The decision of Al Azhar to
"freeze" dialogue with the Vatican continues to surprise and pain
Egyptian Christians.
The spokesman of the Coptic Catholic Church, Fr.
Rafic Greich has expressed regret over the Islamic University’s decision
and his hopes that dialogue will resume.
Vatican figures above all hope
that Al Azhar will not miss the meeting with representatives of world
religions in Assisi in October, wanted by Benedict XVI to remember the
25 years since the first meeting - at the time of John Paul II - and
revive the "spirit of Assisi".
Unfortunately, Al Azhar and the Egyptian government continue to
criticize the pope's words who – they maintain - asked the Western
governments to defend Christians on New Year’s day. In addition, they
accuse the pope of only being concerned for Christians and of not taking
to heart "the violence faced by Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan".
In fact, the pontiff's words were: “the threatening tensions of
the moment and, especially, before the discrimination, abuse and
religious intolerance that today are striking Christians in particular
(cf. ibid., n. 1), I once again address a pressing invitation not to
give in to discouragement and resignation. I urge everyone to pray so
that the efforts made by various parties to promote and build peace in
the world may be successful. For this difficult task words do not
suffice; what is needed is the practical and constant effort of the
leaders of Nations, and it is necessary above all that every person be
motivated by the authentic spirit of peace, to be implored ever anew in
prayer and to be lived in daily relations in every environment”.
The satellite channel al-Jazeera, and many Western media short
circuited in their titles, summarizing the words of Benedict XVI in a
"The Pope calls on Western governments to defend the Christians in the
Middle East." In short, a new kind of crusade.
It must be said that throughout the past few weeks and several
times, Card. Antonios Naguib, head of the Assembly of Catholic
Patriarchs and Bishops of Egypt, publically explianed the true meaning
of the pope’s words. A Catholic delegation, headed by Greek Melkite
Patriarch Gregorios III, has visited Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, Minister of
Waqfs (Islamic Religious Affairs), to hand him the Arabic translation of
Benedict XVI’s address and clarify the ambiguity caused by al Jazeera
that "attempts to sow confusion and stir relations between Egypt and in
particular Al Azhar and the Catholic Church."
According to Fr. Greich, Al Jazeera deliberately turned the
papal declaration into a "request for Western governments to protect
Christians," while the pope only asked local governments to protect all
citizens from terrorism.
A week ago, another Catholic delegation - including the
auxiliary bishops of Alexandria, Mgr. Youhanna Golte and Mgr Boutros
Fahim, along with Fr Greich - visited the Imam of Al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmad
Al Tayyib to present him the actual statements of the pope and shed
more light on Al Jazeera’s manipulation thereof.
At the end of the
encounter Al Tayyib and the delegation agreed that Al Azhar would
publish a statement on their meeting.
"Instead of the press statement - said Father Greich - we were
shocked by the announcement of the freezing of dialogue between Al Azhar
and the Vatican”.
The growing feeling among experts is that the freezing of the
dialogue between the Vatican and Al Azhar is a smokescreen to conceal
Egypt’s responsibility for the Alexandria attack. From the very start
the Egyptian government denounced "foreign hands" behind the massacre of
Christians, stressing that "Christians and Muslims in Egypt are one
nation."
This declaration of innocence is not totally true. In fact, the Christians in Egypt face discrimination on many levels (construction
of churches, repairs, employment in public positions, etc. ..).
Moreover, the government has one nothing to stop the growth of
fundamentalism and fanaticism, which are the bedrock of terrorism.
From this point of view, in the aftermath of the attack in
Alexandria, the Catholic Church has made a series of requests of the
government (new laws on religious buildings; restructuring of the school
curricula to erase discrimination, fair trials and the imposition of
sentences for those who encourage fanaticism ,..)[1].
Instead, the government continues to favour the track of
foreign terrorists, and is slow to address the problems of
discrimination within its own borders.
To a certain extent, Egypt is behaving like many Western
governments. These, too, after the bombings in Baghdad and Alexandria,
cried terrorism, failing to realise that the crux of the problem of
Christians safety lies within governments that prefer to sacrifice the
followers of Jesus, rather than risk unhinging the Muslim world. Thus
they do not help religious freedom, on the contrary, the leave the door
open for fanaticism.
On the other hand, Western governments should not be invoked to
launch wars and sanctions, but to strengthen cultural dialogue, to
support education (an area that is becoming increasingly controlled by
al Qaeda), to suggest effective reciprocity.
Under the shadow of this shameful situation of political
inanity, both Eastern and Western, the real value of the meeting in
Assisi and its "spirit" becomes increasingly relevant. As in the days of
John Paul II, in no way does it want to be seen as a sort of "UN of
religions", a watered-down syncretism of identities. Rather, the global
meeting aims to be a symbol.
Its "spirit" wants to emphasize two elements: that religion and
religions are not a problem for the world, but a resource. That they
can live together and are not destined towards an inevitable clash of
civilizations.
In this sense, the Assisi proposal aims, as a positive gesture,
to counter the problems which undermine global peace as identified by
the Pope; terrorism and secularism. The first because it uses violence
to impose one religion, the other because it marginalizes the religious
energies of society, reduces freedom of religion, and humiliates the
dignity of all persons to the material dimension alone.
SIC: AN/INT'L