Oasis

Finding rapprochement and peace among the Abrahamic religions

Patrick Byrne

Contents - Sep 2013 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Catholic voters and the 2013 Federal Election Hobart's new Archbishop ready for the challenges of leadership - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Cardinal Burke: What is good liturgy? World Youth Day 2013: Pope Francis inspires Rio - Peter Westmore Oasis: Finding rapprochement and peace among the Abrahamic religions - Patrick Byrne The Church's crises old and new - Bishop James D. Conley A covenant: essence of true marriage - Anne Lastman Frassati: The Holy Terror: a model for young Catholic men - Br Barry Coldrey Letters: Natural law - Fr Bernard McGrath Letters: Anniversary of Humanae Vitae - Ken Bayliss Letters: Year of Faith - John Frey Letters: Contraception is harmful - Anne Lastman Letters: Anti-life values - Andrew Foong Letters: Abortion link - George Simpson Letters: Inconsistency - John H. Cooney Letters: Causal connection - Francis Young Books: A PILGRIM'S JOURNEY: Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola, Joseph N. Tylenda SJ - Michael E Daniel (reviewer) Books: WAYS OF PRAYING, by Father John Edwards SJ - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: MYSTICS IN THE MAKING: Laywomen in Today's Church, by Carolyn Humphreys - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: Put on Christ: Pope Francis' World Youth Day homily - Pope Francis

Oasis is an international foundation to encourage dialogue and mutual understanding between Christians and Muslims. It was founded in 2004 at the inspiration of the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola.

Among his many Vatican appointments, Cardinal Scola is currently a member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the Council of Cardinals for the Study of the Organisational and Economic Problems of the Holy See.

The Oasis Foundation, which publishes the online journal Oasis at a time in history when there is a deepening interaction of cultures and religions across the globe.

According to Oasis, "the dimensions of this historical process are unprecedented, its dynamic unstoppable and it needs to be oriented towards the [common] good ... Interreligious dialogue involves intercultural dialogue because religious experience is always lived and expressed through the medium of culture: not merely at the theological and spiritual level, but also at the political, economic and social ones."

Members of the Oasis promotional committee include Cardinal Scola, Cardinal Antonios Naguib, Patriarch Emeritus of Alexandria of the Copts, the Cardinals of Lyon, Zagabria, Budapest, Abuja, Vienna and Granada, as well as Professor Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus.

Vatican II

The work of Oasis is based on the teaching of the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Church , Lumen Gentium (1964), which is a declaration of the Church's extraordinary magisterium.

The Council declared that, "those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God" (LG 16) and this starts with those religions that declare their origins in Abraham.

First is the Jewish people, to "whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues."

The Council says that although the Jews do not believe in Christ as the Son of God, they are "dear to God ... on account of their fathers".

Then there are the Muslim peoples. The Council declared that "the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator ... [A]mongst these there are the Muhammadans [Muslims], who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind" (LG 16).

Since God's "plan of salvation" is implemented solely through the Church, the Council is asserting that the Church is linked in some way to all who believe in the Creator.

This is most obviously the case with both Jews and Muslims, who give honour to the one Creator God and respect His sovereignty over all human beings.

While Muslims differ from Christians in their theological doctrines, the God of Islam is not another false god, like the gods of animists or pantheists.

This has profound implications. If Muslims are deemed to know the True God, then to some degree they must have received true revelation. To worship God, one must know Him, and one knows Him primarily through revelation, which is a divine gift.

The Church has left as an open question the nature of this revelation.

The Vatican Council also made the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions , Nostra Aetate (1965), which deals principally with relations between the Church and Jews. The Council also extended Nostra Aetate to deal with Church-Muslim relations, and even relations with other non-Abrahamic religions.

Islam

As with Lumen Gentium, Nostra Aetate affirms the Church's "esteem" for the Jews and Muslims.

Regarding Muslims, it says, "They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit whole-heartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God.

"Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honour Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting."

The Council did not endorse the Islamic claim to be successors of Abraham, but noted that they try to emulate Abraham in his perfectly obedient faith. The Council does not say that Muslims are always correct in what they perceive to be divine decrees, but it does explicitly state that they "adore the one God."

Nostra Aetate went on: "Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom."

The call for a renewal of friendly relations, a rapprochement, with the Abrahamic religions is not surprising.

Fr Aidan Nichols OP has been lecturer in Dogmatics and Ecumenics at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome. In discussing Nostra Aetate, he points out: "[T]he doctrinal intention of the Fathers of the Council ... was to affirm that, by the criterion of evangelical and Catholic truth, there are elements of truth and holiness not only in Judaism (something we can take for granted, given the biblically attested divine origin of the faith of Israel) but in religions outside the Judeo-Christian tradition as well."

He adds that "the anchor-hold in Tradition for this statement" dates back to the early Apologist, St Justin (AD100-160). His notion of the "'seeds of the Word' [ spermatikos logos] scattered through paganism" has been "tacitly accepted by the ... Church Fathers in their (careful) use of Greco-Roman philosophy, and highlighted in the Council's Decree on Missions, Ad Gentes."

Interfaith dialogue

Since the Council, all subsequent popes have made repeated calls for the members of the Church to engage in dialogue with the non-Christian world, starting with the other two Abrahamic religions.

Priority has been given to engagement with the Eastern Rite and Orthodox churches in lands where Jews and Muslims predominate.

The Vatican emphasis on Judaism and Islam comes under the area of interfaith dialogue, not ecumenism. Ecumenism involves seeking rapprochement with the goal of full visible unity between Christians only (see Second Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio).

Pope Paul VI's 1964 encyclical Ecclesiam Suam reiterated the desire of the Church to dialogue with the non-Christian world. Such a dialogue must be: clear and intelligent, approached with humility not arrogance, involve the good will of both parties with a prudent regard for the sensitivities of other religions.

The Church makes a distinction between dialogue and evangelisation, while at the same time emphasising the relationship between the two. Dialogue – which brings understanding, trust, cooperation and peace between religions – is an end in itself. At the same time dialogue, as described by Paul VI, can be a precursor to evangelisation ( Ecclesiam Suam) .

Paul VI also established what ultimately became the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The dialogue with Judaism, however, is undertaken by the Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, a commission of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. This is because the Church's relationship with Judaism is fundamentally different from our relationship with other religious groups.

Pope John Paul II made determined efforts to improve relations with Judaism and Islam. In 1985, at the invitation by the then King Hassan II, he addressed a large gathering of Muslim youth in Morocco.

During his 2011 visit to Damascus, Benedict XVI became the first pope to enter and pray in a mosque. He prayed at the Umayyad Mosque, a former Byzantine era Christian church dedicated to John the Baptist, who is reputedly buried there.

He said: "For all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended one another, we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and to offer each other forgiveness."

Benedict also made many overtures to the Muslim world. In his much-misunderstood 2006 Regensburg address, he called for an alliance between Christians and Muslims against the tyranny of materialism and relativism, and the attack from radical secularism on all religions.

In 2006, he visited Turkey and Istanbul's Blue Mosque where the pontiff turned towards Mecca in a gesture of respect, together with Professor Dr Mustafa Çagrici, the Mufti of Istanbul.

Pope Francis has recently announced that he intends to "intensify dialogue" with other religions, particularly Islam.

Co-existence problem

During a recent visit to the UK, Cardinal Scola said that the Muslim presence in Europe "poses, much more than others, a challenge to the current status quo in the West", because "they pose the problem of the co-existence of different universal world visions in the public sphere".

He said that, "a pragmatic approach" to the mixing of cultures and peoples in the West has proved to be inadequate", arguing that something much deeper is needed, beginning with a type of "communication" that leads Christian and Muslims to "mutual recognition" and to "an enriching co-existence" enabling them to contribute together, from their respective religious traditions, to the building of a more human society in Europe.

To that end, a Christian-Muslim dialogue involves four "universally relevant questions" concerning: truth and freedom; the economic and financial crisis and "the grave crisis of political culture"; religious practice and secularisation; and major ethical questions.

Cardinal Scola said the "revolutions" in the Arab world began "with a series of demands (work, dignity, freedom) which are in full accord with the current evolution of the West" over the past two centuries.

Patrick J. Byrne BA BTh is the national vice-president of the National Civic Countil.

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 26 No 8 (September 2013), p. 8