sense the care between generations has been interrupted, the chain of transmission of a style of good life has broken, a style able to answer that desire for happiness and freedom that bites the heart of today’s men and women.

This fact pushes us to change. The first step is simple, even though certainly hard: the person of the educator has to be there. The adult is he who must give witness to the truth he is proposing. It is on the adult that befalls the responsibility to educate.

But once the subject is in place, to what should he educate? To values, is the habitual answer.

Perhaps there has never been a time when there as been as much talk about values as today. But the point is that it is not possible to educate to values by talking about values, but rather by making one have an experience of values. I cannot educate to friendship by stubbornly explaining the concept of friendship, but by making one have concretely the experience of friendship.

Many post-modern thinkers regard the cathegory of value as compromised. Not only do they cast doubt on the values that are typical of modernity, but they even deny the validity of the concept of value and reject the idea itself of a personal subject. It follows that a real educational enterprise (paideia) is no longer possible, but only instruction. The misunderstanding about the nature of values can be overcome by clarifying that they are not a “compilation of asbtract concepts” that have to be applied to life, but rather they are part of man’s indestructible elementary experience, of his/her constitutive relationship with people, things and circumstances. If value is what makes it possible to give meaning to human existence, values do not exist outside man.

Hence, education is impossible if it is separated from the relationship between the person and the community – and the one between both of them and the “ungraspable reality,” as Buber used to say – which is the relationship within which experience takes place, because a value can give life direction and meaning only inasmuch it is effectively communicated.

We understand, then, why the proprium of any educational experience lies, as pointed out before, in the “care of generations,” to be provided in the name of “a heritage to be passed on for new enrichment, on the basis of belonging to a common origin (genealogy),” as written in the Report-proposal. The chain of generations (nowadays stretching more and more often from gran-grandparents to gran-grandchildren) is where the person experiences the primary good of having a relationship. The promise of goodness that a child encounters since birth and in the initial relationships with his/her loved ones — “a basic relational experience which is affective and moral at the same time” — will be later called to fulfillment in the task of communicating and grasping the full meaning of life. Our children do not become men and women unless they are helped to discover this origin. Teenagers and young people, to whom are dedicated torrents of words (as scandalized as they are ineffective) whenever their uneasiness explodes in irrational and violent ways, need to live good relationships in order to learn to do good. In the family as well as at school or in places of shared social life, they must be able to rely on adults who are personally engaged with the truth, the beauty and the goodness that they propose.

To affirm experience as the essential factor for authentic education implies necessarily accepting and re-emphasizing the cathegories of risk and witness.

Education succeeds not when one applies correctly some fixed models, but when he who educates and the one being educated risk themselves in a free personal co-involvement. In encountering reality the one being educated experiences a risk because, even though he perceives the intrinsic positivity of reality itself, he may be hindered in his adhesion to the point of falling into skepticism. But the educator also is not spared a risk, since by communicating to the one who is educated he is called to expose himself, to witness in his own person the beauty of the values he is proposing. One educates– as St. Augustine said – only if he is able to reawaken the “teacher inside.” But in order to do that it is necessary to recognize that we ourselves are children of a teacher and a father, as Gilles Deleuze pointed out: “A teacher is not one who says “do this way,” but one who says “do with me,” in a relationship which is first of all of witness, and then of trust, of freedom between freedom and discipline.”

And again the spotlight falls on the adults: parents and educators are those who, in their concrete way of loving and working, witness to children the truth of life.

Press reaction to the birth of Asset (school of Advanced Studies Society Economy Theology)

ufficiostampa — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:45:19 +0000

The School of Advanced Studies Society Economy Theology (ASSET), created within the Studium Generale Marcianum of the Patriachate of Venice, is the object of an article by the italian Vaticanist Sandro Magister.

On September 5, Cardinal Scola opened in Venice an international conference entitled “The pluralist society,” with lectures by Italian and foreign scholars from different disciplines, Catholics and non-Catholics, from Massimo Cacciari to David Novak, from Ottfried Höffe to Cesare Mirabelli, from Ignazio Musu to Steve Schneck.

The conference marked the opening in Venice of a new study center called the “Alta Scuola Società Economia Teologia,” ASSET, which has the purpose of promoting interaction among the various disciplines, including theology, in confronting the crucial questions of a culturally “pluralist” world.

In introducing the conference, Scola invited Christians to identify and propose “common ground” on which to enact “noble compromises” among different positions. But this does not change the duty of these same Christians, whenever compromise is not possible, as in the case of abortion or of the family, to make use of conscientious objection and otherwise continue their “proclamation” in society at full voice, in the hope of a positive change.

The new Alta Scuola is the latest of a constellation of initiatives organized over the past five years by Cardinal Scola and collected under the banner of the Studium Marcianum, named after the holy patron of Venice, the evangelist Mark, including the international magazine “Oasis.” It will operate with seminars, cultural laboratories, summer courses, publications, annual lectures. The inaugural lecture, next December 17, will be delivered by the philosopher Robert Spaemann, of the University of Munich.

‘A good investment for the hope of peoples’. Cardinal Scola comments on the new encyclical “Charity in truth”

ufficiostampa — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:50:46 +0000

Charity in truth is ‘demanded by economic logic’ (CV, n. 36). Benedict XVI gives body to this statement when talking about the ‘principle of gratuitousness’ and ‘the logic of gift as an expression of fraternity’ (CV, n. 36) Thus, at a stroke, two cardinal features of the newness of the conception of ‘overall development’ proposed by this encyclical are identified.

The first relates the very idea of the economy which, as is repeated by many in this time of crisis, demands to be thought about anew. In what direction? Certainly in the direction of the ethics that the economy needs for its correct working. Benedict XVI, however, goes beyond this: ethics is a necessary but not sufficient condition for suitable economic logic. He even says that ‘the adjective “ethical” can be abused’ (CV, n. 45) and is often employed in such a general sense that it acts to cover up choices that are contrary to justice and to the common good founded on an adequate anthropology. The dignity of the person, the need for good relationships with other people and with God, thereby become constitutive elements of the economic sphere.

We are distant from a totalising vision of the economy, corrected at the most by the political power which is not, however, able to bear upon its structural dynamisms.

Evidently, categories such as ‘market, ‘company’, or ‘political authority’ are redesigned. They can be applied to the process of globalisation that is underway, a phenomenon that in itself is neither good not bad, as long as that process is guided by good life practice. There re-emerges the original value, which is connatural to man, of the economy itself: the government – according to its etymological roots – of the common home of the human family.

The second cardinal feature of the newness contained in this encyclical contains a creative force worthy of the radical changes that are required in this third millennium. Indeed, to speak about the ‘principle of gratuitousness’, dedicating an entire chapter to describing overall economic development in terms of fraternity, means not only to formulate a critique of how the relationship between ethics and the economy is usually understood but also to impede an overly general reference to anthropology. ‘Economic logic’ cannot be effected in a full way – and we will not exit from the crisis – if it does not know how to give space to the logic of gift. What does this consist of? This shines forth in the very title of this encyclical: charity in truth.

A gift, as an elementary experience specific to man, realises the demand for happiness that every person and every society brings with him or it. Charity, the self-giving that the Son of God made flesh accomplished on the cross for us, reaches every man. In the same way socio-economic autonomy is not called into question by this explicit reference to Jesus Christ. There is no desire for interference by the Church in the specific sphere of the economic and the social. If anything, the magisterium of the Pope, with the weight of a long tradition – one may think here of St. Benedict and St. Francis – but with the vigour required by the present time, invites the actors of this necessary thinking anew about the economic and the social to verify the validity of this proposal.

This encyclical does not fail to show some of its decisive features. First of all, the extending of the specific range of an economy of gratuitousness and fraternity from civil society to the market and the state: ‘Today we can say that economic life must be understood as a multi-layered phenomenon: in every one of these layers, to varying degrees and in ways specifically suited to each, the aspect of fraternal reciprocity must be present’ (CV, n. 38).

The three cornerstones of the social doctrine of the Church – the dignity of the person, the principle of solidarity, and the principle of subsidiarity – are thus revisited beginning with a concrete form of economic democracy. Gratuitousness should not be understood as the pure beauty culture of justice and the common good, without which, however, one can speak of nether charity nor truth. Benedict XVI leaves no room for doubt: ‘today it is clear that without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place’(CV, n. 38).
The consequences of such a vision are held up with a great deal of realism in this encyclical. Here reference can be made to two: a suitable conception of the market and the need to organise company theory and practice in a better way.

The market, and thus the market economy, are not in fact made by nature – they are made by culture. From this point of view, Caritas in Veritate reduces the weight of capitalism.
As regards companies, it postulates a market in which operate, with equal opportunities, not only the actors of private and public enterprise but also productive organisations with social goals and goals based upon mutual help.

Forty years after Populorum progressio, Benedict XVI locates the question of overall human development, which, as ever, cannot be postponed, within the context of the civilising of the economy. This also allows him to address in an effective way the subjects of rights and duties, life, the environment, hunger, the development of peoples, human cooperation, and technology.
Caritas in veritate represents a good investment for the hope of men and peoples.

An article published by Il Sole 24 Ore on 9 July 2009

Ratzinger Realism: the lesson of the eight days of Benedict XVI in the Holy Land. An article by the Patriarch of Venice

marialauraconte — Sun, 17 May 2009 08:25:52 +0000

A lesson in realisim. Such were the eight days of Benedict XVI in the Holy Land. With intrepid courage he placed his hand on the burning contradictions of that grieving land, with the inflexible energy of one who does not give up because he knows that he can build with new bricks. He risked in the first person without worldly calculations of success or failure. His journey was a priori ‘politically incorrect’.
Whence this realism? Benedict XVI placed himself in a long line of Christian pilgrims to the holy places. He walked in the footsteps of the Son of God made flesh, who died and rose again. He trod the palpitating footprints of the suffering of the Christians who live there.
In the name of the whole of the Catholic Church he embraced the Christian communities of that strip of the Middle East, “‘lit candles’ that light up the holy places”. But this embrace – specifically because carried out in the name of he who is the Way to the Truth and Life – involved, albeit necessarily at a different level, those Jewish and Muslim brethren who live in that land, given by the father to everyone – Abraham. It is the universal claim of Christ that leads the Christian faith to comparison with every religion, with every vision of the real.
Here in synthesis is how I read the journey of Pope Benedict XVI to the Holy Land: a pilgrim out of humble, intelligent courage, he wanted to be the Pietrine protagonist of the whole of the Church. At Yad Vashem he immediately involved in his pain the “Catholic Church, committed to the teachings of Jesus and intent on imitating his love for all people”, which “feels deep compassion for the victims remembered here”. The force of his silence in that abyss of pain and his all-consuming invocation that no name of a victim of that abominable Nazi extermination should be lost did not seek to be one made by Joseph Ratzinger alone but much more powerfully one of all Christians called, beyond their limits, to fraternal solidarity with the chosen people. I have never forgotten the words which Cardinal Henri de Lubac said to me in faraway 1985: if Christianity has to acculturate, given that at our roots there is the Jewish people, then one must acculturate in the history, which is still underway, of this people.
The singular and privileged bond that unites Christianity to Judaism found a significant expression in the comment that the Pope offered on a passage from the Prophet Isaiah. For obvious reasons, the subject of security is especially felt in Israel and is continually evoked in internal debate. This is, therefore, a quintessentially political subject, perhaps the subject of this season in the Middle East, and the Holy Father chose not to withdraw from the analysis. However he did so approaching it from a very special perspective: that of Holy Scripture. In the language of the Jewish Bible, security and trust – he observed to President Peres – are strictly connected. For Scripture there is no security without trust. Could one imagine a more topical lesson? ‘His mercies are not spent’: from perhaps the most tragic book of the Bible, Jeremiah, Benedict XVI, drew his invitation to hope.
In Jordan a decisive commitment in favour of dialogue appeared evident in the words that Prince Ghazi addressed to the Pope at the al-Hussein Ibn Talal mosque. At the heart of the speech of the Prince, something that is totally surprising for we Westerners, was a cardinal value of the Middle East: that hospitality that evokes the essentially relational nature of human society.
On the raised mound around the mosques in Jerusalem, Benedict XVI took up the subject of dialogue and referred to the faith in the One Creator and to the figure of Abraham: “The Dome of the Rock draws our hearts and minds to reflect upon the mystery of creation and the faith of Abraham. Here the paths of the world’s three great monotheistic religions meet, reminding us what they share in common. Each believes in One God, creator and ruler of all. Each recognizes Abraham as a forefather, a man of faith upon whom God bestowed a special blessing”.
The Pope addressed the burning question of inter-religious dialogue through two cornerstones. Turning to the relationship between reason and religion, Benedict XVI strongly stressed the need for each to be purified by the other. Religion must allow itself to be questioned by religion so as not to fall into superstition or to be used by political power, but reason, too, must know how to open itself up to the dimension of the Absolute. A reason blind to the divine: this is the great risk that in today’s world believers are called to avert with their shared witness. Secondly, Benedict emphasised that “the particular contribution of religions to the quest for peace lies primarily in the wholehearted, united search for God. Ours is the task of proclaiming and witnessing that the Almighty is present and knowable even when he seems hidden from our sight”.
Two phrases in this speech struck me in particular because of their ability to adhere to the provocations of reality: the search for God as a condition for peace and the urgent need for personal and community witness. It is within this framework that the peremptory statement of the Holy Father at the Aida refugee camp should be placed: “Your legitimate aspirations for permanent homes, for an independent Palestinian State, remain unfulfilled…In a world where more and more borders are being opened up – to trade, to travel, to movement of peoples, to cultural exchanges – it is tragic to see walls still being erected”.
But to end what seems to have left the most impression during the whole of the itinerary of the Pope in a land which is an open nerve of mankind was his care, charged with hope, for the inhabitants of the Holy Land. “Your homeland”, and these are the words of Benedict XVI spoken during the Holy Mass at Bethlehem, “needs not only new economic and community structures, but most importantly, we might say, a new “spiritual” infrastructure, capable of galvanizing the energies of all men and women of good will in the service of education, development and the promotion of the common good. You have the human resources to build the culture of peace and mutual respect which will guarantee a better future for your children. This noble enterprise awaits you. Do not be afraid!”
The sensitive and intense face of the Pope, keeling in front of the cleft in which was driven Jesus’ cross, more than closing this pilgrimage opened up for all men of good will an effective pathway to untie the Middle Eastern knot. The simple will certainly know how to find it. Will the powerful of this world want to learn from the meek, constructive energy of Benedict XVI?

The Patriarch of Venice, father of Oasis Foundation, and the “popular Islam”. An interview by John Allen Jr.

ufficiostampa — Sat, 24 May 2008 09:36:04 +0000

“This is a problem typical of our globalized society. We’re seeing an unprecedented encounter of people, cultures and religions, which is what I have in mind when I use the phrase meticciato di civiltà - a “hybridization of civiliations.” It’s a historical process currently underway, and its results are by no means certain. There are blendings that work, and blendings that don’t.

The critical point is this: What happens to our identity as a people if a significant bloc begins to call it into question, either because they belong to another religion or because they convert? In some majority Muslim nations, a certain degree of diversity can be tolerated for those who are born into another religion, but the feeling is that the identity of the country would be threatened if those who are born Muslims had the possibility of converting. It’s interesting to note the choice frequently presented to these converts: if you want to leave Islam, you also have to leave the country. The assumption seems to be that the personal dimension of faith interests us up to a point, but we want to avoid the ‘scandal’ of a public gesture”…

John Allen, Jr. is a National Catholic Reporter and analyst for the CNN.
Though the parallel shouldn’t be pushed too far, in some ways Christian/Muslim relations today might be compared to where things stood with personal computers back in the early 1980s. Everybody knew PCs were the future, but they wouldn’t change the world until a simple, appealing, and reasonably standard way of making them work emerged.
Then Apple released the Macintosh in 1984, followed by Microsoft’s first version of Windows a year later. Overnight, personal computing went from a hobby to a necessity, and we woke up in the digital age.
In a similar fashion, everybody knows today that dialogue with Islam is critical to the future. The “market,” however, has not yet settled on a clear model for how it ought to work – who we should be talking to, what we should be talking about, and what we should expect from those conversations. Until that happens, Christian/Muslim relations will remain a bit like the early days of computing … the rarefied pursuit of experts typing in strings of DOS commands to run even simple operations.
So, is there a potential “Windows” of Christian/Muslim relations out there?
One intriguing candidate is the “Oasis” project of Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice, an attempt to foster a global network of contacts among Christians and Muslims, attaching special importance to the voices and experiences of Christians who live in majority Muslim nations across the Middle East, Asia and Africa. While Oasis sponsors academic conferences and a journal, it’s also devoted to giving voice to real-life experiences of ordinary people, not just intellectual experts and the professional artisans of dialogue.
In light of the fact that Scola, 66, is widely considered a rising star in Catholicism, his patronage alone makes Oasis worth watching.
Launched in September 2004, Oasis is also sponsored by four other cardinals: Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, France; Josip Bozanic of Zagreb, Croatia; Péter Erd of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary; and Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria. None are identified with what one might consider “soft” positions on Catholic teaching or practice. That distinguishes Oasis from some other initiatives, which bring the avant-garde of different traditions into conversation, but not the mainstream. Among other things, Christian leaders who gravitate around Oasis are often willing to challenge Muslims on issues of reciprocity and religious freedom more forcefully than one sometimes finds in other inter-religious forums.
Scola has said that his aim is not primarily to reach out to “moderate Muslims,” but rather to “popular Islam,” meaning ordinary believers deeply attached to Islamic traditions who nevertheless do not subscribe to radical forms of jihad.
In June, the “scientific committee” of Oasis will meet in Amman, Jordan. The theme is “the relationship between truth and freedom,” with specific attention to freedom of conscience and religion, and how the value of religious freedom can be reconciled with respect for the religious tradition of a given people.
Information about Oasis can be found here: http://www.cisro.it/pages/home_en.html
I recently had the chance to talk with Scola about Oasis and the Amman meeting. The following are excerpts from our exchange.
* * *
Your meeting in Jordan will focus on two values, religious freedom and the traditional identity of a given people. The tension between those two values seems steadily more acute in today’s world. In your view, what are the basic principles for striking the right balance?

This is a problem typical of our globalized society. We’re seeing an unprecedented encounter of people, cultures and religions, which is what I have in mind when I use the phrase meticciato di civiltà – a “hybridization of civiliations.” It’s a historical process currently underway, and its results are by no means certain. There are blendings that work, and blendings that don’t.
The critical point is this: What happens to our identity as a people if a significant bloc begins to call it into question, either because they belong to another religion or because they convert? In some majority Muslim nations, a certain degree of diversity can be tolerated for those who are born into another religion, but the feeling is that the identity of the country would be threatened if those who are born Muslims had the possibility of converting. It’s interesting to note the choice frequently presented to these converts: if you want to leave Islam, you also have to leave the country. The assumption seems to be that the personal dimension of faith interests us up to a point, but we want to avoid the ‘scandal’ of a public gesture.
On the other hand, the modern liberal state is equally unprepared for this question, because it regards only the individual as an interlocutor, and thus thinks solely in terms of individual rights. It’s far more difficult to consider the social implications of individual choices. In the end, this leaves many people unprepared for change and disconcerted by it. We see this clearly on the issue of immigration, where it’s as if many people today are saying: ‘What’s happening? You told us that it was all a question of the individual ideas of immigrants, and everyone is free to think whatever they believe. All of a sudden, however, these individuals have become a foreign body, and we don’t recognize them anymore.’
If we want to overcome this impasse, the solution, it seems to me, must be sought in the recognition of a good that’s also at the basis of every difference, which is the good of relationship. We have to emphasize our common humanity, and to do that, we need to expand the scope of both reason and freedom.

How does the issue of ‘reciprocity’ enter into the discussion?

In majority Muslim nations, [Christians] certainly don’t want to put the dominant social tradition, the social fabric, at risk. To be clear, we [in Europe] ask for the same respect for our traditions from those who arrive to live among us.
Respect for the identity of a given community, however, shouldn’t be invoked to violate the human freedoms of single persons. In the end, what’s the point of compelling people to remain in a religion in which they no longer believe? Is explicitly walking away truly more damaging to the community than a false profession of belief? This is the kind of frank discussion we hope to have with our Muslim interlocutors.

Why the choice of Amman? Do you believe that Jordan has something to teach us on the question of religious freedom and traditional identity?

Jordan is a country that’s 97 percent Muslim, but where the Christian minority faces a situation that, despite some shadows, is without a doubt basically positive, especially compared to other parts of the region. It’s a country that’s fairly poor in terms of natural resources, yet it has a higher standard of living compared to several of its neighbors which are theoretically more endowed with natural wealth. In many ways, therefore, it’s a living example of what the Middle East could be, if the logic of recrimination were abandoned and the path to modernization were opened. In this regard, the support that various members of the Royal Family are giving to dialogue among Muslims, as well as Christian-Muslin dialogue, is universally recognized and appreciated.

In the Middle East today, there’s great fear for the Christian future, above all in the Holy Land. Do you see any signs of hope?

The situation is certainly very difficult. Despite that, every time that I have the chance to meet with our Christian brothers in the Middle East, for example during our Oasis meetings, I’m struck by their tenacity and their willness to keep going. In various editions of our magazine, we’ve amply documented the notable exodus of Christians [from the Middle East], but we don’t want to surrender to the logic of lament or regret. The local bishops have repeatedly affirmed that a Christian who doesn’t understand the special role providence has assigned to him or her, being born and growing up in a prevalently Muslim environment, is potentially a Christian who will emigrate. We want to do our part to build up such an understanding.

Oasis has a ‘preferential option’ for Islam. Today’s threats to religious liberty, however, go well beyond the borders of the Islamic world. There are serious problems, for example, in India and China. Is there a risk that in the West, religious freedom has come to be seen almost exclusively as an ‘Islamic problem,’ thus contributing to the idea of a ‘clash of civilizations’?

Certainly religious freedom – which is a fundamental value, and can’t be reduced simply to liberty of cult – must be defended everywhere, and therefore not just in majority Muslim nations. At the same time, it’s true that religious freedom represents an important unsolved dilemma in the relationship between Islam and modernity. For this reason, I believe it has to be faced in an urgent way by Muslims themselves.

You’re committed to dialogue with Islam. In particular, you’ve said in various ways that your interest is not so much ‘moderate Islam,’ but ‘traditional Islam.’ How is this effort to build bridges with traditional Islam going?

I think it’s too early to start drawing conclusions. In any event, our option is rather for the Islam of the people, which can’t be understood exclusively in terms of the category of ‘moderate Islam.’ The term ‘Islam of the people’ simply designates as clearly as possible with whom we’tre trying to speak. Moderate Muslims have the possibility of exercising influence only if, and to the extent that, they accurately interpret (and perhaps stimulate an evolution in) the sense of the faith held by common people, meaning the grassroots religiosity that really sustains the life of populations facing situations that are often very difficult. Anyone who’s spent even a little time in the Middle East understands this.

Oasis has been around now for almost five years. What fruits do you see so far?

The most beautiful fruit is the gradual construction of a community that embraces Christians from West and East who have intense ties, even though of widely varying sorts, with Muslims. Our hope is that this community will continue to mature.

* * *
Source: John L Allen Jr’s blog http://ncronline.org/users/john-l-allen-jr

“An encouraging sign”: Scola on the open Letter to the Pope by 138 Muslim Leaders. An interview by Il Foglio

ufficiostampa — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:27:45 +0000

In this exclusive interview granted to Il Foglio, the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, opens to the spirit of the letter of 138 Islamic sages, “A common Word between us and you”, thus putting an end to the discretion observed by the Church up to now. The one exception to that discretion is Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, who last Saturday told Il Foglio, «it is a non polemical document, signed by sunnis and schiites, full of citations from the Old and New Testament». He added: «I was impressed by the fact, probably without precedent, that the citations concerning Jesus Christ were taken from the Gospels and not from the Koran». «A most encouraging sign, as it demonstrates that good will and dialogue are capable of overcoming prejudices. It is a spiritual reflection on the love of God», remarked Tauran. The ecclesial reserve was noted also by the international press agencies, beginning with Reuters.

«The document is certainly an encouraging sign», Cardinal Scola tells Il Foglio. «Above all what is of note is the number and quality of those who have signed the document. This is not only a media event, because consensus is for Islam a source of theology and law. The redactors of Oasis have told me that even if those who have signed avoided a juridical formulation to the document, it is still true that no text produced by the most extremist salafi groups has ever been able to claim a consensus equal to that witnessed by the 138 signatures at the bottom of the open letter. The approach is realistic, ‘if Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace’, and at its core it simply aims to ‘say to Christians that we, as Muslims, are not against them and that Islam is not against themso long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their
Religion’. In that sense, the Muslim leaders willingly identify themselves with those ‘others’ of whom Jesus says: ‘who is not against us is with us’».

For the first time a large number of scholars of Islam seem to break with the culture of rejecting the West and non Muslims. «The document, in the prospective of that double love, of God and one’s neighbour, underscores a vein of the Muslim tradition which has been partially placed in the shade due to the growth of fundamentalism. The text affirms that man has ‘mind or the intelligence, which is made for comprehending the truth; the will which is made for freedom of choice, and sentiment
which is made for loving the good and the beautiful’. On the other hand, one notes between the lines a condemnation of terrorism: ‘to those who nevertheless relish conflict and destruction for their own sake or reckon that ultimately they stand to gain through them, we say [...] to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony’. The fact that the text is rooted in the Muslim tradition is very important and makes it more credible than other proclamations expressed in a more western language».

In the introduction the 138 record that “together we represent 55 per cent of the world’s population”, a very tactical and political approach. Also for this reason Cardinal Tauran stated that the letter opens new roads, but it needs to be studied thoroughly in order to make it more objective and not selective, more universal and less political. Instead of criticizing the letter, Scola however prefers to speak «of a possible necessary limitation of perspective. One cannot ask of this document more than it can give. It is only the prelude to a theological dialogue, which, in an atmosphere of greater reciprocal esteem, proposes to investigate the contents of the two pillars (love of the one God and love of neighbour) in the two religious traditions».

A year ago in Cairo the Patriarch organized a meeting of the biannual journal, Oasis, with the title, “Fundamental Rights and Democracy”, in collaboration with the University of Al Ahzar, Catholic dignitaries, western academics and members of the World Jewish Congress. «This theological dialogue is in no way possible if there is not a preceding respect», continues Scola. «I had the occasion to discuss publicly at Cairo and in the USA with three signers of the document: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, Muzammil H. Siddiqui, and I was able to ascertain that this reciprocal esteem is real. The hope is that this document might be read and widely diffused in the Muslim world and in the West».

Can one sustain that the letter is a demonstration that Benedict XVI opened a great debate at Regensburg? «Certainly, the intervention of the Pope provoked a dynamic of great interest within Islam. As the same signers recognize, the interconnection between Christians and Muslims in the contemporary world is such to make it impossible not to take a position concerning the coexistence between different faiths». Dialogue with Islam seemed to have stopped to the point of death. «The document indicates an important point of departure for an authentic dialogue. That always requires two conditions: the revelation of self in testimony and the search for a life that is good (vita bona). It seems to me that the signers of the letter are decidedly going in this direction from the moment that they invite Christians to a type of ‘spiritual emulation’, in a task to do the best: ‘Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works’».

Catholics Ponder Muslim Coexistence. The work of Scola and Oasis told by Time

ufficiostampa — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 10:31:56 +0000

While summer tourists floated through Venice’s timeless splendor this week, the city was also hosting some visitors with little time to waste. Among them was the bishop from Jerusalem warning of the “hemorrhaging” of Christians from the Holy Land. Another prelate told of a letter sent last month by pro-Taliban elements to 50 Pakistani Christian families in the Afghan border town of Charsadda, offering them the choice between converting to Islam or being killed. And, amidst the mass exodus of Iraqi Christians and the recent killing of two priests by Muslim radicals, the Archbishop of Kirkuk had to cancel his trip to Venice, although his RSVP email was read aloud: “We don’t have Christian militias to defend ourselves,” wrote Archbishop Louis Sako. “The situation is getting worse, and I must stay with the faithful during these bad times.”

It was the challenge of Christian coexistence with Muslims that formed the focus of this week’s gathering of 15 Catholic leaders and scholars from Islamic-majority countries who made it to Venice this week. And nowhere is that challenge more acute than among Christians living in Muslim countries. Says Fouad Twal, Coadjutor Archbishop of Jerusalem: “We ask that when Western leaders make decisions concerning the Middle East, they also consider the presence of Christians there. Rarely does anyone ask our opinion, for we can be of great help,” says Twal. “We are rooted in the region. The Muslim world is our world.”
One Western leader who has made a point of listening to the concerns of the Christians of the Muslim world is Venice’s Cardinal Angelo Scola, host of the two-day encounter at the 17th century Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. Scola is rapidly becoming Catholicism’s most influential voice beyond the Pope himself on matters related to the Muslim world. From Venice, which for centuries has served as a bridge betweeen civilizations, the Cardinal founded Oasis, a cultural and study center and twice-annual journal that gathers perspectives from Catholics in Muslim countries. The initiative is both as a way to safeguard the rights of Christian minorities, and to promote mutual understanding between the Church and Islam.

“We gain knowledge about the different forms of Islam by starting with what the Christians living in these various realities suggest to us,” Scola said. In the past, many in the Vatican hierarchy believed it was too risky to raise the issues of religious liberty and violence in Islamic countries. “Sometimes we have been too timid,” Scola said. “We can’t stay quiet. We want the encounter. It is vital to distinguish fundamentalism not just from the so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims, which can be an ambiguous term, but from the masses in the Islamic world.”
Scola hopes that working with Christians in Islamic countries will also help Europe better face the challenges post by its growing Muslim immigrant population. Focused on what he calls the “hybridization” of cultures that comes with mass migration, Scola says the challenge is finding a balance between integrating new populations and maintaining the identity of the native culture.

The current level of political tension in a number of different Muslim countries placed much of the event’s attention on issues of security and violence. Several of the prelates asked not to be identified by name or country, fearing reprisal. One bishop said: “Extremists are very much still in the minority, but the situation is deteriorating, and there is more and more intolerance. Being here and listening to others, a similar picture emerges. The fundamentalists are networking.”
Though controversial, Pope Benedict XVI’s speech last September in Regensberg about faith, reason and violence continues to be cited as a turning point in the Muslim-Christian debate. Scola, who has known the Pope since 1971, expands on the ideas in the Regensberg address. “Violence is not in itself a sign of the absence of religion. It occurs when the worst poisons of the surrounding culture have infested religion,” says Scola. “You need a strong link between faith and reason in order to purify religion.”

Cairo-born, Beirut-based Professor Samir Khalil Samir, a Jesuit expert on Islam, says that Benedict is “going farther(and) deeper” in his approach toward the Muslim world than Pope John Paul II. “He does not want to reduce or to chill the dialogue,” Samir says of Benedict. “But he is looking for a dialogue that is real, rather than diplomatic. We are not looking for conflict, but we’re also not going to avoid the hot points.”
byJeff Israely

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1636286,00.html

Between the East and the West a Mexican Suggestion. A new step to study the “meticciato” of civilizations and cultures. A Scola’s article

ufficiostampa — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 10:06:28 +0000

Man walks when he has a good idea of where he is going. However where for the Christian, and generally for religious man, the destination is clear the eternal life towards which from this very moment we are walking nobody can dispose a priori of the steps that lead to it. We do not possess the future. For this reason, we abandon ourselves with reasonable faith to God who is its master, adhering, through circumstances and relationships, to His design of good for the whole of mankind. This religious reading of history permits a sober critical capacity in relation to the present and requires a strong sense of the past.

Oasis each issue of this review well reminds us that the choice of the title is connected with the famous statement of John Paul II in his address in Damascus at the Omayyade Mosque on 6 May 2001 indicates here a precise pathway. That of an encounter with merciful God, with our brothers and with our sisters within the bond of religion. It will not be useless to remember, as well, that the method with which we want to operate a dialogue to the full in relation to the questions and issues that derive from the process of an unprecedented mixing of peoples, is that of passing humbly through the presence of minorities, who are tested but intensely witness-bearing, made up of our Christian brethren. The effectiveness of this method has already been documented on a number of occasions at the level of its capacity to force we Christians of the West to go beyond the intellectualism that afflicts us endemically, and to provoke our brethren of the East to take on to the full the task of accompanying us to the encounter with religions, and in a particular way with Islam in its various forms.

In the first issue of this review, with a ‘bold metaphor’ we spoke about the ‘inevitable imposition of a kind of hybridisation of civilisations’. And we went on by detailing
this hybridisation in a figurative sense as a ‘mixing of cultures and spiritual facts that are produced when different cultures enter in contact’, concluding, however, that ‘we have in common human nature on which is based the family of peoples’. At a distance by now of almost three years since those first statements, it was necessary to explicitly focus in on this interpretative category. We did this during the annual meeting of the scientific committee, an occasion for an assessment, both theoretical and practical, of the objective limits within which to maintain or forgo the thesis of hybridisation; many of the articles that follow are the outcome of this shared work.
The choice of the category of hybridisation had in me the character of an intuitive in-ventio which was provoked in me by a question posed by a journalist. It was not born from the study of the literature in the field but rather from my trips in Mexico and in particular from a consideration of the strongly hybridised character of the Mexican people. Recourse to this category also arose from the dissatisfaction that the employment of traditional terms such as identity, dialogue, integration, multiculturality and even interculturality continued to produce in me in the face of the many forms that the process takes.

Historical processes first and foremost belong to the order of events and are thus in the final analysis unpredictable and uncontrollable. However, because of the interaction and duration of the factors that make them up, not only can they be better known about but they can also, within certain limits that definitely cannot be established a priori, be directed. The process of the hybridisation of civilisations and cultures as well, albeit with its tumultuous and often violent realisations, demands to be addressed with this positive critical aptitude. In the final analysis it is based upon a dual firm belief to which we have referred in the past on a number of occasions. First of all, the aspiration to the universality and the constitutive unity of the human heart, which is made for truth. The elementary human experience, which is common to all men of all times and cultures, is the most striking confirmation of this. Each man and each woman, every day, lives by affections, by work and by rest. These are the symbols of a universal dynamic language that never ceases to make the members of the human family brothers. And we well know the reason. This and this is the second belief lies in the fact that a Father opened His home by creating the whole of mankind and, lovingly welcoming us from everywhere, He is taking us to His home with open doors. God guides history with a precise design which the contradictory movements of our freedom and the power of freedom of evil cannot, in the end, resist. He wants all men to be saved, He wants them to be ‘sons in the Son’. The human adventure of the freedom of every individual and of every people only demonstrates the profundity of the love of God who chose, in order to communicate Himself, to pass, with the cross of Christ, through finite freedom and constant wandering.
This state of things calls us to the responsibility of the hard work of reading historic circumstances. A reading that can never avoid self-exposition witness. Religions and cultures, in their insuperable polarity of the universal and the particular, are within this unitary design. Indeed, they exalt it in the interplay of differences which through the power of the Trinitarian event exist, ultimately, solely in unity. Unity, and thus universality, is the alpha and the omega of history because it does not fear difference, given that it lives in a perfect and non-contradictory way in the same supreme foundation (the Trinity). From where and why in the final analysis does a religion arise if not from the humble recognition that the mystery of God goes beyond all human understanding? ‘Si comprehendis, non est Deus (Augustine). ‘Incomprehensibile incomprehensibiliter comprehenditur’ (The in-comprehensible [the foundation] becomes understood in-comprehensibly: a formulation taken from a passage of De Trinitate of St. Augustine, echoed by Anselm in his Monologion and by St. Thomas in Summa). This is the way in which the mystery of God attracts us to It as is demonstrated, in a freely-given and splendid way, by the wonders of Christian Revelation. This takes place at the level of personal intelligence but what applies to personal intelligence, which is anyway an ‘incarnated’ intelligence and solidarity-inspired in relation to the whole of humanity, takes place also for cultures and religions, which in essential terms are nothing but a personal and communitarian expression of the self-awareness of a specific people. Thus God after a fashion gives Himself to men, all of whom are marked by an inextirpable religious sense. He gives Himself fully in Jesus Christ, His living and personal Revelation. He, as the Second Vatican Council puts it, comes ‘for all men of good will , in whose heart grace works invisibly’ [GS 22].

This means that Christian Revelation is by its nature meta-cultural As Fides et ratio states in sections 70-72, it can be received in every form of culture and specifically for this reason it cannot be reduced to any specific culture. The Revelation of the One and Triune God is revelation of the Ineffable, it is like the burning bush of Moses that is never consumed, to which one cannot draw near in a direct way without covering one’s face, without taking off one’s shoes. Cultures and religions are like the veil and the shoes of the history of mankind. Nothing more and nothing less. Something that historically cannot be renounced but which is never absolutely definitive. This vision, emphasised authoritatively in Fides et ratio, is extraordinarily important because it is doubly liberating. On the one hand, it makes us understand that the conversatus est cum hominibus of God in Jesus Christ proclaims the infinite mercy of the Absolute in relation to our contingency. This is embraced to the point of the lowest and most secondary cultural and religious expressions of the customs and life of a people, and sent on into eternity. On the other hand, the otherness in which mystery maintains itself opens up to the human experience the critical capacity for purification and possible detachment from cultures and religions, according to the insuperable methodological principle enunciated by Paul: ‘test everything; hold fast what is good’ [I Th 5:21]. The proclaiming of the love-logos in John, the incarnated Son of God, Jesus Christ, very God and very man, allows those who adhere to this in the faith to appreciate to the full cultures and religions specifically, also, by forgoing what shows itself to be perishable.

These notations appear at first sight to be more referable to the category of interculturality than to that of hybridisation. At first sight the category of interculturality seems to allow the more effective construction of a shared area of recognition, beyond the trenches of identity but also behind chaotic hybridisations and dangerous forms of syncretism. Personally, however, I take the liberty of laying stress on a certain preference being given to the category of hybridisation. All the more because, given that it is unthinkable to attribute the description of the process of the mixing of men and peoples to a single category, it is inevitable that the privilege given to one will involve the need to have continual recourse to all those others that can be brought into play so as to be more effectively aware of the process in the attempt to direct it. In this sense no category, even that of hybridisation, can become ‘the’ method by which to address the phenomenon of mixing. It would be grave were we to transfer it from the level of a description of facts to the level of prescriptive direction. And all the more because, like every category, it is heavily prejudged not only biologically but also ideologically.
However, if well maintained within the limits imposed by the specification ‘hybridisation of civilisations and cultures’, it seems to me that despite the risks to which it is exposed it is a category that we should privilege. And to which, after a certain fashion, we should subordinate the others (interculturality, integration, dialogue, etc.) and not vice versa, The reason for this preference of mine comes from the extremely realistic character, which is sanguine so to speak, that the term ‘hybridisation’ expresses. This makes it more capable of reading the historical process underway while leaving it open to necessary rigorous delimitations, something which, for that matter, would be required all the other categories as well. Indeed, in this sense I take the liberty of adding that, while returning often over recent years to this subject, albeit, obviously, not in a rigorously academic way, I have been convinced that even the metaphorical use of this category must be attenuated and that connection with the nexus with its biological genesis must not be lost. Must Christianity I return here to the example of Mexico perhaps fear the fusion of races and peoples that has taken place through the generation of people by parents from different peoples? With all the pain that this involves, does this fact not conserve an echo of that breaking down of the wall that separates so as to make ‘us both one’ to which the Letter to the Ephesians [cf. Eph. 2:14] refers?
Does not the given fact of hybridisation, which implies a recognition of the fact that history is inevitably a place of encounter that often, however, passes by way of clashes, and the fact that peace, which should always be pursued, is given to us, as Paul says, ‘if possible’ [cf. Rm 12:18], tell us that only God is the lord of the future?
Without falling into examples of facile Irenism or ingenuous forms of optimism about a process that calls us to think anew about our cultural and also juridical instruments (passing, to take up the phrase of Prof Cesare Mirabelli, ‘from a hybridisation of laws to a law of hybridisation’), we can, however, be certain that this, at the level of facts, is the road that is outlined before us today. A road that has perhaps not been thought of, one that is certainly difficult, but which we have already begun to walk down. It is of no use, therefore, to tarry in the illusory trenches of an identity, understood as closure, forgetting that the danger for the West lies, rather, in becoming increasingly, as the poet Eliot said brilliantly, ‘straw men’.

Card. Angelo scola, the Patriarch of Venice

Jews, Muslims and Christians talk about God. Scola and Oasis at the UN in New York

ufficiostampa — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:07:26 +0000

On February 2007 cardinal Scola has met Rabbi Israel Singer and Seyyed Hossein Nasr at a forum sponsored by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations. Here’s the article appeared in the National Catholic Register by Pete Sheehan.

NEW YORK – Despite difficulties, Christianity, Islam and Judaism can work together for peace, but only by each remaining faithful to its own beliefs.
That’s the view of leaders and scholars from the three religions who shared a podium at a Jan. 17 forum at the United Nations. “We live in a desert,” amid the growing secularism, religious divisions, and other conflicts that plague the world, said Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author and professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, one of the panellists. “The words ofJesus Christ, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ were at no time as true as today.”
Religion can help foster that peace, “but only if it continues to be religion,” remaining faithful to its own identity, the Iranian-born Nasr said. “We must not relativize our path to God, but we must accept the validity of other paths.
Nasr spoke along with Cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice, and Rabbi Israel Singer, chairman of the Policy Council of the World Jewish Congress, and the Venice, Italy-based Oasis International Studies and Research Center.
About 200 people filled the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjöld Library, Auditorium for the forum, which was held to introduce the work of the Oasis Center and its publications. Oasis, a bi-annual magazine that deals with issue of Christian, Muslim and other interfaith concerns, is being given a U.S. editions for the first time.
The Jan. 17 forum included the three “Abrahamic” religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Cardinal Scola founded the Oasis Center and its journal to forster dialogue among Christians and Muslims, beginning with Christian communities living in Muslim countries.
In addressing the audience, Cardinal Scola emphasized the need for dialogue beyond scholarly circles to included individuals in their daily lives.”Listen to the experiences of people”, he urged.
Father James Massa. director of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, who met Cardinal Scola when he was in Washington the previous day, called Oasis a “marvellous instrument” that offers was to “bridge the divides” between Catholics and Muslims.
Fahter Massa noted that the name comes from a comment by Pope John Paul II that “the place of prayes is dear to both Christians and Muslims ad an oasis in which one meets with the merciful God along the walk toward eternal life and with one’s brothers and sisters in the bonds of religion.”
Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus and who works closely with the Oasis Cener, moderated the panel.

‘Misunderstandlngs’

Nasr noted that “many profound misunderstandings need to be overcome,” especially the miss-association between Islam and violence.
Both Islam and Christianity have, at different times in their history, practiced violence “in the name of religion,” he said. While Judaism has less of a record of violence, “for most of its history ii hasn’t had the power” to inflict violence.
“You can’t compare your favourable periods with the unfavorable periods of other religions” or confuse the influence of religion with the influence of the civilization in which a people of faith live, Nasr said.
In understanding the differences in history and theology of each religion. “the freedom to be oneself,” and not be subject to coercion, whether military or economic.
While recognizing the differences among the three religions, Nasr said, “Look at how much they have in common. They all believe in the same God”, as well as “the beginning and end of human history, the immortality of the soul and responsibility for one’s actions before God.”
“Let up hope and pray that all those who believe in God, in his mercy and his wisdom” Nasr continued, “will be able to speak together as a single family in a world so alienated from the divine.”
Rabbi Singer also shared that hope for all religions. He found encouragement from the closer relationship between the Church and Judaism since the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 document Nostra Aetate (The Relation of the Church to better relations with Judaism. Yet dialogue between Jews and Catholics went far beyond what was imagined in Nostra Aetate, Singer said.
He cited the leadership of Pope John Paul II for fostering the healing. Jewish-Catholic dialogue can be a model for reconciliation, he said.
“If Jews and Catholics can get along,” Singer said, “almost anything can happen.”
Singer praised Islamic figures who have denounced violence, in particular Shaykh Ali Gomaa, Grand Mufti in Egypt and one of the highest-ranking clarics in e Sunni Muslim world.
The rabbi read a statement in which Ali Gomaa repudiated violence committed in the name of Islam as “the actions of e misguided criminal minority” who “contradict the central theme of peace in Islam.”