Pope tells Christians and Muslims to overcome divisions, build a culture of peace
Progress in the peace process was also a topic of discussion during the Holy Father’s 15 minute meeting with Israeli Prime Minister in Nazareth’s Franciscan Convent. Fr Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press room, who later spoke about it, said that the talks between the two men “centred on how the peace process can be advanced.”
After Benedict XVI’s meeting with the Israeli leader, a six-member Israeli delegation and a Vatican delegation headed by Secretary of State Card Tarcisio Bertone set down for about 20 minutes to discuss the current negotiations concerning the economic and financial agreement between Israel and the Holy See. One issue the two parties discussed was visas for Catholic clergymen in Israel on a day, today, when Israel’s Interior Ministry turned down a Vatican request for 500 entry work visas for priests from Arab countries.
In Nazareth inter-faith relations have a special echo. Here at the end of the last century, the imam of the Shihab a-din Mosque, Nizam Sakhafa, applied for and initially got a permit to build a new big mosque, right next to the Basilica of the Annunciation. Christians saw this as a provocation, and organised protests which ended only in 2001 when the government blocked the request.
Considered close to Israel’s Islamic Movement, a radical Islamist movement, the imam organised a protest against the Pope’s visit to city, handing out flyers and putting up posters. Police, reported Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, ordered him to stay out of town till tomorrow. But his protests did achieve one thing though. Israeli security prevented the Pope from using his popemobile through town, provoking an angry reaction from Mayor Ramiz Jaraisy.
Equally significant the Pope’s appeal for dialogue rattled some circles today. The Palestinian Hamas movement, through one of its representative on the Palestinian legislative council, Ahmad Bahar, accused the Pope of ignoring Palestinian suffering, of meeting the parents of Israeli solider Gilad Shalit, who is still held hostage by Hamas, whilst not bothering to meet the parents of Palestinian prisoners. In fact, Benedict XVI did speak about Palestinian suffering yesterday and he also met a group of parents of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
In view of this, Benedict XVI said today that the “Galilee, a land known for its religious and ethnic diversity, is home to a people who know well the efforts required to live in harmonious coexistence. Our different religious traditions have a powerful potential to promote a culture of peace, especially through teaching and preaching the deeper spiritual values of our common humanity. By moulding the hearts of the young, we mould the future of humanity itself. Christians readily join Jews, Muslims, Druze, and people of other religions in wishing to safeguard children from fanaticism and violence while preparing them to be builders of a better world.” This, the Pontiff said, stems from the fact that “[f]ar from being the result of blind fate, the world has been willed by God and bespeaks his glorious splendor.”
Indeed “[a]t the heart of all religious traditions is the conviction that peace itself is a gift from God, yet it cannot be achieved without human endeavor. Lasting peace flows from the recognition that the world is ultimately not our own, but rather the horizon within which we are invited to participate in God’s love and cooperate in guiding the world and history under his inspiration. We cannot do whatever we please with the world; rather, we are called to conform our choices to the subtle yet nonetheless perceptible laws inscribed by the Creator upon the universe and pattern our actions after the divine goodness that pervades the created realm.”
The Pontiff ended his day in Nazareth by addressing bishops, priests, men and women religious and the Catholic laity. He urged them not only to remain in this land but also to fulfill their role, which is to be bearers of peace. “Like Mary,” he told them, “you have a part to play in God’s plan for salvation, by bringing Christ forth into the world, by bearing witness to him and spreading his message of peace and unity.” (FP)
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