Cardinal
Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for
Interreligious Dialogue, called for the “‘intelligence of the heart’,
which inspires us to respect what God is accomplishing in every human
being” during the opening session of an interreligious forum in Vienna,
Austria, on Monday morning.
The cardinal spoke at the opening
general assembly of the two-day Global Forum of the King Abdullah Bin
Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and intercultural
Dialogue.
Below is the Cardinal’s complete text:
“We
are living in a changing world. We are living more and more in a
‘provisional’ world. But many people rediscover that we cannot live
without reference to history and especially without relation to our
contemporaries, their joys and hopes, their griefs and anxieties. In
such a context religions are called to propose – not to impose – reasons
for living.
What is at the centre of our concern is the human
person, man and woman. The human person is the object of the attention
of political and religious leaders. Each one of us is a citizen and a
believer. All of us belong to the same human family. It means that we
share the same dignity, we are confronted by the same problems, we enjoy
the same rights and we are called to accomplish the same duties.
But
unfortunately, we have to recognize that too often: we judge people on
their appearance or on their ‘production’, even though every human
person is much more than how he or she appears or is able to produce; we
reduce the human person to an object (I am thinking of all the problems
raised by bio-technology), while the human person transcends his/her
material dimension;
Interreligious dialogue teaches us: to be
careful not to present the religion of the other in a bad light in
schools, universities, the mass media and, in particular, in the
religious discourse; not to demean the religious convictions of the
others, especially when they are not present; to consider diversity –
ethnical, cultural, vision of the world – as richness, not as a threat.
Interreligious
dialogue impels us: to listen and to better know each other; to think
before judging; to present the content of our faith and our reasons for
living with “kindness and respect".
Therefore,
interreligious dialogue can contribute to: give to God again the place
which He deserves; to inspire fraternity; to give the wisdom and courage
to act.
To look at the theme "The Image of the Other" is also to
look within ourselves in order to purify all that makes us closed to
what is new and true; to look at the other means also to accept being
questioned by him about our faith and to be ready to give an account of
it; to look at the other is to be available to work with all persons of
good will for the common good.
One of the tasks of KAICIID could
be the promotion of what I dare to call, "the intelligence of the
heart", which inspires us to respect what God is accomplishing in every
human being and at the same time to respect the mystery that every human
person represents. What we have to avoid absolutely is that religions
engender fear, attitudes of exclusion or of superiority in people.
In
concluding, I express my heartfelt wishes for the success of this
meeting. It will send a very significant message if KAICIID can become a
place where we can take time to look at each other, to better know each
other and to share all our abilities in order to make this world more
secure and enlightened, with all its inhabitants living in the spirit of
respect and friendship that Pope Francis has repeatedly said, "To
encounter all because we all have in common our having been created in
the image and likeness of God." (To Participants in the Plenary of the
Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, 14 October
2013)”