Friday, April 22, 2011

French bishop urges respect for the rights of all believers

A French Catholic bishop has spoken of the need for respect for the rights of all believers to practice their faith, as France became the first country in the world to forbid the wearing of burqa and niqab veils in public. 

Bishop Michel Santier, bishop of Créteil (pictured), and president of the Council for Interreligious Relations and New Religious Tendencies, said, “The French, including the Catholics among them, should not let themselves be gripped by fear of a clash of civilisations.” 

In a statement he called for distinctions to be made between the majority of peaceful Muslims and a minority of radicals.

“If we want Christian minorities in Muslim majority countries to enjoy all their rights, we should in our country respect the rights of all believers to practice their faith,” he said.

 “A dialogue in truth among believers will help us go beyond mutual mistrust. The path will be long and hard.”

His comments have been countered by various commentators such as one online who suggested that Christians in Muslim countries is far more restricted.  

For example Muslims in France can build mosques, observe the five pillars of Islam and proselytise.  

However Christians under Islamic rule do not have the same freedom to build new churches or repair old ones, nor can they openly propagate their faith, sometimes their safety is in doubt.

The Doctrinal Commission of the Episcopal Conference of France (CEF) at an annual session in February, addressed the theme of, Christian Faith in God and interreligious dialogue: What is the theology pertaining to dialogue?  Muslim imam Azzedine Gaci, president of the Rhône-Alpes Regional Council of Muslim Worship, was present and stressed the importance of dialogue.

The bishops also discussed live issues such as what attitude to have towards the Muslim feast-days - given the large number of pupils professing the Muslim religion in Catholic schools – sometimes up to 80%.  

They considered how to keep the dialogue going when relations with the Muslim community sometimes end up in conflict, notably “in the suburbs, with the growing influence of the Salafist branch of Islam.” 

Some bishops had been asked by Catholics to “resist Islam,” while others meet with requests for instruction, conferences, and meeting places for Christians and Muslims in their diocese.

During the plenary assembly of French bishops in Lourdes, in November 2008, Bishop Santier acknowledged that the purpose of ecumenism is to restore unity among Christians, while interreligious dialogue is meant to “promote understanding and collaboration between communities of different religions to enable them to live together and in peace.”  

However, he suggested that many Christians still do not understand the importance of this dialogue.

On a visit to the USA earlier this month Maria Voce, President of Focolare (Catholic lay movement) spoke of dialogue and witnessing to “unity in diversity.”  

At the UN Church Centre she met leaders and members of the main faiths to celebrate 50 years of the Focolare Movement in the United States. 

At that meeting the Vatican’s permanent observer at the UN, Archbishop Chullikatt, underlined “dialogue between faiths, while respecting differences.”

The Focolare has had a dialogue with people of many faiths in the USA over the years including Muslims.  

In 1997 Imam Warith Deen Mohammed (who passed away in recent years) invited Focolare founder Chiara Lubich to address 3,000 of his followers at New York’s Malcolm Shabazz Mosque in Harlem.  

The dialogue has grown and strengthened in the intervening years.

In an interview in the year 2000 when Imam Mohammed was asked about this dialogue’s positive influence in the US, a country still faced with racial problems, he answered, “The real life of the public is really religious life, no matter how far the person of the world is away from religion. This is the country of people of faith. In my opinion, it is only possible for us to really purge ourselves of the poison of racial prejudices if we become spiritually healthy. This is the picture we show of our relationship as people of different religions who recognize one humanity.”