Trends and Developments in Interreligious Dialogue
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VIMAL TIRIMANNA, CSSR POPE BENEDICT’S PRAYER IN THE BLUE MOSQUE In the Light of Recent Roman Catholic Teachings on Interreligious Relations Introduction Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the well-known “Blue Mosque” in Istanbul last November was surely a turning point not only in interreligious dialogue in general but also in Catholic-Muslim relations in particular. Although his immediate prede- cessor, Pope John Paul II, was the only other pope to enter a mosque’s enclosure in Damascus in 2001, Benedict XVI will go down in history as the only pope so far to “invoke God” inside a Muslim mosque side by side with the Grand Mufti of Istanbul and the imam of the mosque. This is not only a prophetic gesture that symbolizes the harmony and brotherhood that one would expect to exist between Islam and Christianity, but it also points to the fact that the adherents of both these great religions do invoke the same God in their prayers or “invocations of God.” It is also a great symbol that encourages healthy, authentic, interreligious dia- logue. In this article we will first analyze briefly what it means to pray to the ultimate Absolute reality whom Christians (together with believers from some other reli- gions) call “God.” We will then highlight what it means to pray as adherents of the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions. Finally, we will try to establish that, when the pope prayed in the Blue Mosque, he was not only well within the Catholic tradition but that he set an exemplary gesture that will surely enhance in- terreligious dialogue that is aimed at world peace. Praying to God the Father Christian tradition has always held that God is the Father of all humankind and, consequently, all human beings are brothers and sisters. The Second Vatican Council was also very clear on this point when it said: We cannot truly pray to God, the Father of all, if we treat any people in other than brotherly fashion, for all men are created in God’s image. Man’s relation to God the Father and man’s relation to his fellowmen are so dependent on each other that Scripture says: “He who does not love, does not know God” (1 Jn 4:8). There is no basis, therefore, for 29 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 18 (2008) 1 any discrimination between individual and individual, or between people, arising either from human dignity or from the rights which flow from it. (Nostra Aetate, No. 5) Pope John Paul II also affirmed that God is the Creator and Father of all when he wrote: The Old Testament attests that God chose and formed a people for himself, in order to reveal and carry out his loving plan. But at the same time God is the Creator and Father of all people; he cares and provides for them, extending his blessing to all (cf.Gen.12:3); he has established a covenant with all of them (cf.Gen. 9:1-17). (John Paul II 1991: No. 12) Moreover, the same cherished Christian tradition has always maintained that one of God’s main attributes is His omnipresence, according to which not only is He present everywhere but one can also relate to Him from anywhere and every- where. If so, He should be close to those who invoke Him irrespective of religion or the place of worship. In his great classical and theological work, his Confes- sions, St.Augustine narrates the process through which God “called, cried out and rid him of his deafness” until he was converted. We should note here that even be- fore his baptism, which made him a believer in the Christian religion, he had been having endless encounters with God even though he (Augustine) tried to avoid Him (God)! It is in this sense that Augustine asks the rhetorical question and re- sponds himself: “Where wert Thou, then, in relation to me at that time, and how far away? . .Thou wert deeper within me than my innermost depths and higher than my highest parts” (Augustine, Confessions III.6.11). Thus, according to the Christian tradition, God is not only the Father of all hu- manity, but He is also present everywhere, and one can adore him and pray to him anywhere, for he is omnipresent. Omnipresence is, as mentioned above, a basic quality of God. As such, the pope could also pray anywhere, but when he prays in a Muslim mosque, it has special significance (perhaps, unique significance) precisely because it is not just anywhere but a place where Muslims normally pray, and also because it is not anybody who prays, but the “head of the world- wide Catholic Church.” Praying to the Ultimate Transcendental Reality (“God”) in Different Religions There are different definitions of and thousands of treatises on prayer in the differ- ent religions of the world. But a common characteristic of prayer according to all the religions is that it is basically a relationship with the transcendental (God) in whom one believes. Accordingly, this relationship is not only an expression (ei- ther in thoughts or words) of dependence on the providence of God but also an ex- pression of worship of the same God. In view of this basic common characteristic of prayer, can we say that all adherents of the different religions pray to the same God? The response definitely has to be in the negative, at least on the particular 30 POPE BENEDICT’S PRAYER IN THE BLUE MOSQUE level, for one main, obvious reason. The belief in the divine (“God”) is not the same in the different major religions themselves. Thus, for example, in Hinduism, one believes in many “Gods,” while in Buddhism, belief in a “God” is absent. The so-called “religions of the book,” namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, believe in one God, “the God of Abraham.” In view of such a wide variety in the very perception and belief of the divine reality in particular religions, it should be evi- dent that adherents of different religions praying together does not amount to praying to the same God perceived in a same way by everyone who invokes God from his/her particular religious perspective. However, on the general level, all do definitely invoke the same transcendental reality, whether we call it “God” or use another term. Of course, Pope Paul VI had already hinted that all religions do raise their adherents towards the transcendental being. In his Easter message of 29 March 1964 he said: Every religion contains a ray of light which we must neither despise nor extinguish, even though it is not sufficient to give man the truth he needs, or to realize the miracles of the Christian light in which truth and life coalesce. But every religion raises us towards the transcendental Being, the sole ground of all existence and all thought, of all responsible action and all authentic hope. (In: Oesterreicher 1969: 87) Then again, in his first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam (1964) explaining the con- centric circles of dialogue, the same pope says: Then we see another circle around us. This, too, is vast in its extent. It is made up of the men who above all adore one, supreme God whom we too adore. We refer briefly first to the children of the Hebrew people, worthy of our affection and respect, faithful to the religion which we call that of the Old Covenant. Then to the adorers of God according to the conception of monotheism, the Moslem religion especially, deserving of our admira- tion for all that is true and good in their worship of God. And also to the followers of the great Afro-Asiatic religions. Thus, Pope Paul VI seems to indicate that all religions do “raise” people to the same transcendental reality, even though he also careful in such statements to highlight the important differences among the religions. Even in the citation above from Ecclesiam Suam, though the pope clearly implies that the different religions do adore the same, one supreme God, he carefully makes distinctions among them, thus indicating clearly the different perceptions of the same God in those different religions from their specific, particular perspectives. A similar sentiment was expressed by Cardinal Beam the head of the Commission responsible for drafting the conciliar document, Nostra Aetate, at its promulgation on 20 October 1965, when he told the news agency ANSA: 31 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 18 (2008) 1 The Declaration on the Non-Christian Religions is indeed an important and promising be- ginning, yet no more than a beginning of a long and demanding way towards the arduous goal of a humanity whose members feel themselves truly to be sons of the same Father in heaven and act on this conviction. (In: Oesterreicher 1969: 130) This idea expressed by the cardinal has since become an essential tenet of the of- ficial magisterial teachings on other religions. One of the main organizers of the now well-known Assisi Prayer for Peace in 1986, Marcello Zago, wrote in his personal diary that the convocation of the Assisi Day of Prayer was based on the conviction that all mankind is God’s people, created by God and saved by Christ, even if it is not aware of it (Kedl 2006: 53).1 After the Assisi event he wrote: At Assisi, the welcome given to the religious representatives and people being present at the prayer offered by various religions were in some way a recognition of these religions and of prayer in particular, a recognition that these religions and prayer not only have a so- cial role but are also effective before God.