THE Catholic Bishop of Wollongong Peter Ingham has called for Macarthur region residents to find "common ground rather than differences" with Muslims amid the controversy surrounding the proposed Islamic school at Camden.Bishop Ingham (pictured) reluctantly bought into the debate which has divided the Camden community when he spoke at a farewell mass for the parish priest of Narellan Vale on the Feast of the Holy Family in late December.
He insisted he did not want to inflame an already fiery situation, but was compelled to speak up to bring some "balance" to the topic.
"It's the council's job to decide if the building should go ahead and the Education Department to decide about the criteria," Bishop Ingham said. "If we can try to understand each other a bit better ... there is scope to work together.
"These people are not strangers; they are Australian citizens."
During his homily to the St Clare's congregation, he drew upon passages from the Old Testament and speeches from Pope Benedict to emphasise the commonality of all people.
"All of us who form the human family of our city, our nation and now the globalised world, are progressing along a common human path as women and men, thus as sisters and brothers," he said.
"So it is vital that we try to commit ourselves to living our lives in an attitude of being responsible to God in whom we live and move and have our being ... This helps us to understand the inestimable worth of each human being and we can then lay a solid foundation for building a humanity at peace."
Bishop Ingham said Catholics and Muslims believed in the same God and had other common links as well. "It's a sad thing, you see mad mullahs on TV in extreme places ... they are not your average Mr and Mrs Muslim."
He quoted Pope Benedict who said during a World Youth Day visit in 2005: "The life of every human being is sacred, both for Christians and for Muslims. There is plenty of scope for us to act together in the service of fundamental moral values."
The Bishop has sent a copy of his homily to community leaders.
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