Cardinal Stephanos II Ghattas, the retired head of Egypt's largest Catholic community, died in Cairo Jan. 20, just a few days after his 89th birthday.For almost 20 years before retiring in 2006, the former patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church led a community of about 200,000 members, a small fraction of Egypt's total population of more than 80 million people.
Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country, but Christians have maintained a presence there since the time of the apostles.
Despite sporadic violence by Muslim extremists in the past -- including attacks against Christians in some parts of the country -- Cardinal Ghattas consistently played down disputes and highlighted interreligious cooperation.
For example, when 20 Christians were killed in a southern Egyptian village in 2000, he did not use the deaths to press Christian complaints about religious discrimination. Instead, he later praised all sides for restoring calm to the village and defusing the violence.
He maintained a good relationship with the government of President Hosni Mubarak and credited the Egyptian president with sincerely trying to promote greater religious tolerance.
But he also spoke realistically about the status of Christians and the discrimination they face.
Egyptian law proclaims the equality of all the country's citizens, and Christian and Muslim leaders are "respectful of one another," the cardinal told the Italian missionary magazine Mondo e Missione in 2004.
But he warned against the rise in Egypt of Islamic fundamentalism, which continued to try to limit Egyptian Christians' presence and activity in the country's social and political life.
Catholics or Orthodox communities still faced many obstacles when seeking permits to build or remodel churches, the cardinal said. When people looked for a job or a house, preference was given to Muslims, which led many Egyptian Christians to emigrate, he added.
"One reason for this behavior is the attempt to affirm at every opportunity the Muslim identity of the nation and the Egyptian state," he said.
"But despite the socio-political context and some restrictive laws, Christians are very conscientious and convinced of their faith," he said. "Sacramental life is very active, and there are many vocations to the religious life and the priesthood."
In a telegram Jan. 21 offering his condolences to Cardinal Ghattas' successor, Patriarch Antonios Naguib, Pope Benedict XVI praised the cardinal's faithful service to the church.
The pope said that the cardinal, as patriarch, devoted himself "with zeal and simplicity to the service of the people of God" and worked with a "spirit of dialogue and mutual acceptance."
Cardinal Ghattas' death leaves the College of Cardinals with 189 members, 116 of whom are under age 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a papal conclave.
The former patriarch was one of five elderly prelates who were named cardinals by Pope John Paul II in 2001 as a sign of appreciation for their service to the church.
His most conspicuous pastoral achievement came in 2000, when he hosted the pope on the first leg of his holy year biblical pilgrimage. It was the first visit by any pontiff to Egypt.
Cardinal Ghattas had worked quietly with the Muslim academic community in Cairo and helped make sure the pope received a warm interfaith welcome, which culminated in a papal meeting with Muslim clerics at al-Azhar University.
The cardinal also worked to maintain cordial formal relations with the Coptic Orthodox Church.
He supported regional peace efforts by church leaders and traveled to Iraq in 1994 to highlight the suffering caused civilians by the international embargo imposed against the country at the time.
Participating in a 1999 congress of patriarchs and bishops from the Middle East and North Africa, he said that the church must show continued solidarity with the poor of the region and keep up dialogue with Orthodox Christians and Muslims.
He said interreligious dialogue was "neither a tactic nor a simple, passing courtesy, but an integral part of the very nature of the Christian and of the evangelical mission of the church."
The most important thing Christians in Egypt can do is to preserve their faith and give witness to it, he said in the 2004 interview with Mondo e Missione.
A life lived righteously "is an open book; it speaks for itself," he said. "Our Muslim brothers and sisters frequently are scandalized by the counterwitness the Christian West often gives" in the field of morals and customs.
"What we want and try to transmit is the beauty of a life lived righteously in the light of the Gospel," the cardinal said.
Born Jan. 16, 1920, in central Egypt, he entered the minor seminary in Cairo at age 9. In 1938 he was sent to Rome to study at what was then known as the Propaganda Fide College, where he earned degrees in philosophy and theology in 1944. He was ordained a priest in Rome the same year.
On his return to Egypt he taught philosophy and dogmatic theology at two major seminaries. In 1952, he entered the Vincentian religious order. After six years of missionary work in Lebanon, he returned to Egypt, serving in Alexandria.
Members of the Coptic synod elected him bishop of Thebes-Luxor in 1967. In 1984 he was named apostolic administrator of the Coptic patriarchate, and in 1986 he was unanimously elected Coptic patriarch of Alexandria.
He retired as head of the Coptic Catholic Church for reasons of age and health in 2006.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: CNS)