Pope Benedict XVI opened a crisis summit on the Mideast church with a call to help the region’s beleaguered Christian minority. Peace and human rights are essential for the church’s survival there, he said.The Mideast is unique in salvation history as the “cradle” of the church’s worldwide evangelizing mission, the pope said as he celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Oct. 10 with more than 250 participants at the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East.
The synod’s primary goal: to renew the pastoral energy of Mideast church communities and strengthen their faith identity so that they can continue to witness the Gospel to all. That task goes hand in hand with the church’s dialogue with Muslims and Jews, the pope said.
In his homily, the pope emphasized unity in a land where the church has richly varied liturgical, spiritual, cultural and disciplinary traditions. Without unity, there can be no real witnessing of the faith, he said.
He urged church leaders to rise above their difficulties with the Pentecost spirit that moved the early church.
“The first Christians in Jerusalem were few,” he said. “No one could have imagined what happened afterward. And the church still lives with that same energy that made the early church arise and grow.”
The synod’s role, he said, is to renew that sense of “permanent dynamism” among Catholic communities of the Middle East.
Church members must strengthen their Christian identity through the word of God and the sacraments in order to witness their faith, the pope said. Such witness is a fundamental human right and requires peace and justice – goals he said all must word toward.
The synod’s goal is to promote “communion and witness – both communal and personal – flowing from a life grounded in Christ and animated by the Holy Spirit,” synod leaders said in an opening statement Oct. 11.
In the face of tension and violence, Mideast Christians must defend peace and justice for all, the statement said. “We must emerge from a logic in defense of the rights of Christians only, and engage in the defense of the rights of all,” it said.
The opening report called on Catholics and other people of good will to work together to promote civil communities and nations that have a “positive secularity” that respects religious identity but does not define citizenship or rights by it.
“Religious freedom is an essential component of human rights,” it said.
All the constitutions of the countries represented at the synod recognize the right of religious freedom, but some limit freedom of worship and some, in effect, violate freedom of conscience with legal or social pressures against conversion, it said.
While the Catholic Church “firmly condemns all proselytism” – pressuring, coercing or enticing someone to change faiths – Christians can contribute to the freedom and democracy of their nations by promoting greater justice and equality under the law for all believers, the report said.
Maronite Bishop Bechara Rai of Jbeil, Lebanon, told reporters that the church supports a form of church-state separation that ensures religions have a voice in society and that laws reflect moral values – including laws against euthanasia and gay marriage.
But when religion drives a country’s laws and religious authorities have civil power, members of minority communities are treated as second-class citizens, he said.
The report stressed the difficulties facing Catholics in some countries. Life in Palestinian territories is “often unsustainable,” it said.
The international community must pay more attention to Iraqi Christians who are the primary victims of the war. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Iraq are the primary causes of Christian emigration from the region.
The report condemned anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism and called on Catholics and Jews to see that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not an interreligious conflict.
While recognizing a rise in “political Islam” in the region since the 1970s, the report said the Muslim communities differ from country to country and have a great variety of positions internally.
Catholics must reach out to their Muslim neighbors and work with them to improve living situations and freedom of all, it said. Religions should build “unity and harmony and an expression of communion between individuals and God,” it said.
Muslims should distinguish between religion and politics, the report said. It noted that Christians may be treated unjustly in countries where their families lived before Islam arrived in the 7th century, it added.
“Christians deserve full recognition, passing from being merely tolerated to having a just and equal status based on common citizenship, religious freedom and human rights,” the report said.
The pope said the synod would promote ecumenism and interfaith dialogue. “This event is favorable for continuing constructive dialogue with Jews, with whom we are tied in a permanent way by the long history of the covenant, as well as with Muslims,” he said.
Addressing pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, the pope said the church in the Middle East has been afflicted by the “deep divisions and age-old conflicts” of the region, but today is called to be an instrument of reconciliation on the model of the first Christian community of Jerusalem.
SIC: CSF/USA