Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue

PATHWAYS FOR ECUMENICAL AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue Religious Thinkers Engage with Recent Papal Initiatives Edited by Harold Kasimow · Alan Race Foreword by Rabbi Abraham Skorka

Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue Series Editors Gerard Mannion Department of Theology Georgetown University Washington, DC, USA Mark D. Chapman Ripon College University of Oxford Oxford, UK

Building on the important work of the Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network to promote ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue, the Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue series publishes scholarship on interreligious encounters and dialogue in relation to the past, present, and future. It gathers together a richly diverse array of voices in monographs and edited collections that speak to the challenges, aspirations, and elements of interreligious conversation. Through its publications, the series allows for the exploration of new ways, means, and methods of advancing the wider ecumenical cause with renewed energy for the twenty-first century. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14561

Harold Kasimow  •  Alan Race Editors

Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue Religious Thinkers Engage with Recent Papal Initiatives

Editors Harold Kasimow Grinnell College Grinnell, IA, USA

Alan Race World Congress of Faiths London, UK

Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue ISBN 978-3-319-96094-4    ISBN 978-3-319-96095-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951603 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover design by Friedhelm Steinen-Broo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to our friends and colleagues across the world committed to interreligious dialogue and collaboration for a better future and in particular to those involved with the interreligious and intercultural organizations committed to inquiry and learning across boundaries—the World Congress of Faiths (London), Common Ground (Deerfield, Illinois), and the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Foreword: Who Is Jorge Bergoglio?

I have been very kindly invited by Harold Kasimow and Alan Race to write a Foreword to a collection of chapters contributed to this book by members of major world religious traditions regarding their responses to Pope Francis and his views on interreligious dialogue. In writing this Foreword, my first idea was to summarize the different chapters in some way, emphasizing what I understood to be the core of each of them and concluding with my own perspective on the theme. This would have been a purely intellectual approach. Then the memory of a particular moment suddenly came to my mind. During one of our meetings in his office in the archdiocesan building in Buenos Aires, I said to my friend Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, “I am considering the idea of writing a book about God.” I asked for his partnership on the project. He was not enthusiastic about the idea. One month later he called me and said, “Let us write a book of dialogues, you and I, about the burning themes that matter to ordinary people.” This was the beginning of the book of dialogues that we wrote together, On Heaven and Earth. We began speaking about God, the devil, and atheists and continued with fundamentalism, death, globalization, politics and power, money, poverty, the Holocaust, socialism, Peronism, and so on. He encouraged me to assume a prophetic attitude, to express deep concepts through simple words and phrases, to put aside all intellectual sophistications, and to speak to everyone. Therefore, I have decided in this Foreword to describe some moments that I have shared with him and my feelings about them. I do this to transmit who this person, my friend, is. We address each other in our ­correspondence vii

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as “my dear brother,” not as a mere formality, but in order to express the deep feeling we have for each other. The chapters of this book analyze with great wisdom different aspects of the preaching and religious leadership of Pope Francis. This Foreword tries to describe some intimate aspects of the person, the core of his preaching and leadership. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope—the 266th after Peter—on 13 March 2013. I watched the direct television broadcast in my house in Buenos Aires when Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran proclaimed that my friend was the new head of the Catholic Church, which includes 1.3 billion people. During the previous three years, we had worked together on the preparation of the book of dialogues I mentioned earlier. We presented it at the Latin-American Rabbinical Seminary on 1 December 2010 and went on to record 31 television programs in which we continued dialoguing about pressing themes of our time. During those years, we used to meet two or more times each month in very creative dialogical encounters. The dialogues were spontaneous, which posed a special challenge for the recording of the programs. Despite that, it was very seldom that we were asked to modify something we had recorded. At the end of each session we decided upon the topics to discuss at the next meeting, and after the moderator, Marcelo Figueroa’s introduction, we expressed our ideas through an extemporaneous back-and-forth. Each meeting was a great spiritual experience for us. During our conversations, so as not to speak on top of my friend’s words, and to respond to them promptly with my own ideas, I used to look with great attention into his face as he spoke. Years later, when Cardinal Tauran announced the identity of the new pope, my friend’s face appeared in my mind’s eye a few seconds before he actually came into view on the television screen. After the first wave of emotion passed, the next sensation I had took the form of a question: How is our friendship going to continue? How are we going to be able to work together with an ocean separating us? On the Buenos Aires afternoon of 18 March 2013, the eve of the day when Francis would be inaugurated in the Vatican as pope, I received a call on my cell phone. To my “Hello,” I heard in reply a very familiar voice, “Hello,” says Bergoglio, “they’ve caught me here and are not letting me back.” The purpose of the call was to speak with his friend after the revolutionary event that transformed his life and to let me know very clearly that, in a new way, we were going to continue to be in contact. We spoke about several subjects and when the conversation came to its end he told me, “Write down the email address which I am spelling to you now, so we can continue to be in touch.”

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Thus, began a new time in our friendship. We had begun to get to know each other in the Cathedral of Buenos Aires, to which—by invitation of the President of Argentina—I represented the Jewish community at the special mass in honor of the national Independence Day. At first, Bergoglio was one of the auxiliary bishops under Cardinal Antonio Quarracino. Afterward, he became his coadjutor bishop and finally he succeeded him as archbishop of the city in 1998. When I heard Bergoglio’s homilies on those occasions, they reminded me of the style of criticism used by the prophets which has resonances with Jesus’s preaching as well. In front of the president of the nation and his cabinet and many other governmental authorities, he championed the rights of the poor and of all the abandoned people in Argentinean society. I used to tell him that his way of speaking seemed to be very much inspired by the prophets. Through frequent football jokes, Bergoglio narrowed the gap that I felt was between us. He is older than me by 14 years (I was then in my late 40s and he in his early 60s), and he was the archbishop of one of the most important Catholic cities in the world. I was then the Rector of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano, an important position but very far from the political, religious, and social influence that he carried then. Years after he used to insist that we had been standing on the same level. I never asked him why he sought me out. I guess he was sympathetic to the articles I wrote in La Nación—the newspaper he used to read daily— about the importance of interreligious dialogue or condemnation of terrorist acts and movements in the world or demanding the judicial prosecution of the attackers of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. And then we began walking side by side together. I invited him twice to give a message to my congregation during the service of Selihot; he invited me to deliver a lesson to the seminarians in the Facultad de Teología of the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina. I wrote a book about different aspects of religiosity and the existential experience of faith in the twentieth century. I asked him to write the Foreword of the book. And he did. In the presentation ceremony for the book, I said that it must be the first time in history that an archbishop provided a Foreword to a book written by a rabbi. When Sergio Rubin (together with Francesca Ambrogetti) finished writing the authorized biography of then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, he asked whom to invite to write the Foreword; his immediate answer was Rabbi Abraham Skorka. When Rubin asked me whether I would agree to

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write the Foreword, I felt much emotion. An authorized biography is not a simple text but a special document that summarizes many particular aspects of the life story of a person. His choosing me to write introductory words to this special text had great impact on me. I asked myself why he did this. An archbishop, a cardinal, chose a Jew, a rabbi, to write the prologue of his biography! Years after, I suddenly asked him: Why did you choose me to write the introduction of El Jesuita?1 His instant answer was, “It came from out of my heart.” The history of the Argentinean Catholic Church has had both shadows and lights concerning the Jews. During the 1930s and 1940s in the twentieth century, there were priests who sympathized with the anti-Semitic ideas propagated by the dictatorial European movements. Decades later, when the Argentinean Church organized a special ceremony in the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening sessions of the Second Vatican Council, one of its key moments was the bestowment of an honorary Ph.D. for my contributions to the culture of Buenos Aires. Bergoglio was then the grand chancellor of the university and, undoubtedly, he was the promoter of the idea, although he denied it in a private conversation with me. Thousands gathered in the university auditorium and many others viewed the ceremony on the giant screen that was installed in a large adjacent room. Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the Preacher to the Papal Household, was specially invited to speak about the historical importance of the Council. The bestowing of the honorary degree was one of the high points of the event, signifying the transformation in Catholic attitudes toward Jews that the Second Vatican Council brought about. Bergoglio had worked hard to achieve this turning point in Argentinean Catholic Church history. The message of the Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate was thereby emphasized and enhanced. When we stood one in front of the other without microphones between us, and holding the honorary medal fastened with a ribbon bearing the colors of the Argentinean flag in his hands, before putting it around my neck, he said to me, “You can’t imagine how long I have dreamt of this moment.” When the ceremony finished, a Catholic professor of the university, the former National Secretary of Cults, said to me, “This would have been impossible to realize ten years ago.” A member of my congregation, born in Germany, approached me and said, “I saw how the Nazis took my teachers to the concentration camps and from there they never came back. During my whole life [he was then 90], I looked for some kind of answer for that pain. This evening I got a little one.”

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One day as we sat in his little office in Buenos Aires, Cardinal Bergoglio and I spoke about leadership and the multiple conflicts in many places around the world. We discussed the attitudes that a real leader has to have in order to implant in people the values of peace, justice, and spirituality. When he was elected pope, I knew that a great opportunity was beginning for the Church to renew itself and to give a special message, not only for its own worshippers but for the whole of humankind. My first wish was to accompany him in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to share with him the moment in which he would pray in front of the Kotel (Western Wall), and to embrace each other there in order to visually declare that 2000 years of conflict and hate are beginning to come to an end. We did this with our mutual friend, the Muslim leader Omar Abboud, extending the message to all the Abrahamic religions which consider that place holy and especially important. To impart a message of peace was our obsession and constant prayer in the Holy Land. I was part of the official Vatican delegation that accompanied Pope Francis on this trip. The late Israeli president, Shimon Peres, worked very hard to enable it to occur. Peres was one of the first world leaders to be received by Francis in the Vatican, and a special, true, deep, and sincere relationship bound them after that initial meeting. Since Peres knew about our friendship, he contacted me and expressed to me his profound desire to receive the pope during his presidency. They recognized in each other partners who shared the same dream. Before the journey, I published several articles about the meaning and importance of Zionism in the Vatican newspaper L´Osservatore Romano. La Civiltà Cattolica published a long interview with me in which there were many questions about the meaning of Zionism and its spiritual importance for the Jewish people2; undoubtedly it was Francis’s initiative that made that occur. He was the first pope to visit the tomb of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist movement. He also visited the Palestinian refugee camp of Dheisheh, where he exhorted to abandon the past and to build a future of peace and brotherhood. During his pilgrimage, he balanced in a very careful way the rights of the Palestinians and the Israelis and expressed his personal support for the two-state solution. Peace in the Holy Land continues to be a special challenge and subject in our lives. When we worked together on our book, he decided that our encounters should take place in his office in the archdiocesan building and in my synagogue. He used to take the subway whenever we met in my synagogue.

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His habits are of great humility and great sensitivity toward suffering people. Very close to his room in Domus Santa Marta in the Vatican, he hosted a German priest who was recovering from a broken hip. The poor, the displaced of any society, the forced emigrants, and the exploited are his constant concern. There is an inner dimension to his being, a mystical dimension, of which I saw several signs. His books and encyclicals deal with human behavioral problems: poverty, ecology, slavery, and so on, and his pronouncements are direct and very clear. Rarely does he adopt an intellectual attitude using cerebral sophistications, because he has an internal world which is far from a purely intellectual formalism, a mystical world which can only be expressed in the very special language of simple words, silences, and many gestures. When I used to be asked, in the first months of his papacy, what is Bergoglio’s way of thinking and acting, I used to answer that his model in life and priesthood is Jesus, as described in the synoptic Gospels. There are many convergences between the synoptic Gospels and the books of the prophets, from the generation of Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah onward. This is one of the religious elements that immediately fostered deep dialogue between us. On certain occasions, I gave him several books by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great prophetical master of the twentieth century, and Heschel’s name frequently came up in our conversations. During the night, when all around me is silence and the voice of conscience can be heard clearly, I sometimes hear the voice of my friend saying, “Pray for me.” And as I begin praying, I feel that he is doing the same for all of us. St. Joseph’s University Philadelphia, PA, USA

Rabbi Abraham Skorka

Notes 1. Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin, Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words (New York City: Penguin Group, 2014). 2. Omar Abboud, Abraham Skorka, and Antonio Spadoro, “Nessuna religione e un’isola. Converzsazione con Abraham Skorka” in Oltre il muro: Dialogo tra un musulmano, un rabbino e un Cristiano, Italian ed. (New York City: Rizzoli, 2014), 63–141.

Acknowledgments

This book is the product of a 20-year friendship between an Anglican priest-theologian from the UK, author of the classic work Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions (1983, enlarged 1993), and a Polish-born Jewish academic from the USA, a Holocaust survivor, and author of Interfaith Activism: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Religious Diversity (2015), his most recent book. We wish to express our deepest gratitude to the religious leaders and eminent scholars from different parts of the world who have contributed to this book. We are particularly honored that Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a great friend of Pope Francis and one of the most distinguished rabbis in Argentina, agreed to write the Foreword to this book. His personal testimony is a perfect window on the spiritual humanity which informs all of the pope’s writings. We also express our most heartfelt thanks to Father Leo Lefebure, Matteo Ricci Professor of Theology at Georgetown University, for writing the final assessment, for encouraging us from the very start, and for introducing us to Gerard Mannion, who also saw the unique nature of this book and led us to working with Palgrave Macmillan. A further word of gratitude goes to Palgrave Macmillan for publishing this book and a special thanks to Phil Getz and Amy Invernizzi for their guidance through the processes of preparation and submission of the final manuscript.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Harold Kasimow’s Special Acknowledgments Abraham Joshua Heschel often spoke of the centrality of gratitude as a basic response to the wonder of human life. In this spirit, I would like to express my own deepest thanks to my co-editor Alan Race, a creative pioneer in interreligious dialogue and theology of religions. Alan has modeled the critical necessity of being open to other traditions while remaining loyal to his own. His friendship over the years has been very precious to me. I also want to express my profound gratitude to my dear friend Angela Winburn, who is always a great joy to work with and was involved in every aspect of this book from the very beginning. I am very grateful for her patience and good humor. I am also indebted to Russell Tabbert for reading and providing feedback on a majority of the chapters. Very important to me also has been the friendship and tremendous support over the years of William Burrows, Zev Garber, Leonya Ivanov, John Keenan, Linda Keenan, Kenneth Kramer, Beverly Lanzetta, John Merkle, and Stanislaw Obirek. I am thankful to George A. Drake, former president of Grinnell College, for his interest in my work and his ongoing encouragement. I  also want to thank my family for their love. Most of all, I am deeply grateful to Professors Bernard Phillips, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Byron Sherwin, who truly touched my life and changed my world. May their memory be blessed.

Alan Race’s Special Acknowledgments When I first met Harold Kasimow, I knew instantly that I had met a kindred spirit, a person of integrity and openness to others and the world. We met at the Parliament of the World’s Religions at Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999, and it is this which informs our part enlisting of the Parliament in the Dedication of the book. We have remained friends on the interfaith journey ever since and I am deeply grateful for his insights and wisdom. Echoing Harold’s gratitude both to those who have contributed to this book’s contents and to those who have helped it come to birth, I also add my own gratitude for the loving support of my wife, Sonya, who has been a constant encouragement throughout the whole process and whose commitment to the acceptance of religious pluralism has long been second nature to her.

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Retrospective Acknowledgment We would like to express grateful thanks to Pope John XXIII, the Good Pope, who ushered in the Second Vatican Council (11 October 1962) which gave new life to the interfaith movement that treasures and celebrates religious diversity and thereby prepared the way for this book whose subject places himself firmly in the tradition of that groundbreaking Council.

Contents

1 Introduction   1 Harold Kasimow and Alan Race Part I In His Own Words   5 2 In His Own Words   7 Pope Francis Part II Seven Traditions Respond  83 3 “The Church Also Is Enriched When She Receives the Values of Judaism”: Shared Faith Responses to Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue  85 Edward Kessler 4 On Donkey Drivers, Interreligious Dialogue, and Shared Tasks: A Jewish Response to Pope Francis on Interreligious Relations and Collaboration 101 Debbie Young-Somers 5 Is Pope Francis an Anonymous Feminist? 113 Helene Egnell xvii

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CONTENTS

6 Is the Pope Catholic? A Question of Identity in Pope Francis’s Practical Theology of Interreligious Dialogue 129 Stephen B. Roberts 7 Pope Francis’s Compassion 145 Amineh A. Hoti 8 Pope Francis, Islam, and Dialogue 169 Ataullah Siddiqui 9 Cautious Hope: Hindu Reflections on Pope Francis 183 Jeffery D. Long 10 Do We Have a Religious Need for Each Other? Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue 199 Anantanand Rambachan 11 A Sikh in Dialogue with Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium 219 Dharam Singh 12 Let’s Get Off Our Cell Phones and Hear a Sikh Maxim from Pope Francis 235 Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh 13 Toward Dialogue with Pope Francis: A Japanese Buddhist Perspective 259 Dennis Hirota 14 What Do We Share? A Secular-Humanist Response 279 Shoshana Ronen

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Part III Reflection and Final Assessment 301 15 Be Friends and Help the World: The Contributions of Pope Francis to Interreligious and Secular Relations 303 Leo D. Lefebure Selected Bibliography 329 Index 337

About the Editors

Harold  Kasimow  is George Drake Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Grinnell College, Iowa, USA, where for more than three decades he taught courses on Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism as well as on interreligious dialogue and relations. He is the author and co-editor of six books including Divine-Human Encounter: A Study of Abraham Joshua xxi

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About the Editors

Heschel (1979); No Religion Is an Island: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Interreligious Dialogue (1991); John Paul II and Interreligious Dialogue (1999); Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of the Buddha (2003); The Search Will Make You Free: A Jewish Dialogue with World Religions (2006); and Interfaith Activism: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Religious Diversity (2015). His articles and reviews have appeared in leading scholarly journals in China, England, India, Japan, the USA, and Poland, the land of his birth. His essays have been published in ten edited books. He has also given scores of public lectures throughout North America and Europe as well as in Israel, Japan, and South Africa. He is a Holocaust survivor and immigrated to the USA in 1949. Alan Race  is a retired Anglican priest and currently the chair of the World Congress of Faiths Executive Committee and editor of its celebrated journal Interreligious Insight. He is recognized worldwide for his seminal ideas in the Christian theology of religions and in interfaith understanding and relations and has been involved in promoting interfaith dialogue and co-­ operation at many levels. He has worked with interfaith dialogue groups and has taught theology related to religious pluralism and interfaith work for many years. He is the author of the classic text in Christian theology of religions, Christians and Religious Pluralism (1983, enlarged 1993), as well as Interfaith Encounter (2001) and Making Sense of Religious Pluralism (2013), reprinted as Thinking About Religious Pluralism (2015) in the USA. He has contributed to numerous collections of essays, most recently to a Jewish-Christian dialogue, Deep Calls to Deep (2017). He co-­edited the SCM Press textbook, Christian Approaches to Other Faiths (2008), and a volume of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in dialogue, Beyond the Dysfunctional Family (2012).

Notes on Contributors

Helene Egnell  is a priest in the Church of Sweden (Lutheran). She serves as bishop’s adviser at the Centre for Interfaith Dialogue in the diocese of Stockholm. She has a Master of Philosophy degree from the Irish School of Ecumenics and holds a Ph.D. from Uppsala University with the dissertation Other Voices: A Study of Christian Feminist Approaches to Religious Plurality East and West (2006). Pope Francis  was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 17 December 1936 and is the 266th pope and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first from outside of Europe since the eighth-century Syrian Gregory III. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969 and from 1973 to 1979 was Argentina’s provincial superior of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. A papal conclave elected him on 13 March 2013. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Noted for his pastoral style and personal warmth, Pope Francis has emphasized the mercy of God, concern for the poor, care of the planet, commitment to interfaith dialogue, and hope for the world. His most significant pronouncements include Evangelii Gaudium (2013) on faith and evangelization; Laudato Si’ (2015) on environmental sustainability; Amoris Laetitia (2016) on love within the family; and Gaudete et Exsultate (2018), dealing with “the call to holiness in today’s world.” Pope Francis is critical of economic systems which benefit only the rich and self-serving politics xxiii

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Notes on Contributors

which refuse to embrace asylum seekers and those fleeing persecution. His commitment to interfaith dialogue is for the sake of mutual learning and collaboration for the common good of all peoples and the planet. Dennis  Hirota is Professor Emeritus of Shin Buddhist Studies at Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan. He was head translator of The Collected Works of Shinran (1997) and has written several books on Japanese Buddhist thought, including Wind in the Pines: Classic Writings of the Way of Tea as a Buddhist Path (1995), No Abode: The Record of Ippen (1997), Shinran: shukyo gengo no kakumeisha (1998), and Asura’s Harp: Engagement with Language as Buddhist Path (2006). He is completing a book on Shinran’s thought, in light of Martin Heidegger. Amineh A. Hoti  is the executive director of Markaz-e-Ilm, the Center for Dialogue and Action in Urdu Islamabad, working toward introducing peacebuilding in society. She co-founded the Center for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations (with Dr. Ed Kessler) in Cambridge, UK.  She also founded the Society for Dialogue and Action at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. She obtained her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She was a distinguished fellow of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. She has promoted peace education in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and the USA and has been a speaker at the White House, Georgetown University, and in Doha, Qatar. She is associate producer and script consultant for the film Journey into Europe and was female lead researcher for the project from 2013 to 2016. She has written a number of books on promoting peace education and deeper understanding between people of different faiths, genders, and ethnicities, including Sorrow and Joy among Muslim Women (2006). She was chosen as the “Torchbearer” for Peacebuilding by Hello! Pakistan magazine in Pakistan’s Hot 100 (December 2016). She is now working on Religions of Pakistan, bringing religions together for peace. Edward  Kessler  is founding and executive director of the Cambridge Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations. In 1998, he founded the Woolf Institute, which is devoted to the study of relations between religion and society (especially Jews, Christians, and Muslims) and is recognized around the world for the excellence of its research, teaching, and public education programs. He has written or edited 12 books including the acclaimed Bound by the Bible: Jews, Christians and the Sacrifice of Isaac (2004). In 2011, he was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II for services to interfaith relations.

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Leo  D.  Lefebure  is Matteo Ricci Professor of Theology at Georgetown University, USA.  His books include Toward a Contemporary Wisdom Christology (1988), The Buddha and the Christ (1993), Life Transformed: Meditations on the Christian Scriptures in Light of Buddhist Perspectives (1993), Revelation, the Religions, and Violence (Pax Christi Book Award, 2000), The Path of Wisdom: A Christian Commentary on the Dhammapada (Frederick J.  Streng Book of the Year Award, Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, 2011), and True and Holy: Christian Scripture and Other Religions (Catholic Press Association First Place Book Award for Academic Studies of Scripture, 2015). He is a trustee of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions. Jeffery D. Long  is Professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College, USA, where he has taught since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (2000). He is the author of A Vision for Hinduism (2007), Jainism: An Introduction (2007), and Historical Dictionary of Hinduism (2011), as well as the forthcoming Indian Philosophy: An Introduction, Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds, and Arise! Awake! Swami Vivekananda Speaks to the Twenty-First Century. Long is also the editor of the series Explorations in Indic Traditions: Theological, Ethical, and Philosophical. He has spoken at many venues in the USA, India, and Europe. Anantanand  Rambachan  is Professor of Religion at St. Olaf College, Minnesota, USA, and Forum Humanum Gastprofessor for the Academy for World Religions, University of Hamburg, Germany. His books include Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid Knowledge in Śaṅkara (1991); The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda’s Reinterpretation of the Vedas (1994); The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity (2006); and A Hindu Theology of Liberation: Not-Two Is Not One (2015). Stephen B. Roberts  is a Christian theologian who researches in the area of theology in the public sphere. His Ph.D. thesis, Religion and Dialogue: Textuality, Rationality and the Re-imagining of the Public Sphere (2011), used the interreligious practice of scriptural reasoning to articulate a dialogical conception of the public sphere as a space hospitable to religious forms of reasoning. His current research explores a variety of ways in which theology is performed in the pluralistic public sphere, such as in the texts of popular culture and the life and worship of faith communities. Having previously worked as a university chaplain, he has an ongoing interest in the distinctive role of chaplains in relation to public theology, his own theological research trajectory arising directly out of that context and practice.

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Shoshana Ronen  is a professor at the University of Warsaw, Poland, and chair of the Hebrew Studies Department. She is the author of In Pursuit of the Void: Journeys to Poland in Contemporary Israeli Literature (2001), Nietzsche and Wittgenstein: In Search of Secular Salvation (2002), and Polin—A Land of Forests and Rivers: Images of Poland and Poles in Contemporary Hebrew Literature in Israel (2007). Her most recent book is A Prophet of Consolation on the Threshold of Destruction: Yehoshua Ozjasz Thon, an Intellectual Portrait (2015). Ataullah Siddiqui  is a British academic and reader in Religious Pluralism and Interfaith Relations at Markfield Institute of Higher Education, UK, and course director for the Certificate in Muslim Chaplaincy. He served as director of the Markfield Institute from 2001 to 2008. He is an honorary visiting fellow in the School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester, and a visiting fellow at York St. John University. He has written extensively on Christian-Muslim relations and interfaith issues including Christian-­ Muslim Dialogue in the Twentieth Century (1997) and Islam and Other Faiths (1998), a collection of Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi’s articles. He co-edited Christians and Muslims in the Commonwealth: A Dynamic Role in the Future (2001) and British Secularism and Religion (2011). He is also the author of Islam at Universities in England: Meeting the Needs and Investing in the Future (2007). Dharam Singh  retired from Punjabi University, Patiala, India, as Professor of Sikh Studies and editor-in-chief of The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism. He is working as visiting professor in the Centre on Studies in Sri Guru Granth Sahib at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, finalizing his English rendering, with detailed annotations, of the Vars of Bhai Gurdas, the first exegete of the Sikh scripture. Among the books to his credit are Sikh Theology of Liberation (1991), Sikhism: Norm and Form (1998), Dynamics of the Social Thought of Guru Gobind Singh (1999), The Khalsa (1999), Guru Granth Sahib: Guru-Eternal for the Sikhs (2004), Guru Arjan Dev (2006), Sikhism and Religious Pluralism (2009), and Understanding Sikhism (2012). He has edited a number of books and has also written the English rendering of the famous exegetical work, Darpan Sri Guru Granth Sahib (forthcoming). Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh  is Crawford Professor of Religious Studies at Colby College at Waterville, Maine, USA, and co-chair of the Sikh studies section of the American Academy of Religion. Her interests focus on poetics and feminist issues and she has written extensively in the field of

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Sikhism. Her books include The Guru Granth Sahib: Its Physics and Metaphysics (1981), The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent (1993), The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus (2001), and The Birth of the Khalsa: A Feminist Re-Memory of Sikh Identity (2005). She has lectured widely in North America, England, France, India, and Singapore, and her views have been aired on television and radio in the USA, Canada, Bangladesh, Australia, Ireland, and India. Rabbi Abraham Skorka  is an Argentine rabbi, a biophysicist, and Professor of Biblical and Rabbinic Literature at the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano Marshall T. Meyer at Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he has also served as the rector for nearly 20  years. He is an Honorary Professor of Hebrew Letters at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and was recently appointed university professor at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. He and Pope Francis are close friends and they co-authored On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century (published in English in 2013). Debbie  Young-Somers  is the community educator at Movement for Reform Judaism and a reform rabbi ordained in 2009 at Leo Baeck College, UK. She teaches “Dialogue and Encounter” to student rabbis, as well as trainee clergy at The Queen’s Foundation, for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham. She holds a first-class degree in religious studies from Lancaster University and is a Buber Fellow of Paideia, the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden. Young-Somers has been active both professionally and as a volunteer in the interfaith world since her teenage years. Her first rabbinic post was at West London Synagogue where she coordinated interfaith activities and the Jewish preparation program, as well as developed an interfaith program for teenagers. She has written in magazines, journals, and books, most recently in Deep Calls to Deep (2017). She is a regular contributor to Radio 2’s Pause for Thought, In Spirit on BBC London and to the national Jewish press. She is currently studying the craft of storytelling.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Harold Kasimow and Alan Race

Since the pontificate of Pope John XXIII (1958–63)—thought by many to have been the most compassionate pope of the last few hundred years— the world has been blessed with some surprising successors. No one expected to have a pope from Poland, followed by a German pope, and now perhaps the most surprising pope of all—a Jesuit from the southern hemisphere of the New World. Since his election on 13 March 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, has aroused a great deal of interest around the world. This has been evident from the beginning when he chose to live in the Vatican guesthouse rather than in the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace. The choice of Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi, also heralded a certain predisposition: a concern for the poor and the environment. Pope Francis has become known both for his warmth of personal style and for his steely determination to present the relevance of Christian faith in outward-looking dialogue with world issues, such as the environment,

H. Kasimow (*) Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Race World Congress of Faiths, London, UK © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_1

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poverty, and human rights. In this latter respect, he continues the trajectory set by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) in its determination to open the Catholic Church to engagement with the modern world. That openness sought to embrace both theological issues of believing and pastoral issues of human flourishing through rapidly changing times. Pope Francis’s immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, was known for his strong theological interests, especially his desire to repudiate intellectual currents associated with postmodernism affecting Christian understanding. Although fairly traditional-minded theologically, with Pope Francis it is the pastoral and ethical dimensions of Christian commitment that have assumed more center stage—as they were during his times of leadership as Archbishop of Buenos Aires (1998–2013) and as Cardinal Priest of San Roberto Bellarmino (2000–13) in Argentina, a country that has known political turmoil, social unrest, and individual suffering through poverty. The would-be pope was known for his compassionate voice in his championing of the poor. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the same compassion can be detected in his papal pronouncements, sermons, and interviews, not to mention his simpler lifestyle compared to many previous occupiers of Saint Peter’s office. Though the papal emphasis on pastoral and ethical issues has become familiar, Pope Francis’s engagement with interreligious questions is less well known. However, this does not mean that there is an absence of engagement, for the pope recognizes how deeply entangled issues of interreligious collaboration, dialogue, and theology are with the world’s overriding need for justice, peace, and ecological sustainability. It could not be otherwise for a pope whose watchword is often “dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.” The chapters in this book bring the reflections on interreligious collaboration, dialogue, and theology to the foreground and so fill a gap in the general critical analysis of the pope’s pronouncements. It will be seen that far from being marginal to the pope’s general outlook, they form an integral part of his overall approach to Christian mission when this is interpreted in its broadest sense. When we ponder the words of Pope Francis on dialogue, it reminds us of the prophet Ezekiel: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). Pope Francis dares us to open ourselves with a heart that will heal the historic wounds of animosity, hatred, and mistrust among the religions of the world. His hope is that authentic dialogue will help us to see each other primarily as brothers

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and sisters, all loved equally by the God of love. It is not hard to imagine that the main reason that Pope Francis has become the most beloved ­spiritual leader of our time is that he opens his heart to all those he encounters. Many who have been in his presence have spoken of how much he resonates to human need. In a previous book, John Paul II and Interreligious Dialogue (editors Byron Sherwin and Harold Kasimow, New York: Orbis, 1999), scholars from three traditions—Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism—reflected on the dialogical theology of the then pope. In this book the range of reflection has broadened to include scholars from seven traditions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and secular humanism. This is in line with the growing popularity for and interest in dialogue between many religious traditions and with nonreligious philosophies as well. Furthermore, the responses take up both aspects of the dialogical task, gleaned from the pope’s pronouncements, in equal measure—the theological and the collaborative-practical. This too reflects the changing contours, interests, and emphases, since the previous book, of dialogical relations between religions and beliefs across a wide field. Furthermore, this appraisal by scholars from different traditions broadens the discussion of Pope Francis’s writings and speeches and thus makes a significant contribution to interreligious literature, relations between religions and beliefs, and positive, collaborative action for a better world.

PART I

In His Own Words

CHAPTER 2

In His Own Words Pope Francis

Excerpts from Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 24 November 2013 244. Commitment to ecumenism responds to the prayer of the Lord Jesus that “they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). The credibility of the Christian message would be much greater if Christians could overcome their divisions and the Church could realize “the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her children who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her.” We must never forget that we are pilgrims journeying alongside one another. This means that we must have sincere trust in our fellow pilgrims, putting aside all suspicion or mistrust, and turn our gaze to what we are all seeking: the radiant peace of God’s face. Trusting others is an art and peace is an art. Jesus told us: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). In taking up this task, also among ourselves, we fulfil the ancient prophecy: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares” (Is 2:4).

Printed with permission, © Libreria Editrice Vaticana P. Francis (*) Vatican City, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_2

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245. In this perspective, ecumenism can be seen as a contribution to the unity of the human family. At the Synod, the presence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomaios I, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, His Grace Rowan Williams, was a true gift from God and a precious Christian witness. 246. Given the seriousness of the counter-witness of division among Christians, particularly in Asia and Africa, the search for paths to unity becomes all the more urgent. Missionaries on those continents often mention the criticisms, complaints and ridicule to which the scandal of divided Christians gives rise. If we concentrate on the convictions we share, and if we keep in mind the principle of the hierarchy of truths, we will be able to progress decidedly towards common expressions of proclamation, service and witness. The immense numbers of people who have not received the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot leave us indifferent. Consequently, commitment to a unity which helps them to accept Jesus Christ can no longer be a matter of mere diplomacy or forced compliance, but rather an indispensable path to evangelization. Signs of division between Christians in countries ravaged by violence add further causes of conflict on the part of those who should instead be a leaven of peace. How many important things unite us! If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another! It is not just about being better informed about others, but rather about reaping what the Spirit has sown in them, which is also meant to be a gift for us. To give but one example, in the dialogue with our Orthodox brothers and sisters, we Catholics have the opportunity to learn more about the meaning of episcopal collegiality and their experience of synodality. Through an exchange of gifts, the Spirit can lead us ever more fully into truth and goodness. Relations with Judaism 247. We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom 11:16–18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word.

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248. Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. The friendship which has grown between us makes us bitterly and sincerely regret the terrible persecutions which they have endured, and continue to endure, especially those that have involved Christians. 249. God continues to work among the people of the Old Covenant and to bring forth treasures of wisdom which flow from their encounter with his word. For this reason, the Church also is enriched when she receives the values of Judaism. While it is true that certain Christian beliefs are unacceptable to Judaism, and that the Church cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah, there exists as well a rich complementarity which allows us to read the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures together and to help one another to mine the riches of God’s word. We can also share many ethical convictions and a common concern for justice and the development of peoples. Interreligious Dialogue 250. An attitude of openness in truth and in love must characterize the dialogue with the followers of non-Christian religions, in spite of various obstacles and difficulties, especially forms of fundamentalism on both sides. Interreligious dialogue is a necessary condition for peace in the world, and so it is a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities. This dialogue is in first place a conversation about human existence or simply, as the bishops of India have put it, a matter of “being open to them, sharing their joys and sorrows.” In this way we learn to accept others and their different ways of living, thinking and speaking. We can then join one another in taking up the duty of serving justice and peace, which should become a basic principle of all our exchanges. A dialogue which seeks social peace and justice is in itself, beyond all merely practical considerations, an ethical commitment which brings about a new social situation. Efforts made in dealing with a specific theme can become a process in which, by mutual listening, both parts can be purified and enriched. These efforts, therefore, can also express love for truth. 251. In this dialogue, ever friendly and sincere, attention must always be paid to the essential bond between dialogue and proclamation, which leads the Church to maintain and intensify her relationship with non-­ Christians. A facile syncretism would ultimately be a totalitarian gesture on the part of those who would ignore greater values of which they are not

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the masters. True openness involves remaining steadfast in one’s deepest convictions, clear and joyful in one’s own identity, while at the same time being “open to understanding those of the other party” and “knowing that dialogue can enrich each side.” What is not helpful is a diplomatic openness which says “yes” to everything in order to avoid problems, for this would be a way of deceiving others and denying them the good which we have been given to share generously with others. Evangelization and interreligious dialogue, far from being opposed, mutually support and nourish one another. 252. Our relationship with the followers of Islam has taken on great importance, since they are now significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries, where they can freely worship and become fully a part of society. We must never forget that they “profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day.” The sacred writings of Islam have retained some Christian teachings; Jesus and Mary receive profound veneration and it is admirable to see how Muslims both young and old, men and women, make time for daily prayer and faithfully take part in religious services. Many of them also have a deep conviction that their life, in its entirety, is from God and for God. They also acknowledge the need to respond to God with an ethical commitment and with mercy towards those most in need. 253. In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence. 254. Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live “justified by the grace of God,” and thus be “associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ.” But due to the sacramental dimension of sanctifying grace, God’s working in them tends

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to produce signs and rites, sacred expressions which in turn bring others to a communitarian experience of journeying towards God. While these lack the meaning and efficacy of the sacraments instituted by Christ, they can be channels which the Holy Spirit raises up in order to liberate non-­ Christians from atheistic immanentism or from purely individual religious experiences. The same Spirit everywhere brings forth various forms of practical wisdom which help people to bear suffering and to live in greater peace and harmony. As Christians, we can also benefit from these treasures built up over many centuries, which can help us better to live our own beliefs. Social Dialogue in a Context of Religious Freedom 255. The Synod Fathers spoke of the importance of respect for religious freedom, viewed as a fundamental human right. This includes “the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public.” A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques. This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism. The respect due to the agnostic or non-believing minority should not be arbitrarily imposed in a way that silences the convictions of the believing majority or ignores the wealth of religious traditions. In the long run, this would feed resentment rather than tolerance and peace. 256. When considering the effect of religion on public life, one must distinguish the different ways in which it is practiced. Intellectuals and serious journalists frequently descend to crude and superficial generalizations in speaking of the shortcomings of religion, and often prove incapable of realizing that not all believers—or religious leaders—are the same. Some politicians take advantage of this confusion to justify acts of discrimination. At other times, contempt is shown for writings which reflect religious convictions, overlooking the fact that religious classics can prove meaningful in every age; they have an enduring power to open new horizons, to stimulate thought, to expand the mind and the heart. This contempt is due to the myopia of a certain rationalism. Is it reasonable and enlightened to dismiss certain writings simply because they arose in a context of religious belief? These writings include principles which are

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­rofoundly humanistic and, albeit tinged with religious symbols and p teachings, they have a certain value for reason. 257. As believers, we also feel close to those who do not consider themselves part of any religious tradition, yet sincerely seek the truth, goodness and beauty which we believe have their highest expression and source in God. We consider them as precious allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building peaceful coexistence between peoples and in protecting creation. A special place of encounter is offered by new Areopagi such as the Court of the Gentiles, where “believers and non-believers are able to engage in dialogue about fundamental issues of ethics, art and science, and about the search for transcendence.” This too is a path to peace in our troubled world. 258. Starting from certain social issues of great importance for the future of humanity, I have tried to make explicit once again the inescapable social dimension of the Gospel message and to encourage all Christians to demonstrate it by their words, attitudes and deeds.

Excerpts from Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You): On Care for Our Common Home, 24 May 2015 10. I do not want to write this Encyclical without turning to that attractive and compelling figure, whose name I took as my guide and inspiration when I was elected Bishop of Rome. I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically. He is the patron saint of all who study and work in the area of ecology, and he is also much loved by non-­ Christians. He was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his openheartedness. He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace. 13. The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having

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created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home. Here I want to recognize, encourage and thank all those striving in countless ways to guarantee the protection of the home which we share. Particular appreciation is owed to those who tirelessly seek to resolve the tragic effects of environmental degradation on the lives of the world’s poorest. Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded. 25. Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades. Many of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited. For example, changes in climate, to which animals and plants cannot adapt, lead them to migrate; this in turn affects the livelihood of the poor, who are then forced to leave their homes, with great uncertainty for their future and that of their children. There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by environmental degradation. They are not recognized by international conventions as refugees; they bear the loss of the lives they have left behind, without enjoying any legal protection whatsoever. Sadly, there is widespread indifference to such suffering, which is even now taking place throughout our world. Our lack of response to these tragedies involving our brothers and sisters points to the loss of that sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded. 53. These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course. Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years. Yet we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be what he desired when he created it and correspond with his plan for peace, beauty and fullness. The problem is that we still lack the culture needed to confront this crisis. We lack leadership capable of striking out on new paths and meeting the needs of the present with concern for all and without prejudice towards coming

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­ enerations. The establishment of a legal framework which can set clear g boundaries and ensure the protection of ecosystems has become indispensable; otherwise, the new power structures based on the techno-­ economic paradigm may overwhelm not only our politics but also freedom and justice. 54. It is remarkable how weak international political responses have been. The failure of global summits on the environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance. There are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected. The Aparecida Document urges that “the interests of economic groups which irrationally demolish sources of life should not prevail in dealing with natural resources.” [32] The alliance between the economy and technology ends up sidelining anything unrelated to its immediate interests. Consequently the most one can expect is superficial rhetoric, sporadic acts of philanthropy and perfunctory expressions of concern for the environment, whereas any genuine attempt by groups within society to introduce change is viewed as a nuisance based on romantic illusions or an obstacle to be circumvented. 66. The creation accounts in the book of Genesis contain, in their own symbolic and narrative language, profound teachings about human existence and its historical reality. They suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself. According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin. The harmony between the Creator, humanity and creation as a whole was disrupted by our presuming to take the place of God and refusing to acknowledge our creaturely limitations. This in turn distorted our mandate to “have dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), to “till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). As a result, the originally harmonious relationship between human beings and nature became conflictual (cf. Gen 3:17–19). It is significant that the harmony which Saint Francis of Assisi experienced with all creatures was seen as a healing of that rupture. Saint Bonaventure held that, through universal reconciliation with every creature, Saint Francis in some way returned to the state of original innocence. This is a far cry from our situation today, where sin is manifest in all its destructive power in wars, the various forms of violence and abuse, the abandonment of the most vulnerable, and attacks on nature.

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67. We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us. This allows us to respond to the charge that Judeo-Christian thinking, on the basis of the Genesis account which grants man “dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), has encouraged the unbridled exploitation of nature by painting him as domineering and destructive by nature. This is not a correct interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church. Although it is true that we Christians have at times incorrectly interpreted the Scriptures, nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures. The biblical texts are to be read in their context, with an appropriate hermeneutic, recognizing that they tell us to “till and keep” the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15). “Tilling” refers to cultivating, ploughing or working, while “keeping” means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature. Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations. “The earth is the Lord’s” (Ps 24:1); to him belongs “the earth with all that is within it” (Dt 10:14). Thus God rejects every claim to absolute ownership: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev 25:23). 68. This responsibility for God’s earth means that human beings, endowed with intelligence, must respect the laws of nature and the delicate equilibria existing between the creatures of this world, for “he commanded and they were created; and he established them for ever and ever; he fixed their bounds and he set a law which cannot pass away” (Ps 148:5b–6). The laws found in the Bible dwell on relationships, not only among individuals but also with other living beings. “You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and withhold your help … If you chance to come upon a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs; you shall not take the mother with the young” (Dt 22:4, 6). Along these same lines, rest on the seventh day is meant not only for human beings, but also so “that your ox and your donkey may have rest” (Ex 23:12). Clearly, the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures. 69. Together with our obligation to use the earth’s goods responsibly, we are called to recognize that other living beings have a value of their

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own in God’s eyes: “by their mere existence they bless him and give him glory,” and indeed, “the Lord rejoices in all his works” (Ps 104:31). By virtue of our unique dignity and our gift of intelligence, we are called to respect creation and its inherent laws, for “the Lord by wisdom founded the earth” (Prov 3:19). In our time, the Church does not simply state that other creatures are completely subordinated to the good of human beings, as if they have no worth in themselves and can be treated as we wish. The German bishops have taught that, where other creatures are concerned, “we can speak of the priority of being over that of being useful.” The Catechism clearly and forcefully criticizes a distorted anthropocentrism: “Each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection … Each of the various creatures, willed in its own being, reflects in its own way a ray of God’s infinite wisdom and goodness. Man must therefore respect the particular goodness of every creature, to avoid any disordered use of things.” 70. In the story of Cain and Abel, we see how envy led Cain to commit the ultimate injustice against his brother, which in turn ruptured the relationship between Cain and God, and between Cain and the earth from which he was banished. This is seen clearly in the dramatic exchange between God and Cain. God asks: “Where is Abel your brother?” Cain answers that he does not know, and God persists: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground” (Gen 4:9–11). Disregard for the duty to cultivate and maintain a proper relationship with my neighbor, for whose care and custody I am responsible, ruins my relationship with my own self, with others, with God and with the earth. When all these relationships are neglected, when justice no longer dwells in the land, the Bible tells us that life itself is endangered. We see this in the story of Noah, where God threatens to do away with humanity because of its constant failure to fulfil the requirements of justice and peace: “I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them” (Gen 6:13). These ancient stories, full of symbolism, bear witness to a conviction which we today share, that everything is interconnected, and that genuine care for our own lives and our relationships with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice and faithfulness to others. 71. Although “the wickedness of man was great in the earth” (Gen 6:5) and the Lord “was sorry that he had made man on the earth” (Gen 6:6), nonetheless, through Noah, who remained innocent and just, God decided to open a path of salvation. In this way he gave humanity the

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chance of a new beginning. All it takes is one good person to restore hope! The biblical tradition clearly shows that this renewal entails recovering and respecting the rhythms inscribed in nature by the hand of the Creator. We see this, for example, in the law of the Sabbath. On the seventh day, God rested from all his work. He commanded Israel to set aside each seventh day as a day of rest, a Sabbath, (cf. Gen 2:2–3; Ex 16:23; 20:10). Similarly, every seven years, a sabbatical year was set aside for Israel, a complete rest for the land (cf. Lev 25:1–4), when sowing was forbidden and one reaped only what was necessary to live on and to feed one’s household (cf. Lev 25:4–6). Finally, after seven weeks of years, which is to say forty-nine years, the Jubilee was celebrated as a year of general forgiveness and “liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants” (cf. Lev 25:10). This law came about as an attempt to ensure balance and fairness in their relationships with others and with the land on which they lived and worked. At the same time, it was an acknowledgment that the gift of the earth with its fruits belongs to everyone. Those who tilled and kept the land were obliged to share its fruits, especially with the poor, with widows, orphans and foreigners in their midst: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border, neither shall you gather the gleanings after the harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner” (Lev 19:9–10). 72. The Psalms frequently exhort us to praise God the Creator, “who spread out the earth on the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Ps 136:6). They also invite other creatures to join us in this praise: “Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created” (Ps 148:3–5). We do not only exist by God’s mighty power; we also live with him and beside him. This is why we adore him. 73. The writings of the prophets invite us to find renewed strength in times of trial by contemplating the all-powerful God who created the universe. Yet God’s infinite power does not lead us to flee his fatherly tenderness, because in him affection and strength are joined. Indeed, all sound spirituality entails both welcoming divine love and adoration, confident in the Lord because of his infinite power. In the Bible, the God who liberates and saves is the same God who created the universe, and these two divine ways of acting are intimately and inseparably connected: “Ah Lord God! It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by

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your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you … You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders” (Jer 32:17, 21). “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless” (Is 40:28b–29). 160. What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? This question not only concerns the environment in isolation; the issue cannot be approached piecemeal. When we ask ourselves what kind of world we want to leave behind, we think in the first place of its general direction, its meaning and its values. Unless we struggle with these deeper issues, I do not believe that our concern for ecology will produce significant results. But if these issues are courageously faced, we are led inexorably to ask other pointed questions: What is the purpose of our life in this world? Why are we here? What is the goal of our work and all our efforts? What need does the earth have of us? It is no longer enough, then, simply to state that we should be concerned for future generations. We need to see that what is at stake is our own dignity. Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations is, first and foremost, up to us. The issue is one which dramatically affects us, for it has to do with the ultimate meaning of our earthly sojourn. 201. The majority of people living on our planet profess to be believers. This should spur religions to dialogue among themselves for the sake of protecting nature, defending the poor, and building networks of respect and fraternity. Dialogue among the various sciences is likewise needed, since each can tend to become enclosed in its own language, while specialization leads to a certain isolation and the absolutization of its own field of knowledge. This prevents us from confronting environmental problems effectively. An open and respectful dialogue is also needed between the various ecological movements, among which ideological conflicts are not infrequently encountered. The gravity of the ecological crisis demands that we all look to the common good, embarking on a path of dialogue which demands patience, self-discipline and generosity, always keeping in mind that “realities are greater than ideas.” 237. On Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world. Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, the “first day” of the new creation, whose first fruits are the Lord’s risen humanity, the pledge of the

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final transfiguration of all created reality. It also proclaims “man’s eternal rest in God.” In this way, Christian spirituality incorporates the value of relaxation and festivity. We tend to demean contemplative rest as something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the very thing which is most important about work: its meaning. We are called to include in our work a dimension of receptivity and gratuity, which is quite different from mere inactivity. Rather, it is another way of working, which forms part of our very essence. It protects human action from becoming empty activism; it also prevents that unfettered greed and sense of isolation which make us seek personal gain to the detriment of all else. The law of weekly rest forbade work on the seventh day, “so that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your maidservant, and the stranger, may be refreshed” (Ex 23:12). Rest opens our eyes to the larger picture and gives us renewed sensitivity to the rights of others. And so the day of rest, centered on the Eucharist, sheds it light on the whole week, and motivates us to greater concern for nature and the poor.

Excerpts from Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love): On Love in the Family, 19 March 2016 136. Dialogue is essential for experiencing, ex-pressing and fostering love in marriage and family life. Yet it can only be the fruit of a long and demanding apprenticeship. Men and women, young people and adults, communicate differently. They speak different languages and they act in different ways. Our way of asking and responding to questions, the tone we use, our timing and any number of other factors condition how well we communicate. We need to develop certain attitudes that express love and encourage authentic dialogue. 137. Take time, quality time. This means being ready to listen patiently and attentively to everything the other person wants to say. It requires the self-discipline of not speaking until the time is right. Instead of offering an opinion or advice, we need to be sure that we have heard everything the other person has to say. This means cultivating an interior silence that makes it possible to listen to the other person without mental or emotional distractions. Do not be rushed, put aside all of your own needs and worries, and make space. Often the other spouse does not need a solution to his or her problems, but simply to be heard, to feel that someone has acknowledge their pain, their disappointment, their fear, their anger, their

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hopes and their dreams. How often we hear complaints like: “He does not listen to me.” “Even when you seem to, you are really doing something else.” “I talk to her and I feel like she can’t wait for me to finish.” “When I speak to her, she tries to change the subject, or she gives me curt responses to end the conversation.” 138. Develop the habit of giving real importance to the other person. This means appreciating them and recognizing their right to exist, to think as they do and to be happy. Never down-play what they say or think, even if you need to express your own point of view. Everyone has something to contribute, because they have their life experiences, they look at things from a different standpoint and they have their own concerns, abilities and insights. We ought to be able to ac-knowledge the other person’s truth, the value of his or her deepest concerns, and what it is that they are trying to communicate, however aggressively. We have to put ourselves in their shoes and try to peer into their hearts, to perceive their deepest concerns and to take them as a point of departure for further dialogue. 139. Keep an open mind. Don’t get bogged down in your own limited ideas and opinions, but be prepared to change or expand them. The combination of two different ways of thinking can lead to a synthesis that enriches both. The unity that we seek is not uniformity, but a “unity in diversity”, or “reconciled diversity”. Fraternal communion is enriched by respect and appreciation for differences within an overall perspective that advances the common good. We need to free ourselves from feeling that we all have to be alike. A certain astuteness is also needed to prevent the appearance of “static” that can interfere with the process of dialogue. For example, if hard feelings start to emerge, they should be dealt with sensitively, lest they interrupt the dynamic of dialogue. The ability to say what one is thinking without offending the other person is important. Words should be carefully chosen so as not to offend, especially when discussing difficult issues. Making a point should never involve venting anger and inflicting hurt. A patronizing tone only serves to hurt, ridicule, accuse and offend others. Many disagreements between couples are not about important things. Mostly they are about trivial matters. What alters the mood, however, is the way things are said or the attitude with which they are said. 140. Show affection and concern for the other person. Love surmounts even the worst barriers. When we love someone, or when we feel loved by them, we can better understand what they are trying to communicate. Fearing the other person as a kind of “rival” is a sign of weakness and needs to be overcome. It is very important to base one’s position on solid

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choices, beliefs or values, and not on the need to win an argument or to be proved right. 141. Finally, let us acknowledge that for a worth-while dialogue we have to have something to say. This can only be the fruit of an interior richness nourished by reading, personal reflection, prayer and openness to the world around us. Otherwise, conversations become boring and trivial. When neither of the spouses works at this, and has little real contact with other people, family life becomes stifling and dialogue impoverished. [The following transcripts are taken from the website of The Holy See.]

Address of the Holy Father Pope Francis, Audience with the College of Cardinals at Clementine Hall, 20 March 2013 Dear Brother Cardinals, The period of the conclave has been a momentous time not only for the College of Cardinals, but also for all the faithful. In these days we have felt almost tangibly the affection and the solidarity of the universal Church, as well as the concern of so many people who, even if they do not share our faith, look to the Church and the Holy See with respect and admiration. From every corner of the earth fervent prayers have been offered up by the Christian people for the new pope, and my first encounter with the thronging crowd in Saint Peter’s Square was deeply moving. With that evocative image of the people gathered in joyful prayer still impressed on my memory, I want to express my sincere thanks to the bishops, priests, consecrated persons, young people, families, and the elderly for their spiritual closeness, so touching and so deeply felt. I want to express my sincere and profound gratitude to all of you, my dear venerable brother Cardinals, for your ready cooperation in the task of leading the Church during the period of the Sede Vacante. I greet each one of you warmly, beginning with the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, whom I thank for his devoted words and his fervent good wishes addressed to me on behalf of all of you. I also thank Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Camerlengo of Holy Roman Church, for his attentive service during this transitional period, as well as our dear friend Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who led us during the conclave: thank you very much! My thoughts turn with particular affection to the Cardinals who, on account of age or ill health, made their contribution and expressed

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their love for the Church by offering up their sufferings and their prayers. And I should tell you that the day before yesterday, Cardinal Mejia had a heart attack and was taken to the Pio XI Hospital. But they think his condition is stable, and he has sent us his greetings. Nor can I omit to thank all those who carried out various tasks in the preparation and the conduct of the conclave, providing the Cardinals with security and peace of mind in this period of such importance for the life of the Church. My thoughts turn with great affection and profound gratitude to my venerable Predecessor Benedict XVI, who enriched and invigorated the Church during the years of his Pontificate by his teaching, his goodness, his leadership, his faith, his humility and his meekness. All this remains as a spiritual patrimony for us all. The Petrine ministry, lived with total dedication, found in him a wise and humble exponent, his gaze always firmly on Christ, the risen Christ, present and alive in the Eucharist. We will always accompany him with fervent prayers, with constant remembrance, with undying and affectionate gratitude. We feel that Benedict XVI has kindled a flame deep within our hearts: a flame that will continue to burn because it will be fed by his prayers, which continue to sustain the Church on her spiritual and missionary path. Dear brother Cardinals, this meeting of ours is intended to be, as it were, a prolongation of the intense ecclesial communion we have experienced during this period. Inspired by a profound sense of responsibility and supported by a great love for Christ and for the Church, we have prayed together, fraternally sharing our feelings, our experiences and reflections. In this atmosphere of great warmth we have come to know one another better in a climate of mutual openness; and this is good, because we are brothers. Someone said to me: the Cardinals are the priests of the Holy Father. That community, that friendship, that closeness will do us all good. And our acquaintance and mutual openness have helped us to be docile to the action of the Holy Spirit. He, the Paraclete, is the ultimate source of every initiative and manifestation of faith. It is a curious thing: it makes me think of this. The Paraclete creates all the differences among the Churches, almost as if he were an Apostle of Babel. But on the other hand, it is he who creates unity from these differences, not in “equality”, but in harmony. I remember the Father of the Church who described him thus: “Ipse harmonia est.” The Paraclete, who gives different charisms to each of us, unites us in this community of the Church, that worships the Father, the Son, and Him, the Holy Spirit.

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On the basis of the authentic affective collegiality that unites the College of Cardinals, I express my desire to serve the Gospel with renewed love, helping the Church to become increasingly, in Christ and with Christ, the fruitful vine of the Lord. Inspired also by the celebration of the Year of Faith, all of us together, pastors and members of the faithful, will strive to respond faithfully to the Church’s perennial mission: to bring Jesus Christ to mankind and to lead mankind to an encounter with Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, truly present in the Church and also in every person. This meeting leads us to become new men in the mystery of Grace, kindling in the spirit that Christian joy that is the hundredfold given by Christ to those who welcome him into their lives. As Pope Benedict XVI reminded us so many times in his teachings, and at the end by his courageous and humble gesture, it is Christ who leads the Church through his Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church through his life-giving and unifying force: out of many, he makes one single body, the Mystical Body of Christ. Let us never yield to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day; let us not yield to pessimism or discouragement: let us be quite certain that the Holy Spirit bestows upon the Church, with his powerful breath, the courage to persevere and also to seek new methods of evangelization, so as to bring to Gospel to the uttermost ends of the earth (cf. Acts 1:8). Christian truth is attractive and persuasive because it responds to the profound need of human life, proclaiming convincingly that Christ is the one Savior of the whole man and of all men. This proclamation remains as valid today as it was at the origin of Christianity, when the first great missionary expansion of the Gospel took place. Dear brother Cardinals, take courage! Half of us are advanced in age. Old age is—as I like to say—the seat of life’s wisdom. The old have acquired the wisdom that comes from having journeyed through life, like the old man Simeon, the old prophetess Anna in the Temple. And that wisdom enabled them to recognize Jesus. Let us pass on this wisdom to the young: like good wine that improves with age, let us give life’s wisdom to the young. I am reminded of a German poet who said of old age: Es is ruhig, das Alter, und fromm: it is a time of tranquility and prayer. And also a time to pass on this wisdom to the young. You will now return to your respective sees to continue your ministry, enriched by the experience of these days, so full of faith and ecclesial communion. This unique and incomparable experience has enabled us to grasp deeply all the beauty of

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the Church, which is a glimpse of the radiance of the risen Christ: one day we will gaze upon that beautiful face of the risen Christ! I entrust my ministry and your ministry to the powerful intercession of Mary, our Mother, Mother of the Church. Under her maternal gaze, may each one of you continue gladly along your path, attentive to the voice of her divine Son, strengthening your unity, persevering in your common prayer and bearing witness to the true faith in the constant presence of the Lord. With these sentiments, which I really mean, I impart a heartfelt Apostolic Blessing, which I extend to your co-workers and to all those entrusted to your pastoral care.

Address of Pope Francis to Participants in the International Meeting for Peace Sponsored by the Community of Sant’Egidio, 30 September 2013 Your Beatitudes, Your Eminences, Distinguished Representatives of the Churches, of Ecclesial Communities and of the great Religions, I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to you for making this visit. It gives me great joy! You are experiencing intense days at a meeting which gathers together people of different religions with the meaningful and challenging theme: “The courage of hope.” I wish to thank Professor Andrea Riccardi for the words and greeting which he has offered on behalf of all. Along with him, I wish to extend my thanks to the Community of Sant’Egidio for having perseveringly followed the road laid out at Blessed John Paul II’s historic meeting in Assisi: to keep the light of hope burning, by praying and working for peace. It took place in 1986, in a world still marked by the division of opposing blocs. It was within that context that the Pope invited religious leaders to pray for peace: it was no longer a question of one against the other, but of one standing next to the other. It should not and could not have remained an isolated event. You have continued on this path and have increased its momentum by involving significant personalities from all religions in the dialogue, as well as secular and humanist representatives. Precisely in recent months, we have felt that the world needs the “spirit” which animated that historic encounter. Why? Because it is greatly in need of peace. No! We cannot feel resigned in the face of the pain and suffering of entire peoples held hostage by war, misery and exploitation. We cannot remain indifferent and powerless before the plight of children, families and the

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elderly who have been struck by violence. We cannot allow terrorism to enslave the hearts of a few violent individuals in order to sow pain and death for many. In a special way, let us, one and all, forcefully and continually say that there can be no justification for violence on religious grounds. There can be no religious justification for violence, in whatever way it may manifest itself. As Pope Benedict XVI emphasized two years ago during the 25th Meeting in Assisi, every form of religiously motivated violence must be eradicated, together we need to be vigilant so that the world does not fall prey to that violence that is contained in any project for civilization which is based on saying “no” to God. As leaders of different religions there is much we can do. Peace is the responsibility of everyone. To pray for peace, to work for peace! A religious leader is always a man or woman of peace, for the commandment of peace is inscribed in the depths of the religious traditions that we represent. But what can we do? Your annual meeting suggests the way forward: the courage of dialogue. This courage, this dialogue gives us hope. It has nothing to do with optimism; it’s entirely different. Hope! In the world, in society, there is little peace also because dialogue is missing, we find it difficult to go beyond the narrow horizon of our own interests in order to open ourselves to a true and sincere comparison. Peace requires a persistent, patient, strong, intelligent dialogue by which nothing is lost. Dialogue can overcome war. Dialogue can bring people of different generations who often ignore one another to live together; it makes citizens of different ethnic backgrounds and of different beliefs coexist. Dialogue is the way of peace. For dialogue fosters understanding, harmony, concord and peace. For this reason, it is vital that it grow and expand between people of every condition and belief, like a net of peace that protects the world and especially protects the weakest members. As religious leaders, we are called to be true “people of dialogue,” to cooperate in building peace not as intermediaries but as authentic mediators. Intermediaries seek to give everyone a discount ultimately in order to gain something for themselves. However, the mediator is one who retains nothing for himself, but rather spends himself generously until he is consumed, knowing that the only gain is peace. Each one of us is called to be an artisan of peace, by uniting and not dividing, by extinguishing hatred and not holding on to it, by opening paths to dialogue and not by constructing new walls! Let us dialogue and meet each other in order to establish a culture of dialogue in the world, a culture of encounter.

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The legacy of the first meeting in Assisi, which is nourished year after year through your journey together, shows that dialogue is intimately bound to prayer. Dialogue and prayer grow or wither together. Man’s relationship with God is the school and sustenance for dialogue with men. Pope Paul VI spoke of the “transcendent origin of dialogue”; he said: “Religion of its very nature is a certain relationship between God and man. It finds its expression in prayer, and prayer is dialogue” (Encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, 70). Let us continue to pray for peace in the world, for peace in Syria, for peace in the Middle East, for peace in many countries of the world. May the courage of peace give the courage of hope to the world, to all those who suffer on account of war, to young people who are worried about their future. May God Almighty, who listens to our prayers, sustain us on this journey of peace. And I would like to suggest now that each one of us, all of us, in the presence of God, in silence, that all of us, mutually wish one another peace. [Pause for silence] Thank you!

Address to Representatives of the Jewish Community of Rome, 11 October 2013 Dear Friends of the Jewish Community of Rome, Shalom! I am pleased to welcome you and to have the opportunity to deepen and expand upon the first meeting that was held with several of your representatives on 20 March. I greet all of you with affection, especially the Chief Rabbi, Dr Riccardo Di Segni, whom I thank for the words which he has addressed to me. I also wish to thank him for reminding me of the courage of our father Abraham, when he struggled with the Lord to save Sodom and Gomorrah: “and if there were thirty, and if there were twenty-­ five, and if there were twenty…”. It is truly a courageous intercession to the Lord. Thank you. I also wish to greet the President of the Jewish Community of Rome, Dr Riccardo Pacifici, and the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Dr Renzo Gattegna. As the Bishop of Rome, I feel particularly close to the life of the city’s Jewish community: I know that with an uninterrupted presence of more than two thousand years, it is Western Europe’s most ancient community. For many centuries then, the Jewish community and the Church of Rome have lived together in this, our city, through a history—we well know— often marked by misunderstanding and even genuine injustice. Yet it is a

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story that, with God’s help, has for many decades now seen the development of friendly and fraternal relations. On the part of Catholics, the reflection carried out at the Second Vatican Council has certainly contributed to this change in mentality. However, a contribution of no little import has also come from the lives and action, on both sides, of wise and generous men who were able to recognize the call of the Lord and head courageously down new paths of encounter and dialogue. Paradoxically, the common tragedy of the war has taught us to journey together. In just a few days we will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Jews of Rome. We will remember and pray for the many innocent victims of inhuman cruelty and for their families. It will also be an occasion to heighten our attention and be watchful so that forms of intolerance and anti-Semitism do not recur under any pretext, here in Rome and in the rest of the world. I have said it on other occasions and I would like to repeat it now: it is a contradiction for a Christian to be anti-Semitic. His roots are a bit Jewish. A Christian cannot be an anti-­ Semite! May anti-Semitism be banished from the heart and life of every man and every woman! The anniversary will also be an occasion which allows us to remember how in the hour of darkness the Christian community of this city reached out to its brother in trouble. We know that many religious institutes, monasteries and the Papal Basilicas themselves, understanding the will of the pope, opened their doors in fraternal welcome, and how many common Christians offered whatever help they were able to give, great or small as the case might be. The vast majority were not aware of the need to update the Christian understanding of Judaism and perhaps they knew very little about the life of the Jewish community. However, they had the courage to do the right thing at the time: protect their brother who was in danger. I like to emphasize this aspect, because if it is true that it is important, on both sides, to deepen theological reflection through dialogue, it is also true that there is another vital dialogue, that of everyday experience, which is equally fundamental. Indeed, without the latter, without a real and concrete culture of encounter that leads to authentic relationships, without prejudice and suspicion, engagement in the intellectual field would serve but little. Here, too, as I often like to emphasize, the People of God have their own nose and they sense the path that God is asking them to take. In this case it is the path of friendship, closeness and fraternity.

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I hope to contribute here in Rome, as its Bishop, to this closeness and friendship, as I also had the grace—for indeed it was a grace—to do with the Jewish community in Buenos Aires. Among the many things that can unite us is our common witness to the truth of the “Ten Commandments,” the Decalogue, as a solid foundation and source of life for our society, which is so disoriented by an extreme pluralism of choice and direction, and marked by a relativism which leads to no longer having sure and solid points of reference (cf. Benedict XVI, Address at the Synagogue of Rome, 17 January 2010, 5–6). Dear friends, I wish to thank you for your visit, and with you I invoke the protection and blessing of the Most High upon our common journey of friendship and trust. May he, in his goodness, grant his peace in our day. Thank you.

Address to Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Vatican City, 28 November 2013 The Future of Interreligious Dialogue Lies in Respectful Co-existence in Diversity “The Catholic Church is conscious of the value of the promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions. We are increasingly aware of its importance, both because the world has, in some ways, become ‘smaller,’ and because the phenomenon of migration increases contact between people and communities of different traditions, cultures and religions. This fact calls to our Christian conscience and it is a challenge for the understanding of faith and for the real life … of many believers.” With these words, Pope Francis welcomed the participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, whose president is Cardinal Jean-Louis Taurant [sic], which is dedicated to the theme “Members of different religious traditions in society.” The Holy Father referred to his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium to reaffirm that “an attitude of openness in truth and in love must characterize the dialogue with the followers of non-Christian religions, in spite of various obstacles and difficulties, especially forms of fundamentalism on both sides.”

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In fact, “there is no lack, throughout the world, of contexts in which co-existence is difficult: often political or economic motives overlap with cultural and religious differences, exploiting misunderstandings and past mistakes: all this risks generating diffidence and fear. There is only one route to conquering this fear, and it is encounter, characterized by friendship and respect”. “Dialogue does not mean renouncing one’s own identity in approaching others,” explained Pope Francis, “nor does it mean accepting compromises on faith and Christian morality. On the contrary, ‘true openness involves remaining steadfast in one’s deepest convictions, clear and joyful in one’s own identity,’ and therefore convinced that the encounter with persons different to ourselves may offer an opportunity for growth in brotherhood, enrichment and witness.” He adds, “Interreligious dialogue and evangelization are not mutually exclusive, but rather nurture each other. We do not impose anything, we use no underhand strategies to attract the faithful, but rather evangelize with the joy and the simplicity in which we believe and which we experience. Indeed, an encounter in which each person sets aside his belief, pretending to renounce that which is most dear to him, would certainly not be an authentic relationship. This could be described as a false fraternity.” Constructive dialogue between people of different religious traditions “also helps overcome another fear, which we unfortunately find in the most strongly secularized societies: the fear of the various religious traditions and of the religious dimension as such … There is a widespread belief that co-existence would be possible only by concealing one’s own religious identity, encountering one another in a sort of neutral space, without references to the transcendent. However, how is it possible to create true relations, to build a society that is an authentic communal home, imposing that its members set aside an intimate part of their being? Certainly, it is necessary that all this occurs with respect for the convictions of others, even those who do not believe, but we must have the courage and the patience to encounter and come towards each other as we are.” “The future is in respectful co-existence in diversity,” concluded the pope, “not in the uniformity of a single theoretically neutral thought. The recognition of the fundamental right to religious freedom, in all its dimensions, therefore becomes indispensable. In this regard, great efforts have been made to express the Magisterium of the Church during recent decades. We are convinced that this is the route to building peace in the world.”

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Press Conference In-flight from Sri Lanka to Philippines, 14 January 2014 Christopher Schmidt: Holy Father, good morning. Would you be so kind as to tell us something about your visit to the Buddhist temple yesterday, which was a big surprise. What was the reason for such an apparently spontaneous visit? Are you impressed by that religion? We know that Christian missionaries believed right up to the twentieth century that Buddhism was a fraud, a diabolical religion. Third, what relevance does Buddhism have for the future of Asia? Pope Francis: How was the visit, and why did I go? The head of that temple was invited by the government to the airport for my arrival and there—he is a great friend of Cardinal Ranjith—when he greeted me he invited me to the temple—and he asked Cardinal Ranjith to bring me there. So I spoke with the Cardinal, but there wasn’t time, since once I arrived I had to cancel the meeting with the Bishops because I wasn’t feeling well. I was tired—that twenty-nine kilometer ride from the airport and greeting all the people had worn me out completely—and so there was no time. But yesterday, returning from Madhu, there was a chance to do it; he called and so we went. In that temple are relics of two of the Buddha’s disciples. For them these are very important. These relics were in England and the temple authorities managed to get them back: good. So he came to greet me at the airport and I went to visit him. That first. Secondly, yesterday at Madhu I saw something which I would never have expected: not everyone there was Catholic, not even the majority! There were Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and each one came to pray; they go and they say they receive graces there. There is in the people—and the people are never wrong—they sense that there is something there that unites them. And if they are so naturally united in going together to pray at that shrine—which is Christian but not only Christian, because all want [to go there], then why shouldn’t I go to a Buddhist temple to greet them? What happened yesterday at Madhu is very important. It helps us to understand the meaning of the interreligious experience in Sri Lanka: there is respect for one another. There are small fundamentalist groups, but these are not with the people: they are ideological elites, but they are not with the people. Now, as for their going to hell! Even the Protestants … when I was a child, some seventy years ago, all Protestants were going to hell, all of them. That’s what we were told. And I remember my first experience of

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ecumenism. I told it a little while ago to the leaders of the Salvation Army. I was four or five years old, but I can still remember it clearly. I was walking down the street with my grandmother, she was holding my hand. On the other sidewalk there were two ladies from the Salvation Army, with those hats with the bow they used to wear. And I asked my grandmother: “Grandma, are they nuns?” And she said to me: “No, they are Protestants, but they are good people.” This was the first time that I had ever heard someone say something good about a person of another religion, about a Protestant. At that time, in catechesis, they told us that everyone was going to hell! But I believe that the Church has become much more respectful— as I said during the interreligious meeting in Colombo—and appreciative. When we read what the Second Vatican Council said about the values to be found in other religions, the Church has grown greatly in this regard. And yes, there are dark periods in the history of the Church, we must admit, without being ashamed, because we too are on a path of constant conversion: always moving from sin to grace. And this interreligious experience of fraternity, each always respecting the other, is a grace. I do not know if there is something I have forgotten. Is that all? Vielen Danke.

Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Republic of Korea on the Occasion of the 6th Asian Youth Day Meeting with the Bishops of Asia, 17 August 2014 I offer you a warm and fraternal greeting in the Lord as we gather together at this holy site where so many Christians gave their lives in fidelity to Christ. I have been told that some are nameless martyrs, since we do not know all their names: they are saints without a name. But this makes me think about the many, many holy Christians in our churches: children and young people, men, women, elderly persons … so very many of them! We do not know their names, but they are saints. It is good for us to think of these ordinary people who are persevering in their lives as Christians, and the Lord alone recognizes their sanctity. Their testimony of charity has brought blessings and graces not only to the Church in Korea but also beyond; may their prayers help us to be faithful shepherds of the souls entrusted to our care. I thank Cardinal Gracias for his kind words of welcome and for the work of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences in fostering solidarity and promoting effective pastoral outreach in your local Churches.

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On this vast continent which is home to a great variety of cultures, the Church is called to be versatile and creative in her witness to the Gospel through dialogue and openness to all. This is the challenge before you! Dialogue, in fact, is an essential part of the mission of the Church in Asia (cf. Ecclesia in Asia, 29). But in undertaking the path of dialogue with individuals and cultures, what should be our point of departure and our fundamental point of reference, which guides us to our destination? Surely it is our own identity, our identity as Christians. We cannot engage in real dialogue unless we are conscious of our own identity. We can’t dialogue, we can’t start dialoguing from nothing, from zero, from a foggy sense of who we are. Nor can there be authentic dialogue unless we are capable of opening our minds and hearts, in empathy and sincere receptivity, to those with whom we speak. In other words, an attentiveness in which the Holy Spirit is our guide. A clear sense of one’s own identity and a capacity for empathy are thus the point of departure for all dialogue. If we are to speak freely, openly and fruitfully with others, we must be clear about who we are, what God has done for us, and what it is that he asks of us. And if our communication is not to be a monologue, there has to be openness of heart and mind to accepting individuals and cultures. Fearlessly, for fear is the enemy of this kind of openness. The task of appropriating and expressing our identity does not always prove easy, however, since—being sinners—we will always be tempted by the spirit of the world, which shows itself in a variety of ways. I would like to point to three of these. One is the deceptive light of relativism, which obscures the splendor of truth and, shaking the earth beneath our feet, pulls us toward the shifting sands of confusion and despair. It is a temptation which nowadays also affects Christian communities, causing people to forget that in a world of rapid and disorienting change, “there is much that is unchanging, much that has its ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Gaudium et Spes, 10; cf. Heb 13:8). Here I am not speaking about relativism merely as a system of thought, but about that everyday practical relativism which almost imperceptibly saps our sense of identity. A second way in which the world threatens the solidity of our Christian identity is superficiality, a tendency to toy with the latest fads, gadgets and distractions, rather than attending to the things that really matter (cf. Phil 1:10). In a culture which glorifies the ephemeral, and offers so many ­avenues of avoidance and escape, this can present a serious pastoral problem. For the ministers of the Church, it can also make itself felt in an

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enchantment with pastoral programs and theories, to the detriment of direct, fruitful encounter with our faithful, and others too, especially the young who need solid catechesis and sound spiritual guidance. Without a grounding in Christ, the truths by which we live our lives can gradually recede, the practice of the virtues can become formalistic, and dialogue can be reduced to a form of negotiation or an agreement to disagree. An agreement to disagree … so as not to make waves … This sort of superficiality does us great harm. Then too, there is a third temptation: that of the apparent security to be found in hiding behind easy answers, ready formulas, rules and regulations. Jesus clashed with people who would hide behind laws, regulations and easy answers … He called them hypocrites. Faith by nature is not self-­ absorbed; it “goes out.” It seeks understanding; it gives rise to testimony; it generates mission. In this sense, faith enables us to be both fearless and unassuming in our witness of hope and love. Saint Peter tells us that we should be ever ready to respond to all who ask reason for the hope within us (cf. 1 Pet 3:15). Our identity as Christians is ultimately seen in our quiet efforts to worship God alone, to love one another, to serve one another, and to show by our example not only what we believe, but also what we hope for, and the One in whom we put our trust (cf. 2 Tim 1:12). Once again, it is our living faith in Christ which is our deepest identity, our being rooted in the Lord. If we have this, everything else is secondary. It is from this deep identity—our being grounded in a living faith in Christ—it is from this profound reality that our dialogue begins, and this is what we are asked to share, sincerely, honestly and without pretense, in the dialogue of everyday life, in the dialogue of charity, and in those more formal opportunities which may present themselves. Because Christ is our life (cf. Phil 1:21), let us speak “from him and of him” readily and without hesitation or fear. The simplicity of his word becomes evident in the simplicity of our lives, in the simplicity of our communication, in the simplicity of our works of loving service to our brothers and sisters. I would now touch on one further aspect of our Christian identity. It is fruitful. Because it is born of, and constantly nourished by, the grace of our dialogue with the Lord and the promptings of his Spirit, it bears a harvest of justice, goodness and peace. Let me ask you, then, about the fruits which it is bearing in your own lives and in the lives of the communities entrusted to your care. Does the Christian identity of your particular Churches shine forth in your programs of catechesis and youth ministry, in your service to the poor and those languishing on the margins of our

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prosperous societies, and in your efforts to nourish vocations to the priesthood and the religious life? Does it make itself felt in their fruitfulness? This is a question I raise, for each of you to think about. Finally, together with a clear sense of our own Christian identity, authentic dialogue also demands a capacity for empathy. For dialogue to take place, there has to be this empathy. We are challenged to listen not only to the words which others speak, but to the unspoken communication of their experiences, their hopes and aspirations, their struggles and their deepest concerns. Such empathy must be the fruit of our spiritual insight and personal experience, which lead us to see others as brothers and sisters, and to “hear,” in and beyond their words and actions, what their hearts wish to communicate. In this sense, dialogue demands of us a truly contemplative spirit of openness and receptivity to the other. I cannot engage in dialogue if I am closed to others. Openness? Even more: acceptance! Come to my house, enter my heart. My heart welcomes you. It wants to hear you. This capacity for empathy enables a true human dialogue in which words, ideas and questions arise from an experience of fraternity and shared humanity. If we want to get to the theological basis of this, we have to go to the Father: he created us all; all of us are children of one Father. This capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter—have to progress toward this culture of encounter—in which heart speaks to heart. We are enriched by the wisdom of the other and become open to travelling together the path to greater understanding, friendship and solidarity. “But, brother Pope, this is what we are doing, but perhaps we are converting no one or very few people …” But you are doing it anyway: with your identity, you are hearing the other. What was the first commandment of God our Father to our father Abraham? “Walk in my presence and be blameless.” And so, with my identity and my empathy, my openness, I walk with the other. I don’t try to make him come over to me, I don’t proselytize. Pope Benedict told us clearly: “The Church does not grow by proselytizing, but by attracting.” In the meantime, let us walk in the Father’s presence, let us be blameless; let us practice this first commandment. That is where encounter, dialogue, will take place. With identity, with openness. It is a path to greater knowledge, friendship and solidarity. As Saint John Paul II rightly recognized, our commitment to dialogue is grounded in the very logic of the incarnation: in Jesus, God himself became one of us, shared in our life and spoke to us in our own language (cf. Ecclesia in Asia, 29). In this spirit of openness to others, I earnestly hope that those countries of your continent with whom the Holy See does not yet enjoy a full relationship, may

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not hesitate to further a dialogue for the benefit of all. I am not referring to political dialogue alone, but to fraternal dialogue. “But these Christians don’t come as conquerors, they don’t come to take away our identity: they bring us their own, but they want to walk with us.” And the Lord will grant his grace: sometimes he will move hearts and someone will ask for baptism, sometimes not. But always let us walk together. This is the heart of dialogue. Dear brothers, I thank you for your warm and fraternal welcome. When we look out at the great Asian continent, with its vast expanses of land, its ancient cultures and traditions, we are aware that, in God’s plan, your Christian communities are indeed a pusillus grex, a small flock which nonetheless is charged to bring the light of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. A true mustard seed! A very small seed … May the Good Shepherd, who knows and loves each of his sheep, guide and strengthen your efforts to build up their unity with him and with all the members of his flock throughout the world. And now, together, let us entrust your Churches, and the continent of Asia, to Our Lady, so that as our Mother she may teach us what only a mother can teach: who you are, what your name is, and how you get along with others in life. Let us all pray to Our Lady.

Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Tirana (Albania), Meeting with the Leaders of Other Religions and Other Christian Denominations, 21 September 2014 Dear Friends, It is a great pleasure to be here at this meeting which brings together leaders of the main religious confessions present in Albania. With deep respect I greet each one of you and the communities that you represent; and I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to Archbishop Massafra for his words of introduction. It is important that you are here together: it is a sign of the dialogue which you experience daily, seeking to build among yourselves bonds of fraternity and cooperation for the good of the whole of society. Thank you for all that you are doing. Albania sadly witnessed the violence and tragedy that can be caused by a forced exclusion of God from personal and communal life. When, in the name of an ideology, there is an attempt to remove God from society, it ends up adoring idols, and very soon men and women lose their way, their

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dignity is trampled and their rights violated. You know well how much pain comes from the denial of freedom of conscience and of religious freedom, and how from such a wound comes a humanity that is impoverished because it lacks hope and ideals to guide it. The changes that have come since the 1990’s have had the positive effect, among other things, of creating the conditions for an exercise of authentic religious freedom. This has made it possible for each community to renew traditions which were never really extinguished, despite ferocious persecution. With this religious freedom has come also the possibility for every person to offer, according to their own religious convictions, a positive contribution; firstly, to the moral reconstruction of the country and then, subsequently, to the economic reconstruction. In reality, as John Paul II stated during his historic visit to Albania in 1993, “Religious freedom … is not only a precious gift from the Lord for those who have faith: it is a gift for each person, because it is the basic guarantee of every other expression of freedom … Only faith reminds us that, if we have one Creator, we are therefore all brothers and sisters. Religious freedom is a safeguard against all forms of totalitarianism and contributes decisively to human fraternity” (Message to the Albanian People, 25 April 1993). He immediately then added, “True religious freedom shuns the temptation to intolerance and sectarianism, and promotes attitudes of respect and constructive dialogue.” We cannot deny that intolerance towards those with different religious convictions is a particularly insidious enemy, one which today is being witnessed in various areas around the world. All believers must be particularly vigilant so that, in living out with conviction our religious and ethical code, we may always express the mystery we intend to honor. This means that all those forms which present a distorted use of religion, must be firmly refuted as false since they are unworthy of God or humanity. Authentic religion is a source of peace and not of violence! No one must use the name of God to commit violence! To kill in the name of God is a grave sacrilege. To discriminate in the name of God is inhuman. Seen in this light, religious freedom is not a right which can be guaranteed solely by existing legislation, although laws are necessary. Rather religious freedom is a shared space—like this one—an atmosphere of respect and cooperation that must be built with everyone’s participation, even those who have no religious convictions. Allow me to outline two attitudes which can be especially helpful in the advancement of this fundamental freedom.

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The first attitude is that of regarding every man and woman, even those of different religious traditions, not as rivals, less still enemies, but rather as brothers and sisters. When a person is secure of his or her own beliefs, there is no need to impose or put pressure on others: there is a conviction that truth has its own power of attraction. Deep down, we are all pilgrims on this earth, and on this pilgrim journey, as we yearn for truth and eternity, we do not live autonomous and self-sufficient individual lives; the same applies to religious, cultural and national communities. We need each other, and are entrusted to each other’s care. Each religious tradition, from within, must be able to take account of others. The second attitude which fosters the promotion of religious freedom is the work done in service of the common good. Whenever adherence to a specific religious tradition gives birth to service that shows conviction, generosity and concern for the whole of society without making distinctions, then there too exists an authentic and mature living out of religious freedom. This presents itself not only as a space in which to legitimately defend one’s autonomy, but also as a potential that enriches the human family as it advances. The more men and women are at the service of others, the greater their freedom! Let us look around us: there are so many poor and needy people, so many societies that try to find a more inclusive way of social justice and path of economic development! How great is the need for the human heart to be firmly fixed on the deepest meaning of experiences in life and rooted in a rediscovery of hope! Men and women, inspired in these areas by the values of their respective religious traditions, can offer an important, and even unique, contribution. This is truly a fertile land offering much fruit, also in the field of interreligious dialogue. I also wish to mention something which is always an illusion: relativism, “everything is relative”. In this regard, we must keep in mind a clear principle: we cannot enter into dialogue if we do not approach it from the perspective of our own identity. Without identity, there can be no dialogue. It would be an illusory dialogue, a dialogue without substance: it would serve no purpose. All of us have our own religious identity to which we are faithful. But the Lord knows how to guide history. May each one of us begin with our own identity, not pretending to have another, because it serves no end and does not help; it is relativism. What unites us is the path of life, is starting from our own identify for the good of our brothers and sisters. To do good! And so, we walk together as brothers and sisters. Every one of us offers the witness of our identity to others and engages in

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dialogue with others. Then dialogue can move onto theological questions. But even more important and beautiful is to walk together without betraying our own identity, without disguising it, without hypocrisy. This is what I like to think. Dear friends, I encourage you to maintain and develop the tradition of good relations among the various religious communities in Albania, and to be united in serving your beloved homeland. With a sense of humor, one could say that this seems like a football match: Catholics against everyone else. But it is everyone together, for the good of the country and of humanity. Continue to be a sign for your country, and beyond, that good relations and fruitful cooperation are truly possible among men and women of different religions. And I ask a favour: pray for me. I have great need of your prayers. Thank you.

Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Turkey, Visit to the President of the Diyanet at the Department for Religious Affairs, 28 November 2014 Mr President, Religious and Civil Authorities, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to meet with you today in the course of my visit to your country. I thank the President of this distinguished office for his cordial invitation which affords me the opportunity to share these moments with political and religious leaders, both Muslim and Christian. It is a tradition that popes, when they visit different countries as part of their mission, meet also with the leaders and members of various religions. Without this openness to encounter and dialogue, a Papal Visit would not fully correspond to its purposes. And so I have wished to meet you, following in the footsteps of my venerable predecessors. In this context, I am pleased to recall in a special way Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to this very same place in November 2006. Good relations and dialogue between religious leaders have, in fact, acquired great importance. They represent a clear message addressed to their respective communities which demonstrates that mutual respect and friendship are possible, notwithstanding differences. Such friendship, as well as being valuable in itself, becomes all the more meaningful and important in a time of crises such as our own, crises which in some parts of the world are disastrous for entire peoples.

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Wars cause the death of innocent victims and bring untold destruction, interethnic and interreligious tensions and conflicts, hunger and poverty afflicting hundreds of millions of people, and inflict damage on the natural environment—air, water, and land. Especially tragic is the situation in the Middle East, above all in Iraq and Syria. Everyone suffers the consequences of these conflicts, and the humanitarian situation is unbearable. I think of so many children, the sufferings of so many mothers, of the elderly, of those displaced and of all refugees, subject to every form of violence. Particular concern arises from the fact that, owing mainly to an extremist and fundamentalist group, entire communities, especially—though not exclusively—Christians and Yazidis, have suffered and continue to suffer barbaric violence simply because of their ethnic and religious identity. They have been forcibly evicted from their homes, having to leave behind everything to save their lives and preserve their faith. This violence has also brought damage to sacred buildings, monuments, religious symbols and cultural patrimony, as if trying to erase every trace, every memory of the other. As religious leaders, we are obliged to denounce all violations against human dignity and human rights. Human life, a gift of God the Creator, possesses a sacred character. As such, any violence which seeks religious justification warrants the strongest condemnation because the Omnipotent is the God of life and peace. The world expects those who claim to adore God to be men and women of peace who are capable of living as brothers and sisters, regardless of ethnic, religious, cultural or ideological differences. As well as denouncing such violations, we must also work together to find adequate solutions. This requires the cooperation of all: governments, political and religious leaders, representatives of civil society, and all men and women of goodwill. In a unique way, religious leaders can offer a vital contribution by expressing the values of their respective traditions. We, Muslims and Christians, are the bearers of spiritual treasures of inestimable worth. Among these we recognize some shared elements, though lived according to the traditions of each, such as the adoration of the All-­ Merciful God, reference to the Patriarch Abraham, prayer, almsgiving, fasting… elements which, when lived sincerely, can transform life and provide a sure foundation for dignity and fraternity. Recognizing and ­developing our common spiritual heritage—through interreligious dialogue—helps us to promote and to uphold moral values, peace and freedom in society (cf. John Paul II, Address to the Catholic Community in

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Ankara, 29 November 1979). The shared recognition of the sanctity of each human life is the basis of joint initiatives of solidarity, compassion, and effective help directed to those who suffer most. In this regard, I wish to express my appreciation for everything that the Turkish people, Muslims and Christians alike, are doing to help the hundreds of thousands of people who are fleeing their countries due to conflicts. There are two million of them. This is a clear example of how we can work together to serve others, an example to be encouraged and maintained. I wish also to express my satisfaction at the good relations which exist between the Diyanet and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. It is my earnest desire that these relations will continue and be strengthened for the good of all, so that every initiative which promotes authentic dialogue will offer a sign of hope to a world which so deeply needs peace, security and prosperity. Following my meeting with the President, I am also hopeful that this interreligious dialogue will take on creative new forms. Mr President, I renew my gratitude to you and your colleagues for this meeting, which fills my heart with joy. I am grateful also to each one of you, for your presence and for your prayers which, in your kindness, you offer for me and my ministry. For my part, I assure you of my prayers. May the Lord grant us all his blessing.

Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Turkey, In-flight Press Conference of His Holiness Pope Francis from Istanbul to Rome, 30 November 2014 Yasemin Taskin, Turkish television: President Erdogan spoke about “Islamophobia.” Naturally, you reflected more on the current “Christianophobia” in the Middle East, which is effecting both Christians and minorities. Taking interreligious dialogue into consideration as well, what more can be done? That is, is interreligious dialogue enough? Can more be done? And in your opinion, what must world leaders do? As you are not only the spiritual leader of Catholics, but also a moral leader on a global scale, what can be done concretely, is it possible to go further? Pope Francis: You’ve asked a book’s worth of questions! I would like to say something with respect to Islamophobia, Christianophobia, and interreligious dialogue.

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On Islamophobia: It’s true that there has been a reaction to these acts of terrorism, not just in this region but in Africa as well: “If this is Islam it makes me angry!”. So many Muslims feel offended, they say: “But that is not what we are. The Quran is a prophetic book of peace. This is not Islam.” I can understand this. And I sincerely believe that we cannot say all Muslims are terrorists, just as we cannot say that all Christians are fundamentalists—we also have fundamentalists among us, all religions have these small groups. I told the President [Erdogan] that it would be good to issue a clear condemnation against these kinds of groups. All religious leaders, scholars, clerics, intellectuals and politicians should do this. This way they hear it from their leaders’ mouth. There needs to be international condemnation from Muslims across the world. It must be said, “No, this is not what the Quran is about!” This is the first thing. On Christianophobia: It’s true, I’m not going to soften my words, no. We Christians are being chased out of the Middle East. In some cases, as we have seen in Iraq, in the Mosul area, they have to leave or pay a tax which then makes no sense. And other times they push us out wearing white gloves. For example, in one country, a husband lives in one place and his wife in another … No, let the man come and live with his wife. No, no: let the woman leave, and leave the house free. This is happening in several countries. It’s as if they wished that there were no more Christians, that nothing remain of Christianity. In that region this is happening. It’s true, it’s first of all a result of terrorism, but when it’s done diplomatically with white gloves, it’s because there’s something behind it. This is not good. Third, on interreligious dialogue: I had what was probably the most wonderful conversation about this with the President for Religious Affairs and his team. When the new Turkish Ambassador to the Holy See came to deliver his Letters of Credence, over a month and a half ago, I saw an exceptional man before me, a man of profound piety. The President of that office was of the same school. They said something beautiful: They said: “Right now it seems like interreligious dialogue has come to an end. We need to take a qualitative leap, so that interreligious dialogue is not merely: ‘What do you think about this?’ … We need to take this qualitative leap, we need to bring about a dialogue between religious figures of different faiths.” This is a beautiful thing: men and women who meet other men and women and share experiences. We are not just talking about theology but religious experience. And this would be a beautiful step forward, beautiful. I really enjoyed that meeting. It was excellent.

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Getting back to the first two aspects, especially Islamophobia, there should always be a distinction between what a religion proposes and the concrete practice of that proposal by any specific government. One may say: “I’m Muslim,” “I’m Jewish,” “I’m Christian.” But you govern your country not as Muslim or Jewish or Christian. There’s an abyss. The distinction must be made, because so often the name is used but the reality does not reflect what the religion says. I’m not sure if I’ve answered. Esma Cakir, Information Agency of Turkey: What was the significance of that moment of such intense prayer that you had in the Mosque? Was it, for you, a way of turning to God? Is there something in particular that you would like to share with us? Pope Francis: I went to Turkey as a pilgrim, not a tourist. And I went especially for today’s feast. I went precisely in order to celebrate it with Patriarch Bartholomew. It was for a religious reason. But then, when I entered the Mosque, I couldn’t say: now, I’m a tourist! No, it was completely religious. And I saw that wonder! The Mufti explained things very well to me, with such meekness, and using the Quran, which speaks of Mary and John the Baptist. He explained it all to me … At that moment I felt the need to pray. So I asked him: “Shall we pray a little?” To which he responded: “Yes, yes.” I prayed for Turkey, for peace, for the Mufti, for everyone and for myself, as I need it … I prayed, sincerely … Most of all, I prayed for peace, and I said: “Lord, let’s put an end to these wars!” Thus, it was a moment of sincere prayer. Alexey Bukalov of Russia: Your Holiness, in thanking you for what you have done for the orthodox world, I would like to know, after this visit, and after this extraordinary meeting with the Patriarch of Constantinople, what is the outlook for relations with the Patriarchate of Moscow? Pope Francis: Last month, [Metropolitan] Hilarion attended the Synod as a delegate of Patriarch Kirill. He wanted to speak to me not as a Synod delegate but as the President of the Commission for Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue. We spoke for some time. First I’ll say something about Orthodoxy in general, and then I’ll “come to” Moscow. I believe we are moving forward in our relations with the Orthodox; they have the sacraments and apostolic succession … we are moving forward. What are we waiting for? For theologians to reach an agreement? That day will never come, I assure you, I’m sceptical. Theologians work well but remember what Athenagoras said to Paul VI: “Let’s put the theologians on an island to discuss among themselves and we’ll just get on with things!” I thought that this might not have been true, but Bartholomew

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told me: “No, it’s true, he said that.” We mustn’t wait. Unity is a journey we have to take, but we need to do it together. This is spiritual ecumenism: praying together, working together. There are so many works of charity, so much work … Teaching together … Moving forward together. This is spiritual ecumenism. Then there is an ecumenism of blood: when they kill Christians, we have so many martyrs … starting with those in Uganda, canonized 50 years ago: half were Anglican, half Catholic, but the ones [who killed them] didn’t say: “You’re Catholic … you’re Anglican …” No: “You are Christian,” and so their blood mixed. This is the ecumenism of blood. Our martyrs are crying out: “We are one! We already have unity, in spirit and in blood.” I don’t know if I told you the anecdote about Hamburg, which I heard from the parish priest of Hamburg. Did I tell you? When I was in Germany, I went to Hamburg to celebrate a baptism, and the parish priest was working on the cause for canonization of a priest who had been guillotined by the Nazis for having taught catechesis to the children. During his work on this cause, he discovered that in line behind the priest in question, there was a Lutheran pastor condemned to the guillotine for the same reason. The blood of these two mixed. And this parish priest went to the bishop and said: “I’m not taking this cause forward only for the priest: it’s either for both or for neither!” This is ecumenism of blood, which helps us so much, which tells us so much. And I think we have to take this journey courageously. Yes, share university chairs, it’s being done, but go forward, continue to do so … I’ll say something that a few, perhaps, are not able to understand: the Eastern Catholic Churches have a right to exist, but uniatism is a dated word. We cannot speak in these terms today. We need to find another way. Now, “we land” in Moscow. I told Patriarch Kirill, and he agreed, there is a willingness to meet. I told him: “I’ll go wherever you want, you call me and I’ll come”; and he too wants this. But there is the problem of war in these times. The poor man has so many issues there that the meeting with the pope has been put on the back burner. Both of us want to meet and move forward. Hilarion suggested that the commission, for which he presides over the Russian Orthodox part, hold a study meeting on the question of Primacy. We have to continue in the footsteps of John Paul II: “Help me to find a form of Primacy that we can agree on.” This is what I can tell you. Mimmo Muolo, of Avvenire: I was struck by a phrase you used this morning during the Divine Liturgy: “I want to assure each one of you here that, to reach the desired goal of full unity, the Catholic Church does

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not intend to impose any conditions.” We would like to ask you to more fully explain this phrase, if possible, and whether it was in regard to the issue of Primacy, to which you referred earlier. Pope Francis: That is not a condition: it’s an agreement, because they too want it; it’s an agreement to find a form that is more closely in line with that of the first centuries. I once read something that made me think. The thing I feel most deeply about on this path toward unity, I mentioned in yesterday’s homily on the Holy Spirit: only the path of the Holy Spirit is the right path; he is full of surprises; he will lead us to see where the point lies, he is creative … The problem—and as I said in the general congregations before the Conclave, this may be self-criticism—is that the Church has the shortcoming, the sinful habit of focusing too much on herself, as if she believes she shines her own light. The Church does not have her own light. She needs to look to Jesus Christ. Why did the first Fathers call the Church “mysterium lunae,” the mystery of the moon? Because it gives off light, but not its own: it’s what comes from the sun. And when the Church focuses too much on herself, divisions arise. And that’s what happened after the first millennium. At the table today, Bartholomew and I were talking about the moment when a cardinal—I don’t remember which one—went to convey the pope’s excommunication to the Patriarch: the Church was focusing on herself too much at that moment! She wasn’t looking to Jesus Christ. I believe that all these problems which arise between us, among Christians—at least speaking about our Catholic Church—come from focusing on oneself: we become self-­ referential. Today, Bartholomew used a word that wasn’t “self-referential” but very similar and really beautiful … I don’t remember it now, but really beautiful, very beautiful [the Italian translation of the term was “introversion”]. They accept Primacy: in the Litany today, they prayed for the “Pastor and Primate.” How do they say it? “Ποιμένα καί Πρόεδρον,” “He who presides.” They recognize it, they said so today, in front of me. But for the form of primacy, we need to go back to the first millennium for inspiration. I’m not saying that the Church was in error, no. She had her historical path. But now the historical path of the Church is what John Paul II asked for: “Help me to find a point of agreement in the light of the first millennium”. This is the key point. When the Church mirrors herself, she stops being the Church and becomes a “theological NGO.” Irene Hernández Velasco: I wanted to ask about your historic bow yesterday in front of the Patriarch of Constantinople. I wanted to especially know your thoughts on confronting the criticism of those who perhaps do

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not understand these gestures of openness, those who in particular are slightly ultraconservative, who are always looking with suspicion on these gestures of openness. Pope Francis: Allow me to say that this is not just our problem. It is also their [the Orthodox] problem. They have the problem of certain monks in various monasteries going down this path. For example, one problem that has been discussed since the time of Blessed Paul VI was the date of Easter. And we still don’t agree! Because having it on the first moon, after 14 Nisan, runs the risk that in time our great-grandchildren will celebrate it in August! We must try … Blessed Paul VI proposed establishing a date, a Sunday in April, which everyone agrees on. Bartholomew, for example, was courageous in two instances. One I remember, but the other I do not. In Finland, he said to the small Orthodox community: “Celebrate Easter with the Lutherans, on the Lutheran date,” so that in a country with a Christian minority there aren’t two Easters. Even the Eastern Catholics … One time while I was eating on Via della Scrofa, I heard … the Catholic Church was preparing for Easter and there was an Eastern Catholic who said: “Oh no, our Christ rose one month later! Your Christ rises today?” And the other said: “Your Christ is my Christ.” The date of Easter is important. There is resistance to this, on their part and on ours. These conservative groups … we must be respectful towards them and we must not tire of explaining, catechizing, and discussing without insulting, badmouthing or gossiping. Because you cannot dismiss someone by saying: “He is a conservative.” No. He is a child of God just as much as I am. But come and we’ll talk. If he doesn’t want to speak, that’s his problem, but I am respectful. Patience, meekness, and dialogue. Patricia Thomas of the Associated Press: During the Synod there was a bit of a controversy about language, regarding how the Church should regard homosexuals. The first document spoke about welcoming gays and spoke in a very positive light about them. Do you agree with this language? Pope Francis: First, I would like to say one thing: I would like the main subject of your news reports to be about this visit. But I will answer, I will answer, be assured. But let this not be perhaps the most éclatant: people need to be informed about this visit. But I will respond to you. First, the Synod is a journey, it is a path. Second: the Synod is not a parliament. It is a protected space so that the Holy Spirit may speak. Every day there was a briefing with Fr Lombardi and the other Synod Fathers, who related what had been said that day. There were some conflicting things. Then at the end of these interventions, that

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draft was written, which was the first relatio. Then that became the working-document for the language groups which discussed it. They then made their suggestions, which were made public. It was in the hands of all the journalists. That is, just as the language groups— English, Spanish, French, Italian—it became common knowledge [the first relatio], including the part you are referring to. Then everything went back to the editing commission and that commission tried to insert all of the amendments. The substantial part remains, but everything has to summarized, everything. And that substantial part is in the final relatio. It doesn’t finish there. Even that is a provisional draft because it has become the Lineamenta for the next Synod. This document was sent to the bishops’ conferences to discuss and offer their amendments. Then, another “Instrumentum laboris” will be made and then another Synod will make it its own. It is a journey. For this reason, you cannot form an opinion from one person or one draft. We must see the Synod in its totality. I do not agree—and this is my opinion, I don’t want to impose it—I do not agree when it is reported: “Today this Father said this, and today that Father said that.” What was said should be reported, but not who said what. Because, and I repeat, the Synod is not a parliament; it is an ecclesial, protected space and this protection is so that the Holy Spirit may work. That is my response. Antoine-Marie Izoard of France: Your Holiness, I would first like to say that the families and faithful in France await you with much joy. This afternoon you were able to spend a bit of time with refugees. Why was it not possible during this journey to visit a camp? And also, do you think you will be able to go to Iraq soon? Pope Francis: Yes. I wanted to go to a camp and Dr Gasbarri figured it all out, he did everything, but we needed another day and that was not possible. It wasn’t possible for many reasons, not only personal ones. And so, I asked the Salesians who work with child refugees to bring them. I was with them before going to visit the Armenian bishop who was sick in hospital and then, in the end, I went to the airport. I spoke with them. And I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Turkish government which has been generous, they have been generous. I forgot the number of refugees they have. Alberto Gasbarri: There are approximately one million in the country. Pope Francis: One million! Do you know what it means when one million people come to you and you must think of their health, their nutri-

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tion, providing a bed, a home … They have indeed been generous. And I would like to thank them publicly. Yes. I would like to go to Iraq. I spoke with Patriarch Sako, I sent Cardinal Filoni, but for the moment it is not possible. And not because I don’t want to. In this moment, if I went, it would create a serious problem for the authorities and security. I would really like to and I want to. Thank you. Thomas Jansen: A few days ago, you visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Did you speak with President Erdogan about the European Union and the entry of Turkey? Pope Francis: No, I did not speak with [President] Erdogan about this. It’s curious. We spoke about many things, but we did not speak about that. Hiroshi Ishida of Japan: I would like to ask you about the “Third World War” and about nuclear arms. During the ceremony in September in Redipuglia, you said that the Third World War has been fought “piecemeal” all around the world. Next year will be the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, as well as of the tragic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Still today there are numerous nuclear arms in the world. What do you think of the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? And how do you think that we, human beings, should react to the reality of these nuclear arms and the threat of radiation? Pope Francis: I must say two things. The first is a personal opinion: I am convinced that we are experiencing a Third World War [fought] piecemeal, a war in chapters, everywhere. There are rivalries, political problems and economic problems and commercial ones, and not just these, but many more that are directed to keeping alive this system where the god of money is at the center instead of the human person. Arms’ trafficking is terrible; it is one of the most powerful businesses right now. Therefore I believe that this reality is increasing because arms are being distributed. I remember that in September of last year, there was talk that Syria possessed chemical weapons: I do not believe Syria is in a position to produce chemical weapons. Who sold them these? Perhaps those who accused them of having them in the first place? I don’t know. There is a great mystery surrounding this weapons business. Second: Atomic energy. It is true, the example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity has not learnt its lesson, they haven’t learned. They are incapable of learning the basic concept of this issue. God gave us cre-

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ation so that we could create culture out of this primordial lack of culture. We can advance it. Humans did this and discovered nuclear energy which has many positive uses, but they also used it to destroy creation, humanity. This became a second kind of lack of culture: that primordial lack of culture which man needed to transform into culture becomes another lack of culture, a second one. And this lack of culture, I don’t want to say the end of the world, but it is a “terminal” culture. Then we will need to start from the beginning, and it is terrible how your cities had to start from the beginning again. Franca Giansoldati of Italy: You have returned from this journey to Turkey. I haven’t heard anything on the Armenians. Next year will be the centenary of the genocide of Armenians and the Turkish government has taken a position of denial. I want to know what you think of this. And you have also spoken before about the martyrdom of blood which refers directly to what happened here and which claimed the lives of one and a half million people. Pope Francis: Today I went to the Armenian hospital to visit the Armenian Archbishop who has been there; ill for some time, for a long time … I had contact with Armenians during this journey. The Turkish government made a gesture, last year: the then Prime Minister Erdogan wrote a letter on the anniversary; a letter that a few judged as too weak, but it was, in my opinion, great or small, I don’t know, extending a hand. And this is always positive. I can reach out this way or that way, expecting the other person’s response not to embarrass me. And this is positive, what the then Prime Minister did. One thing that is very close to my heart is the Turkish-Armenian border: if this could open, that frontier, it would be a beautiful thing! I know there are geopolitical problems in the area, which don’t facilitate opening the border. But we have to pray for the reconciliation of the peoples. I also know there is good will on both sides—I believe this—and we have to help so that this can be achieved. Next year there are many commemorative events planned for this centenary, but let’s hope to arrive by a path of small gestures, of small steps towards closeness. This is what comes to mind at this time. Pope Francis: A cordial farewell, and my best wishes. May you go forward, providing a better understanding of all that is happening in the world. My best wishes, and may the Lord bless you. And I thank you for your kindness and please, don’t forget to pray for me. I need it. Thank you.

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Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Sri Lanka and the Philippines, Interreligious and Ecumenical Gathering in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 13 January 2015 Dear Friends, I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this meeting which brings together, among others, the four largest religious communities integral to the life of Sri Lanka: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. I thank you for your presence and for your warm welcome. I also thank those who have offered prayers and blessings, and in a particular way I express my gratitude to Bishop Cletus Chandrasiri Perera and to the Venerable Vigithasiri Niyangoda Thero for their kind words. I have come to Sri Lanka in the footsteps of my predecessors Popes Paul VI and John Paul II to demonstrate the great love and concern which the Catholic Church has for Sri Lanka. It is a particular grace for me to visit the Catholic community here, to confirm them in their Christian faith, to pray with them and to share their joys and sufferings. It is equally a grace to be with all of you, men and women of these great religious traditions, who share with us a desire for wisdom, truth and holiness. At the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church declared her deep and abiding respect for other religions. She stated that she “rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. She has a high regard for their manner of life and conduct, their precepts and doctrines” (Nostra Aetate, 2). For my part, I wish to reaffirm the Church’s sincere respect for you, your traditions, and beliefs. It is in this spirit of respect that the Catholic Church desires to cooperate with you, and with all people of good will, in seeking the welfare of all Sri Lankans. I hope that my visit will help to encourage and deepen the various forms of interreligious and ecumenical cooperation which have been undertaken in recent years. These praiseworthy initiatives have provided opportunities for dialogue, which is essential if we are to know, understand and respect one another. But, as experience has shown, for such dialogue and encounter to be effective, it must be grounded in a full and forthright presentation of our respective convictions. Certainly, such dialogue will accentuate how varied our beliefs, traditions and practices are. But if we are honest in presenting our convictions, we will be able to see more clearly what we hold in common. New avenues will be opened for mutual esteem, cooperation and indeed friendship.

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Such positive developments in interreligious and ecumenical relations take on a particular significance and urgency in Sri Lanka. For too many years the men and women of this country have been victims of civil strife and violence. What is needed now is healing and unity, not further conflict and division. Surely the fostering of healing and unity is a noble task which is incumbent upon all who have at heart the good of the nation, and indeed the whole human family. It is my hope that interreligious and ecumenical cooperation will demonstrate that men and women do not have to forsake their identity, whether ethnic or religious, in order to live in harmony with their brothers and sisters. How many ways there are for the followers of the different religions to carry out this service! How many are the needs that must be tended to with the healing balm of fraternal solidarity! I think in particular of the material and spiritual needs of the poor, the destitute, those who yearn for a word of consolation and hope. Here I think too of the many families who continue to mourn the loss of their loved ones. Above all, at this moment of your nation’s history, how many people of good will are seeking to rebuild the moral foundations of society as a whole? May the growing spirit of cooperation between the leaders of the various religious communities find expression in a commitment to put reconciliation among all Sri Lankans at the heart of every effort to renew society and its institutions. For the sake of peace, religious beliefs must never be allowed to be abused in the cause of violence and war. We must be clear and unequivocal in challenging our communities to live fully the tenets of peace and coexistence found in each religion, and to denounce acts of violence when they are committed. Dear friends, I thank you once again for your generous welcome and your attention. May this fraternal encounter confirm all of us in our efforts to live in harmony and to spread the blessings of peace.

Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Franciscan International Study Center, 6 June 2015 Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am pleased to take part in this meeting, which brings together representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s religious confessions. I offer cordial greetings to each one of you and to your communities, and I thank each of those who offered the kind words and we have just heard. Your words have edified me.

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Today’s meeting is a sign of our shared desire for fraternity and peace; it is a testimony to the friendship and cooperation that has been developing over the years and which you already experience daily. To be present here today is already a “message” of that dialogue which everyone seeks and strives for. I wish especially to recall one of the fruits of this desire for encounter and reconciliation, namely, the establishment in 1997 of a local Council for Interreligious Dialogue, which brings together Muslims, Christians, and Jews. I am pleased by the work which this Council does to promote dialogue, coordinate common initiatives and develop relations with State Authorities. Your work in this region is immensely important, particularly in Sarajevo, which stands as the crossroads of peoples and cultures. Here, on the one hand, diversity constitutes a great resource which has contributed to the social, cultural and spiritual development of this region, while, on the other, it has also been the cause of painful rifts and bloody wars. It is not by chance that the birth of the Council for Interreligious Dialogue and other valuable initiatives in the area of interreligious and ecumenical work came about at the end of the war, in response to the need for reconciliation and rebuilding a society torn apart by conflict. Interreligious dialogue here, as in every part of the world, is an indispensible [sic] condition for peace, and for this reason is a duty for all believers (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 250). Interreligious dialogue, before being a discussion of the main themes of faith, is a “conversation about human existence” (ibid.). This conversation shares the experiences of daily life in all its concreteness, with its joys and sufferings, its struggles and hopes; it takes on shared responsibilities; it plans a better future for all. We learn to live together, respecting each other’s differences freely; we know and accept one another’s identity. Through dialogue, a spirit of fraternity is recognized and developed, which unites and favors the promotion of moral values, justice, freedom and peace. Dialogue is a school of humanity and a builder of unity, which helps to build a society founded on tolerance and mutual respect. For this reason, interreligious dialogue cannot be limited merely to the few, to leaders of religious communities, but must also extend as far as possible to all believers, engaging the different sectors of civil society. Particular attention must be paid to young men and women who are called to build the future of this country. It is always worth remembering, however, that for dialogue to be authentic and effective, it presupposes a solid identity: without an established identity, dialogue is of no use or even harmful. I say this with the young in mind, but it applies to everyone.

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I sincerely appreciate all that you have managed to accomplish up to this point and I encourage each of you in your efforts for the cause of peace of which you, as religious leaders, are the first guardians here in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I assure you that the Catholic Church will continue to offer her full support and willingness to help. We are all aware that there is a long way yet to go. Let us not be discouraged, however, by the difficulties, but rather continue with perseverance along the way of forgiveness and reconciliation. While we seek to recall the past with honesty, thereby learning the lessons of history, we must also avoid lamentation and recrimination, letting ourselves instead be purified by God who gives us the present and the future: he is our future, he is the ultimate source of peace. This city, which in the recent past sadly became a symbol of war and destruction, this Jerusalem of Europe, today, with its variety of peoples, cultures and religions, can become again a sign of unity, a place in which diversity does not represent a threat but rather a resource, an opportunity to grow together. In a world unfortunately rent by conflicts, this land can become a message: attesting that it is possible to live together side by side, in diversity but rooted in a common humanity, building together a future of peace and brotherhood. You can live life being a peacemaker! I am grateful to you all for your presence and for the prayers which you will, of your goodness, offer for my ministry. For my part, I assure you that I will pray for you, for your communities, from my heart I will pray. May the Lord bless us all. Now I invite you to say this prayer: to the Eternal, One and True Living God, to the Merciful God. Prayer Almighty and eternal God, good and merciful Father; Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is visible and invisible; God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, King and Lord of the past, of the present and of the future; sole judge of every man and woman, who reward your faithful with eternal glory! We, the descendants of Abraham according to our faith in you, the one God, Jews, Christians and Muslims, humbly stand before you and with trust we pray to you for this country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, that men and women, followers of different religions, nations and cultures may live here in peace and harmony. We pray to you, O Father, that it may be so in every country of the world! Strengthen in each of us faith and

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hope, mutual respect and sincere love for all of our brothers and sisters. Grant that we may dedicate ourselves courageously to building a just society, to being men and women of good will, filled with mutual understanding and forgiveness, patient artisans of dialogue and peace. May each of our thoughts, words and actions be in harmony with your holy will. May everything be to your glory and honor and for our salvation. Praise and eternal glory to you, our God! Amen.

Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Cuba, to the US, and a Visit to the United Nation, Ground Zero Memorial, 25 September 2015 I feel many different emotions standing here at Ground Zero, where thousands of lives were taken in a senseless act of destruction. Here grief is palpable. The water we see flowing towards that empty pit reminds us of all those lives which fell prey to those who think that destruction, tearing down, is the only way to settle conflicts. It is the silent cry of those who were victims of a mindset which knows only violence, hatred and revenge. A mindset which can only cause pain, suffering, destruction, and tears. The flowing water is also a symbol of our tears. Tears at so much devastation and ruin, past and present. This is a place where we shed tears, we weep out of a sense of helplessness in the face of injustice, murder, and the failure to settle conflicts through dialogue. Here we mourn the wrongful and senseless loss of innocent lives because of the inability to find solutions which respect the common good. This flowing water reminds us of yesterday’s tears, but also of all the tears still being shed today. A few moments ago I met some of the families of the fallen first responders. Meeting them made me see once again how acts of destruction are never impersonal, abstract or merely material. They always have a face, a concrete story, names. In those family members, we see the face of pain, a pain which still touches us and cries out to heaven. At the same time, those family members showed me the other face of this attack, the other face of their grief: the power of love and remembrance. A remembrance that does not leave us empty and withdrawn. The name [sic] of so many loved ones are written around the towers’ footprints. We can see them, we can touch them, and we can never forget them. Here, amid pain and grief, we also have a palpable sense of the heroic goodness which people are capable of, those hidden reserves of strength

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from which we can draw. In the depths of pain and suffering, you also witnessed the heights of generosity and service. Hands reached out, lives were given. In a metropolis which might seem impersonal, faceless, lonely, you demonstrated the powerful solidarity born of mutual support, love and self-sacrifice. No one thought about race, nationality, neighborhoods, religion or politics. It was all about solidarity, meeting immediate needs, brotherhood. It was about being brothers and sisters. New York City firemen walked into the crumbling towers, with no concern for their own wellbeing. Many succumbed; their sacrifice enabled great numbers to be saved. This place of death became a place of life too, a place of saved lives, a hymn to the triumph of life over the prophets of destruction and death, to goodness over evil, to reconciliation and unity over hatred and division. In this place of sorrow and remembrance I am filled with hope, as I have the opportunity to join with leaders representing the many religious traditions which enrich the life of this great city. I trust that our presence together will be a powerful sign of our shared desire to be a force for reconciliation, peace and justice in this community and throughout the world. For all our differences and disagreements, we can experience a world of peace. In opposing every attempt to create a rigid uniformity, we can and must build unity on the basis of our diversity of languages, cultures and religions, and lift our voices against everything which would stand in the way of such unity. Together we are called to say “no” to every attempt to impose uniformity and “yes” to a diversity accepted and reconciled. This can only happen if we uproot from our hearts all feelings of hatred, vengeance and resentment. We know that that is only possible as a gift from heaven. Here, in this place of remembrance, I would ask everyone together, each in his or her own way, to spend a moment in silence and prayer. Let us implore from on high the gift of commitment to the cause of peace. Peace in our homes, our families, our schools and our communities. Peace in all those places where war never seems to end. Peace for those faces which have known nothing but pain. Peace throughout this world which God has given us as the home of all and a home for all. Simply PEACE. Let us pray in silence. (A moment of silence) In this way, the lives of our dear ones will not be lives which will one day be forgotten. Instead, they will be present whenever we strive to be prophets not of tearing down but of building up, prophets of reconciliation, prophets of peace.

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Interreligious General Audience on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Conciliar Declaration “Nostra Aetate,” Saint Peter’s Square, 28 October 2015 Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning! At the General Audiences there are often people or groups who belong to other religions; but today this presence is of particular importance, because we can remember together the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of the Second Vatican Council Nostra Aetate on the Relation of the Catholic Church to Non-Christian Religions. This subject was dear to the heart of Bl. Pope Paul VI, who on the Feast of Pentecost the year before the close of the Council, had established the Secretariat for non-­Christians, today called the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. For this reason I express my gratitude and my warm welcome to the people and groups of various religions, who today have wished to attend, especially to those who have come from afar. The Second Vatican Council was an extraordinary time of reflection, dialogue and prayer which aimed to renew the gaze of the Catholic Church on herself and on the world. A reading of the signs of the times in view of an update oriented by a twofold faithfulness: faithfulness to the ecclesial tradition and faithfulness to the history of the men and women of our time. In fact God, who revealed himself in creation and in history, who spoke through the prophets and comprehensively through his Son made man (cf. Heb 1:1), speaks to the heart and to the spirit of every human being who seeks the truth and how to practice it. The message of the Declaration Nostra Aetate is always timely. Let us briefly recall a few of its points: • the growing interdependence of peoples (cf. n. 1); • the human search for the meaning of life, of suffering, of death, questions which always accompany our journey (cf. n. 1); • the common origin and the common destiny of humanity (cf. n. 1); • the uniqueness of the human family (cf. n. 1.); • religions as the search for God or of the Absolute, within our various ethnicities and cultures (cf. n. 1); • the benevolent and attentive gaze of the Church on religions: she rejects nothing that is beautiful and true in them (cf. n. 2);

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• the Church regards with esteem the believers of all religions, appreciating their spiritual and moral commitment (cf. n. 3); • the Church, open to dialogue with all, is at the same time faithful to the truths in which she believes, beginning with the truth that the salvation offered to everyone has its origin in Jesus, the One Savior, and that the Holy Spirit is at work, as a font of peace and love. There have been so many events, initiatives, institutional or personal relationships with the non-Christian religions in these last 50 years, that it is difficult to recall them all. A particularly meaningful event was the meeting in Assisi on 27 October 1986. It was willed and sponsored by St John Paul II, who the year before, thus 30 years ago, addressing the Muslim youth in Casablanca, hoped that all believers in God would favor friendship and unity between men and peoples (19 August 1985). The flame, lit in Assisi, has spread throughout the world and is a permanent sign of hope. Deserving of special gratitude to God is the veritable transformation of Christian-Jewish relations in these 50 years. Indifference and opposition have changed into cooperation and benevolence. From enemies and strangers we have become friends and brothers. The Council, with the Declaration Nostra Aetate, has indicated the way: “yes” to rediscovering Christianity’s Jewish roots; “no” to every form of anti-Semitism and blame for every wrong, discrimination and persecution deriving from it. Knowledge, respect and esteem for one another are the way. Indeed, if this applies in a particular way to relations with Jews, it likewise applies to relationships with other religions as well. I am thinking in particular of Muslims, who—as the Council recalls—“worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men” (Nostra Aetate, 3). They acknowledge Abraham’s paternity, venerate Jesus as a prophet, honor his virgin Mother, Mary, await the Day of Judgment, and practice prayer, almsgiving and fasting (cf. ibid.). The dialogue that we need cannot but be open and respectful, and thus prove fruitful. Mutual respect is the condition and, at the same time, the aim of interreligious dialogue: respecting others’ right to life, to physical integrity, to fundamental freedoms, namely freedom of conscience, of thought, of expression and of religion. The world, looking to us believers, exhorts us to cooperate amongst ourselves and with the men and women of good will who profess no religion, asking us for effective responses regarding numerous issues: peace,

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hunger, the poverty that afflicts millions of people, the environmental crisis, violence, especially that committed in the name of religion, corruption, moral decay, the crisis of the family, of the economy, of finance, and especially of hope. We believers have no recipe for these problems, but we have one great resource: prayer. We believers pray. We must pray. Prayer is our treasure, from which we draw according to our respective traditions, to request the gifts that humanity longs for. Because of violence and terrorism an attitude of suspicion or even condemnation of religions has spread. In reality, although no religion is immune to the risk of deviations of a fundamentalist or extremist nature in individuals or groups (cf. Address to the United States Congress, 24 September 2015), it is necessary to look to the positive values that religions live and propound, and that are sources of hope. It is a matter of raising our gaze in order to go further. Dialogue based on confident respect can bring seeds of good that in their turn may bud into friendship and cooperation in many fields, especially in service to the poor, to the least, to the elderly, through welcoming migrants, and attention to those who are excluded. We can walk together taking care of one another and of creation. All believers of every religion. Together we can praise the Creator for giving us the garden of the world to till and keep as a common good, and we can achieve shared plans to overcome poverty and to ensure to every man and woman the conditions for a dignified life. The Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, which is before us, is a propitious occasion to work together in the field of the works of charity. In this field, where compassion counts above all else, we may be joined by many people who are not believers or who are in search of God and of the Truth, people who place at the center the face of another person, in particular the face of a needy brother or sister. The mercy to which we are called embraces all of creation, which God entrusted to us so that we keep it, not exploit it or worse still, destroy it. We must always seek to leave the world better than we found it (cf. Encyclical Laudato Si’, 194), beginning with the environment in which we live, and the small gestures of our daily life. Dear brothers and sisters, as for the future of interreligious dialogue, the first thing we have to do is pray, and pray for one another: we are brothers and sisters! Without the Lord, nothing is possible; with Him, everything becomes so! May our prayer—each one according to his or her own tradition—adhere fully to the will of God, who wants all men and women to recognize they are brothers and sisters and live as such, forming the great human family in the harmony of diversity.

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Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic, Ecumenical and Interreligious Meeting, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, Hall of the Apostolic Nunciature in Nairobi, 26 November 2015 Dear Friends, I am grateful for your presence this morning and for the opportunity to share these moments of reflection with you. In a particular way, I wish to thank Archbishop Wabukala and Professor El-Busaidy for their words of welcome offered on your behalf, and on behalf of their communities. It is always important to me that, when I come to visit the Catholic faithful of a local Church, I have an occasion to meet the leaders of other Christian communities and religious traditions. It is my hope that our time together may be a sign of the Church’s esteem for the followers of all religions; may it strengthen the bonds of friendship which we already enjoy. To be honest, this relationship is challenging; it makes demands of us. Yet ecumenical and interreligious dialogue is not a luxury. It is not something extra or optional, but essential, something which our world, wounded by conflict and division, increasingly needs. Indeed, religious beliefs and practice condition who we are and how we understand the world around us. They are for us a source of enlightenment, wisdom and solidarity, and thus enrich the societies in which we live. By caring for the spiritual growth of our communities, by forming minds and hearts in the truths and values taught by our religious traditions, we become a blessing to the communities in which our people live. In democratic and pluralistic societies like Kenya, cooperation between religious leaders and communities becomes an important service to the common good. In this light, and in an increasingly interdependent world, we see ever more clearly the need for interreligious understanding, friendship and collaboration in defending the God-given dignity of individuals and peoples, and their right to live in freedom and happiness. By upholding respect for that dignity and those rights, the religions play an essential role in forming consciences, instilling in the young the profound spiritual values of our respective traditions, and training good citizens, capable of infusing civil

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society with honesty, integrity and a world view which values the human person over power and material gain. Here I think of the importance of our common conviction that the God whom we seek to serve is a God of peace. His holy Name must never be used to justify hatred and violence. I know that the barbarous attacks on Westgate Mall, Garissa University College and Mandera are fresh in your minds. All too often, young people are being radicalized in the name of religion to sow discord and fear, and to tear at the very fabric of our societies. How important it is that we be seen as prophets of peace, peacemakers who invite others to live in peace, harmony and mutual respect! May the Almighty touch the hearts of those who engage in this violence, and grant his peace to our families and communities. Dear friends, this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, at which the Catholic Church committed herself to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue in the service of understanding and friendship. I wish to reaffirm this commitment, which is born of our conviction of the universality of God’s love and the salvation which he offers to all. The world rightly expects believers to work together with people of good will in facing the many problems affecting our human family. As we look to the future, let us pray that all men and women will see themselves as brothers and sisters, peacefully united in and through our differences. Let us pray for peace! I thank you for your attention, and I ask Almighty God to grant to you and your communities his abundant blessings.

Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic, Meeting with the Muslim Community, Central Mosque of Koudoukou, Bangui, CAR, 30 November 2015 Dear Muslim friends, leaders, and followers of Islam, It is a great joy for me to be with you and I thank you for your warm welcome. In a particular way I thank Imam Tidiani Moussa Naibi for his kind words of greeting. My Pastoral Visit to the Central African Republic would not be complete if it did not include this encounter with the Muslim community.

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Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters. We must therefore consider ourselves and conduct ourselves as such. We are well aware that the recent events and acts of violence which have shaken your country were not grounded in properly religious motives. Those who claim to believe in God must also be men and women of peace. Christians, Muslims and members of the traditional religions have lived together in peace for many years. They ought, therefore, to remain united in working for an end to every act which, from whatever side, disfigures the Face of God and whose ultimate aim is to defend particular interests by any and all means, to the detriment of the common good. Together, we must say no to hatred, no to revenge and no to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself. God is peace, God salam. In these dramatic times, Christian and Muslim leaders have sought to rise to the challenges of the moment. They have played an important role in re-establishing harmony and fraternity among all. I would like express my gratitude and appreciation for this. We can also call to mind the many acts of solidarity which Christians and Muslims have shown with regard to their fellow citizens of other religious confessions, by welcoming them and defending them during this latest crisis in your country, as well as in other parts of the world. We cannot fail to express hope that the forthcoming national consultations will provide the country with leaders capable of bringing Central Africans together, thus becoming symbols of national unity rather than merely representatives of one or another faction. I strongly urge you to make your country a welcoming home for all its children, regardless of their ethnic origin, political affiliation or religious confession. The Central African Republic, situated in the heart of Africa, with the cooperation of all her sons and daughters, will then prove a stimulus in this regard to the entire continent. It will prove a positive influence and help extinguish the smoldering tensions which prevent Africans from benefitting from that development which they deserve and to which they have a right. Dear friends, dear brothers, I invite you to pray and work for reconciliation, fraternity and solidarity among all people, without forgetting those who have suffered the most as a result of recent events. May God bless you and protect you! Salam alaikum!

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Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, Visit to the Synagogue of Rome, 17 January 2016 Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am happy to be here today with you in this Great Synagogue. I thank Mr Di Segni, Ms Dureghello, and Mr Gattegna for their words; and I thank you all for the warm welcome. Thank you. Todà rabbà! On my first visit to this Synagogue as Bishop of Rome, I wish to express to you, and to the whole Jewish community, the fraternal greetings of peace of this Church and of the entire Catholic Church. Our relationship is very close to my heart. Back in Buenos Aires I used to go to the synagogues and meet with the communities gathered there. I would follow the Jewish festivals and commemorations and give thanks to the Lord, who gives us life and who accompanies us over the course of history. Over time, a spiritual bond has been formed, fostering an authentic relationship of friendship and inspiring a common commitment. In interreligious dialogue it is fundamental that we encounter each other as brothers and sisters before our Creator and that we praise him; and that we respect and appreciate each other, and try to cooperate. And in the Jewish-Christian dialogue there is a unique and particular bond, by virtue of the Jewish roots of Christianity: Jews and Christians must therefore consider themselves brothers, united in the same God and by a rich common spiritual patrimony (cf. Declaration Nostra Aetate, 4), on which to build and to continue building the future. With this visit I am following in the footsteps of my Predecessors. Pope John Paul II came here 30 years ago, on 13 April 1986; and Pope Benedict XVI was among you six years ago. John Paul II, on that occasion, coined the beautiful expression “elder brothers,” and indeed you are our elder brothers and sisters in the faith. We all belong to a single family, the family of God, who accompanies us and protects us as his people. Together, as Jews and as Catholics, we are called to take up our responsibilities for this city, bearing our contribution, especially spiritual, and favoring the resolution of various current problems. I hope that our closeness, mutual understanding and the mutual esteem between our two faith communities may continue to grow. That is why it is significant that I am among you precisely today, 17 January, when the Conference of Italian Bishops is celebrating the “Day of Dialogue between Catholics and Jews.” We recently commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Nostra Aetate, which made possible a sys-

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tematic dialogue between the Catholic Church and Judaism. On 28 October in St Peter’s Square, I was able to greet a great number of Jewish representatives, and I said: “Deserving of special gratitude to God is the veritable transformation of Christian-Jewish relations in these 50 years. Indifference and opposition have changed into cooperation and benevolence. From enemies and strangers we have become friends and brothers. The Council, with the Declaration Nostra Aetate, indicated the way: “yes” to rediscovering Christianity’s Jewish roots; “no” to every form of anti-Semitism and blame for every wrong, discrimination and persecution deriving from it.” For the first time, Nostra Aetate theologically defined in an explicit way the relationship between the Catholic Church and Judaism. Naturally it did not resolve all the theological questions that concern us, but it made reference to them in an encouraging way, providing an important stimulus for further, necessary reflection. In this regard, on 10 December 2015, the Commission for Religious Relations with Jews published a new document, which confronts the theological questions that have emerged in the decades that have passed since the promulgation of Nostra Aetate. Indeed, the theological dimension of the Jewish-Catholic dialogue deserves to be deepened further, and I wish to encourage all those involved in this dialogue to continue in this direction, with discernment and perseverance. The inseparable bond that unites Christians and Jews is theologically clear. Christians, in order to understand themselves, cannot fail to refer to their Jewish roots, and the Church, while professing salvation through faith in Christ, recognizes the irrevocability of the Old Covenant and God’s unfailing, steadfast love for Israel. Together with the theological questions, we must not lose sight of the great challenges facing the world today. An integral ecology is now a ­priority and as Christians and Jews we can and must offer the whole of humanity the Bible’s message on the safeguard of Creation. Conflict, war, violence and injustice open up deep wounds in humanity and call us to strengthen our commitment to peace and justice. The violence of man toward man contradicts every religion worthy of this name, and in particular the three great monotheistic religions. Life is sacred because it is a gift from God. The Fifth Commandment of the Decalogue says: “You shall not kill” (Ex 20:13). God is the God of life, he always seeks to promote and defend it; and we, created in his image and likeness, are called to do the same. Every human being, as a creature of God, is

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our brother or sister, independent of his or her origin or religious practice. Each person is to be viewed with benevolence, as he or she is seen by God, who extends his merciful hand to all, independent of faith and origin, and cares for those who need him the most: the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the defenseless. Where life is in danger, we are called all the more to protect it. Neither violence nor death will ever have the last word before God, who is the God of love and of life. We must pray to him insistently, that he may help us to practice in Europe, in the Holy Land, in the Middle East, in Africa, and in every other part of the world, the logic of peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, and life. The Jewish people, in its history, was subjected to violence and persecution, culminating in the extermination of Jews in Europe during the Shoah. Six million people, for the sole fact of being members of the Jewish people, fell victim to the most inhuman barbarity, perpetuated in the name of an ideology that sought to substitute God with man. On 16 October 1943, over a thousand men, women and children from the Jewish community of Rome were deported to Auschwitz. Today I would like to remember them in a very sincere way: their suffering, their anguish, their tears, must never be forgotten. The past must serve as a lesson for us in the present and in the future. The Shoah teaches us to always maintain the highest level of vigilance, in order to be able to intervene immediately in defense of human dignity and peace. I should like to express my closeness to every witness of the Shoah still living; and I extend my personal greeting to those of you who are present here. Dear elder brothers and sisters, we should be truly grateful for everything that it has been possible to achieve over the last 50 years, because we have matured and our mutual understanding, trust and friendship have deepened. Let us pray together to the Lord that he lead us on our journey toward a good future, a better future. God has a project of salvation for us, as he tells the prophet Jeremiah: “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans of peace and not of destruction, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer 29:11). May the Lord bless us and protect us. May he make his face to shine upon us and give us his grace. May his face shine upon us and grant us peace (cf. Num 6:24–6). Shalom alechem!

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Visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to Assisi for the World Day of Prayer for Peace, 20 September 2016 “Thirst for Peace: Faiths and Cultures in Dialogue” Meditation Gathered before Jesus crucified, we hear his words ring out also for us: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28). Thirst, more than hunger, is the greatest need of humanity, and also its greatest suffering. Let us contemplate then the mystery of Almighty God, who in his mercy became poor among men. What does the Lord thirst for? Certainly for water, that element essential for life. But above all for love, that element no less essential for living. He thirsts to give us the living waters of his love, but also to receive our love. The prophet Jeremiah expressed God’s appreciation of our love: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride” (Jer 2:2). But he also gave voice to divine suffering, when ungrateful man abandoned love—it seems as if the Lord is also speaking these words today—“they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (v. 13). It is the tragedy of the “withered heart,” of love not requited, a tragedy that unfolds again in the Gospel, when in response to Jesus’ thirst man offers him vinegar, spoiled wine. As the psalmist prophetically lamented: “For my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Ps 69:21). “Love is not loved”: this reality, according to some accounts, is what upset Saint Francis of Assisi. For love of the suffering Lord, he was not ashamed to cry out and grieve loudly (cf. Fonti Francescane, no. 1413). This same reality must be in our hearts as we contemplate Christ Crucified, he who thirsts for love. Mother Teresa of Calcutta desired that in the chapel of every community of her sisters the words “I thirst” would be written next to the crucifix. Her response was to quench Jesus’ thirst for love on the Cross through service to the poorest of the poor. The Lord’s thirst is indeed quenched by our compassionate love; he is consoled when, in his name, we bend down to another’s suffering. On the day of judgment they will be called “blessed” who gave drink to those who were thirsty, who offered true gestures of love to those in need: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). Jesus’ words challenge us; they seek a place in our heart and a response that involves our whole life. In his “I thirst” we can hear the voice of the suffering, the hidden cry of the little innocent ones to whom the light of

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this world is denied, the sorrowful plea of the poor and those most in need of peace. The victims of war, which sullies people with hate and the earth with arms, plead for peace; our brothers and sisters, who live under the threat of bombs and are forced to leave their homes into the unknown, stripped of everything, plead for peace. They are all brothers and sisters of the Crucified One, the little ones of his Kingdom, the wounded and parched members of his body. They thirst. But they are frequently given, like Jesus, the bitter vinegar of rejection. Who listens to them? Who bothers responding to them? Far too often they encounter the deafening silence of indifference, the selfishness of those annoyed at being pestered, the coldness of those who silence their cry for help with the same ease with which television channels are changed. Before Christ Crucified, “the power and wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24), we Christians are called to contemplate the mystery of Love not loved and to pour out mercy upon the world. On the cross, the tree of life, evil was transformed into good; we too, as disciples of the Crucified One, are called to be “trees of life” that absorb the contamination of indifference and restore the pure air of love to the world. From the side of Christ on the Cross water flowed, that symbol of the Spirit who gives life (cf. Jn 19:34); so that from us, his faithful, compassion may flow forth for all who thirst today. Like Mary by the Cross, may the Lord grant us to be united to him and close to those who suffer. Drawing near to those living as crucified, and strengthened by the love of Jesus Crucified and Risen, may our harmony and communion deepen even more. “For he is our peace” (Eph 2:14), he who came to preach peace to those near and far (cf. v. 17). May he keep us all in his love and gather us together in unity, that path which we are all on, so that we may be “one” (Jn 17:21) as he desires. Address Your Holinesses, Distinguished Representatives of Churches, Christian Communities, and Religions, Dear Brothers and Sisters, I greet you with great respect and affection, and I thank you for your presence here. I thank the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Diocese of Assisi and the Franciscan Families that have prepared this day of prayer. We have come to Assisi as pilgrims in search of peace. We carry within us and place before God the hopes and sorrows of many persons and peoples. We thirst for peace. We desire to witness to peace. And above all, we need to

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pray for peace, because peace is God’s gift, and it lies with us to plead for it, embrace it, and build it every day with God’s help. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). Many of you have travelled a great distance to reach this holy place. To set out, to come together in order to work for peace: these are not only physical movements, but most of all movements of the soul, concrete spiritual responses so as to overcome what is closed, and become open to God and to our brothers and sisters. God asks this of us, calling us to confront the great sickness of our time: indifference. It is a virus that paralyzes, rendering us lethargic and insensitive, a disease that eats away at the very heart of religious fervor, giving rise to a new and deeply sad paganism: the paganism of indifference. We cannot remain indifferent. Today the world has a profound thirst for peace. In many countries, people are suffering due to wars which, though often forgotten, are always the cause of suffering and poverty. In Lesbos, with our beloved Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, we saw the sorrow of war in the eyes of the refugees, the anguish of peoples thirsting for peace. I am thinking of the families, whose lives have been shattered; of the children who have known only violence in their lives; of the elderly, forced to leave their homeland. All of them have a great thirst for peace. We do not want these tragedies to be forgotten. Rather together we want to give voice to all those who suffer, to all those who have no voice and are not heard. They know well, often better than the powerful, that there is no tomorrow in war, and that the violence of weapons destroys the joy of life. We do not have weapons. We believe, however, in the meek and humble strength of prayer. On this day, the thirst for peace has become a prayer to God, that wars, terrorism and violence may end. The peace which we invoke from Assisi is not simply a protest against war, nor is it “a result of negotiations, political compromises or economic bargaining. It is the result of prayer” (John Paul II, Address, Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, 27 October 1986: Insegnamenti IX, 2 [1986], 1252). We seek in God, who is the source of communion, the clear waters of peace for which humanity thirsts: these waters do not flow from the deserts of pride and personal interests, from the dry earth of profit at any cost and the arms trade. Our religious traditions are diverse. But our differences are not the cause of conflict and dispute, or a cold distance between us. We have not prayed against one another today, as has unfortunately sometimes occurred

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in history. Without syncretism or relativism, we have rather prayed side by side and for each other. In this very place Saint John Paul II said: “More perhaps than ever before in history, the intrinsic link between an authentic religious attitude and the great good of peace has become evident to all” (Address, Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, 27 October 1986: Insegnamenti IX, 2, 1268). Continuing the journey which began thirty years ago in Assisi, where the memory of that man of God and of peace who was Saint Francis remains alive, “once again, gathered here together, we declare that whoever uses religion to foment violence contradicts religion’s deepest and truest inspiration” (Address to the Representatives of the World Religions, Assisi, 24 January 2002: Insegnamenti XXV, 1 [2002], 104). We further declare that violence in all its forms does not represent “the true nature of religion. It is the antithesis of religion and contributes to its destruction” (Benedict XVI, Address at the Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the World, Assisi, 27 October 2011: Insegnamenti VII, 2 [2011], 512). We never tire of repeating that the name of God cannot be used to justify violence. Peace alone is holy. Peace alone is holy, not war! Today we have pleaded for the holy gift of peace. We have prayed that consciences will be mobilized to defend the sacredness of human life, to promote peace between peoples and to care for creation, our common home. Prayer and concrete acts of cooperation help us to break free from the logic of conflict and to reject the rebellious attitudes of those who know only how to protest and be angry. Prayer and the desire to work together commit us to a true peace that is not illusory: not the calm of one who avoids difficulties and turns away, if his personal interests are not at risk; it is not the cynicism of one who washes his hands of any problem that is not his; it is not the virtual approach of one who judges everything and everyone using a computer keyboard, without opening his eyes to the needs of his brothers and sisters, and dirtying his hands for those in need. Our path leads us to immersing ourselves in situations and giving first place to those who suffer; to taking on conflicts and healing them from within; to following ways of goodness with consistency, rejecting the shortcuts offered by evil; to patiently engaging processes of peace, in good will and with God’s help. Peace, a thread of hope that unites earth to heaven, a word so simple and difficult at the same time. Peace means Forgiveness, the fruit of conversion and prayer, that is born from within and that, in God’s name, makes it possible to heal old wounds. Peace means Welcome, openness to

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dialogue, the overcoming of closed-mindedness, which is not a strategy for safety, but rather a bridge over an empty space. Peace means Cooperation, a concrete and active exchange with another, who is a gift and not a problem, a brother or sister with whom to build a better world. Peace denotes Education, a call to learn every day the challenging art of communion, to acquire a culture of encounter, purifying the conscience of every temptation to violence and stubbornness which are contrary to the name of God and human dignity. We who are here together and in peace believe and hope in a fraternal world. We desire that men and women of different religions may everywhere gather and promote harmony, especially where there is conflict. Our future consists in living together. For this reason we are called to free ourselves from the heavy burdens of distrust, fundamentalism and hate. Believers should be artisans of peace in their prayers to God and in their actions for humanity! As religious leaders, we are duty bound to be strong bridges of dialogue, creative mediators of peace. We turn to those who hold the greatest responsibility in the service of peoples, to the leaders of nations, so that they may not tire of seeking and promoting ways of peace, looking beyond self-serving interests and those of the moment: may they not remain deaf to God’s appeal to their consciences, to the cry of the poor for peace and to the healthy expectations of younger generations. Here, thirty years ago, Pope John Paul II said: “Peace is a workshop, open to all and not just to specialists, savants and strategists. Peace is a universal responsibility (Address, Lower Piazza of the Basilica of Saint Francis, 27 October 1986: l.c., 1269). Sisters and brothers, let us assume this responsibility, reaffirming today our “yes” to being, together, builders of the peace that God wishes for us and for which humanity thirsts. Appeal Men and women of various religions, we gather as pilgrims in the city of Saint Francis. Thirty years ago in 1986, religious representatives from all over the world met here at the invitation of Pope John Paul II. It was the first such solemn gathering that brought so many together, in order to affirm the indissoluble bond between the great good of peace and an authentic religious attitude. From that historic event, a long pilgrimage was begun which has touched many cities of the world,

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involving many believers in dialogue and in praying for peace. It has brought people together without denying their differences, giving life to real interreligious friendships and contributing to the resolution of more than a few conflicts. This is the spirit that animates us: to bring about encounters through dialogue, and to oppose every form of violence and abuse of religion which seeks to justify war and terrorism. And yet, in the years that have followed, numerous populations have nonetheless been painfully wounded by war. People do not always understand that war harms the world, leaving in its wake a legacy of sorrows and hate. In war, everyone loses, including the victors. We have prayed to God, asking him to grant peace to the world. We recognize the need to pray constantly for peace, because prayer protects the world and enlightens it. God’s name is peace. The one who calls upon God’s name to justify terrorism, violence and war does not follow God’s path. War in the name of religion becomes a war against religion itself. With firm resolve, therefore, we reiterate that violence and terrorism are opposed to an authentic religious spirit. We have heard the voice of the poor, of children and the younger generations, of women and so many brothers and sisters who are suffering due to war. With them let us say with conviction: No to war! May the anguished cry of the many innocents not go unheeded. Let us urge leaders of nations to defuse the causes of war: the lust for power and money, the greed of arms’ dealers, personal interests and vendettas for past wrongs. May there be a greater commitment to eradicating the underlying causes of conflicts: poverty, injustice and inequality, the exploitation of and contempt for human life. May a new season finally begin, in which the globalized world can become a family of peoples. May we carry out our responsibility of building an authentic peace, attentive to the real needs of individuals and peoples, capable of preventing conflicts through a cooperation that triumphs over hate and overcomes barriers through encounter and dialogue. Nothing is lost when we effectively enter into dialogue. Nothing is impossible if we turn to God in prayer. Everyone can be an artisan of peace. Through this gathering in Assisi, we resolutely renew our commitment to be such artisans, by the help of God, together will all men and women of good will.

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Interreligious Meeting with the Sheikh and with the Representatives of the Different Religious Communities in Azerbaijan at Heydar Aliyev Mosque, Baku, 2 October 2016 Our being here together is a blessing. I thank the President of the Council of the Muslims in the Caucasus, who welcomes us with his customary hospitality, and the local religious Leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the Leaders of the Jewish Communities. Meeting one another in fraternal friendship in this place of prayer is a powerful sign, one that shows the harmony which religions can build together, based on personal relations and on the good will of those responsible. This is seen, for example, in the tangible help that the President of the Council of the Muslims has guaranteed to the Catholic community here on more than one occasion, along with the wise counsel that, in a familial spirit, he shares with that community. I wish also to highlight the good relations that unite local Catholics to the Orthodox community in solid fraternity and daily affection which are an example for all, as well as the warm friendship shared with the Jewish community. The benefits of this harmony are felt throughout Azerbaijan, a country that distinguishes itself for its welcome and hospitality, gifts which I have experienced on this memorable day, one for which I am truly grateful. There is here a desire to protect the great heritage of religions and, at the same time, a pursuit of deeper and more fruitful openness. The Catholic Church, for example, finds a place and lives in harmony among other religions that have far more members, demonstrating concretely that it is not opposition but cooperation that helps to build better and more peaceful societies. Our being together at this place is also in continuity with the many meetings that are held in Baku to promote dialogue and multiculturalism. Opening the doors of welcome and integration means opening the doors of each person’s heart and the doors of hope to everyone. I am confident that this country, “the gateway between East and West” (John Paul II, Address at the Welcome Ceremony, Baku, 22 May 2002), will always cultivate its vocation to openness and encounter, the indispensable conditions for building lasting bridges of peace and a future worthy of humanity. The fraternity and sharing that we seek to increase will not be appreciated by those who want to highlight divisions, reignite tensions and profit

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from opposition and differences; rather, fraternity and sharing are invoked and longed for by those who desire the common good, and are above all pleasing to God, the Compassionate and All Merciful, who wishes his sons and daughters in the one human family to be ever more united among themselves and always in dialogue with one another. A great poet, a son of this land, wrote: “If you are human, mix with humans, because people go well with each other” (Nizami Ganjavi, The Book of Alexander, I, On his own state of life and the passage of time). Opening ourselves to others does not lead to impoverishment but rather enrichment, because it enables us to be more human: to recognize ourselves as participants in a greater collectivity and to understand our life as a gift for others; to see as the goal, not our own interests, but rather the good of humanity; to act with neither abstract idealism nor with interventionism, not by harmful interference or forceful actions, but rather out of respect for the dynamics of history, cultures and religious traditions. Religions have an enormous task: to accompany men and women looking for the meaning of life, helping them to understand that the limited capacities of the human being and the goods of this world must never become absolutes. Again, Nizami wrote: “Do not base yourself solidly on your own strength, such that in heaven you will find no resting place! The fruits of this world are not eternal; do not adore that which perishes!” (Leylā and Majnūn, Death of Majnūn on the tomb of Leylā). Religions are called to help us understand that the center of each person is outside of himself, that we are oriented towards the Most High and towards the other who is our neighbor. In this way, the vocation of human life is to set out towards the highest and truest love: this alone is the culmination of every authentically religious aspiration. For, as the poet says, “love is that which never mutates, love is that which has no end” (ibid, The Despair of Majnūn). Humanity therefore needs religion if it is to reach its goal. Religion is a compass that orients us to the good and steers us away from evil, which is always crouching at the door of a person’s heart (cf. Gen 4:7). Religions, therefore, have an educational task: to help bring out the best in each person. We, as guides, have a great responsibility, in order to offer authentic responses to men and women who are searching, who are often lost among the swirling contradictions of our time. Indeed, today we observe, on the one hand, the dominance of the nihilism of those who no longer believe in anything except their own wellbeing, advantage and profit, of those who throw life away, having become accustomed to the saying, “if

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God does not exist then everything is permissible” (cf. F.M. Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, XI, 4.8.9); on the other hand, we see the growing emergence of rigid and fundamentalist reactions on the part of those who, through violent words and deeds, seek to impose extreme and radical attitudes which are furthest from the living God. Religions, on the contrary, which help to discern the good and put it into practice through deeds, prayer and diligent cultivation of the inner life, are called to build a culture of encounter and peace, based on patience, understanding, and humble, tangible steps. This is the way a humane society is best served. For its part, society must always overcome the temptation to take advantage of religious factors: religions must never be instrumentalized, nor can they ever lend support to, or approve of, conflicts and disagreements. There is, furthermore, a fruitfulness deriving from the virtuous rapport between society and religions, that respectful alliance which needs to be built up and protected, and which I would like to evoke with an image dear to this country. I refer to the precious artistic windows that have been here for centuries, crafted simply out of wood and tinted glass (Shebeke). When they are made using traditional methods, there is a peculiar characteristic: neither glue nor nails are used, but the wood and the glass are set into each other through time-consuming and meticulous effort. Thus, the wood supports the glass and the glass lets in the light. In the same way, it is the task of every civil society to support religion, which allows a light to shine through, indispensable for living. In order for this to happen, an effective and authentic freedom must be guaranteed. Artificial kinds of “glue” cannot be used, which bind people to believe, imposing on them a determined belief system and depriving them of the freedom to choose; nor is there a need for the external “nails” of worldly concerns, of the yearning for power and money. For God cannot be used for personal interests and selfish ends; he cannot be used to justify any form of fundamentalism, imperialism or colonialism. From this highly symbolic place, a heartfelt cry rises up once again: no more violence in the name of God! May his most holy Name be adored, not profaned or bartered as a commodity through forms of hatred and human opposition. We honor, rather, the divine mercy that is given to us, through assiduous prayer and real dialogue, “a necessary condition for peace in the world … a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities” (Evangelii Gaudium, 250). Prayer and dialogue are profoundly interconnected: they flow from an openness of heart and extend to the good of others, thus

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enriching and reinforcing each other. The Catholic Church, in continuity with the Second Vatican Council, heartily “exhorts her sons and daughters, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men and women (Nostra Aetate, 2). This is not an accommodating “facile syncretism,” nor a “diplomatic openness which says yes to everything in order to avoid problems” (Evangelii Gaudium, 251), but rather a path of dialogue with others and a path of prayer for all: these are our means “of turning spears into pruning hooks” (cf. Is 2:4), to give rise to love where there is hatred, and forgiveness where there is offence, of never growing weary of imploring and tracing the ways of peace. A true peace, founded on mutual respect, encounter and sharing, on the will to go beyond prejudices and past wrongs, on the rejection of double standards and self-interests; a lasting peace, animated by the courage to overcome barriers, to eradicate poverty and injustice, to denounce and put an end to the proliferation of weapons and immoral profiteering on the backs of others. The blood of far too many people cries out to God from the earth, our common home (cf. Gen 4:10). Today, we are challenged to give a response that can no longer be put off: to build together a future of peace; now is not the time for violent or abrupt solutions, but rather an urgent moment to engage in patient processes of reconciliation. The real question of our time is not how to advance our own causes—this is not the real question—but what proposals for life are we offering to future generations; how to leave them a better world than the one we have received. God, and history itself, will ask us if we have spent ourselves pursuing peace; the younger generations, who dream of a different future, pointedly direct this question to us. In this night of conflict that we are currently enduring, may religions be a dawn of peace, seeds of rebirth amid the devastation of death, echoes of dialogue resounding unceasingly, paths to encounter and reconciliation reaching even those places where official mediation efforts seem not to have borne fruit. Particularly in this beloved Caucasus region, which I have very much wished to visit and to which I have come as a pilgrim of peace, may religions be active agents working to overcome the tragedies of the past and the tensions of the present. May the inestimable richness of these countries be known and valued: the treasures old and ever new of the wisdom, culture and religious sensibility of the people of the Caucasus

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are a tremendous resource for the future of the region and especially for European culture; they are goods which we cannot renounce. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you very much for the company … And I ask you, please, to pray for me.

Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to Representatives of Different Religions, Clementine Hall, 3 November 2016 Dear Friends, I offer you a warm welcome. I am pleased to meet you and I thank you for accepting this invitation to reflect together on the theme of mercy. As you are well aware, we are approaching the end of the Holy Year, in which the Catholic Church has pondered the heart of the Christian message from the viewpoint of mercy. For us, mercy reveals the name of God; it is “the very foundation of the Church’s life” (Misericordiae Vultus, 10). It is also the key to understanding the mystery of man, of that humanity which, today too, is in great need of forgiveness and peace. Yet the mystery of mercy is not to be celebrated in words alone, but above all by deeds, by a truly merciful way of life marked by disinterested love, fraternal service and sincere sharing. The Church increasingly desires to adopt this way of life, also as part of her “duty to foster unity and charity” among all men and women (Nostra Aetate, 1). The religions are likewise called to this way of life, in order to be, particularly in our own day, messengers of peace and builders of communion, and to proclaim, in opposition to all those who sow conflict, division and intolerance, that ours is a time of fraternity. That is why it is important for us to seek occasions of encounter, an encounter which, while avoiding a superficial syncretism, “makes us more open to dialogue, the better to know and understand one another; eliminates every form of closed-mindedness and disrespect; and drives out every form of violence and discrimination” (Misericordiae Vultus, 23). This is pleasing to God and constitutes an urgent task, responding not only to today’s needs but above all to the summons to love which is the soul of all authentic religion. The theme of mercy is familiar to many religious and cultural traditions, where compassion and nonviolence are essential elements pointing to the way of life; in the words of an ancient proverb: “death is hard and stiff; life is soft and supple” (Tao-Te-Ching, 76). To bow down with compassionate

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love before the weak and needy is part of the authentic spirit of religion, which rejects the temptation to resort to force, refuses to barter human lives and sees others as brothers and sisters, and never mere statistics. To draw near to all those living in situations that call for our concern, such as sickness, disability, poverty, injustice and the aftermath of conflicts and migrations: this is a summons rising from the heart of every genuine religious tradition. It is the echo of the divine voice heard in the conscience of every person, calling him or her to reject selfishness and to be open. Open to the Other above us, who knocks on the door of our heart, and open to the other at our side, who knocks at the door of our home, asking for attention and assistance. The very word “mercy” is a summons to an open and compassionate heart. It comes from the Latin world misericordia, which evokes a heart— cor—sensitive to suffering, but especially to those who suffer, a heart that overcomes indifference because it shares in the sufferings of others. In the Semitic languages, like Arabic and Hebrew, the root RHM, which also expresses God’s mercy, has to do with a mother’s womb, the deepest source of human love, the feelings of a mother for the child to whom she will give birth. In this regard, the prophet Isaiah conveys a magnificent message, which, on God’s part, is both a promise of love and a challenge: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even though she may forget, yet I will never forget you” (Is 49:15). All too often, sad to say, we forget, our hearts grow heedless and indifferent. We distance ourselves from God, our neighbor and even our historical memory, and we end up repeating, in even more cruel forms, the tragic errors of other times. This is the drama of evil, of the grim depths to which our freedom can plunge when tempted by evil, ever-present, waiting to strike and bring us down. Yet precisely here, before the great riddle of evil that tests every religious experience, we find the most amazing aspect of merciful love. That love does not leave us prey to evil or to our own frailty; it does not “forget,” but “remembers,” and draws near to every human misery in order to relieve it. Like a mother. Whatever the evil done by her child, a mother always sees past the sin to recognize the face she bore in her womb. In today’s ever more hectic and forgetful word, which leaves so many men and women behind as it races on, breathlessly and aimlessly, we need the oxygen of this gratuitous and life-giving love. We thirst for mercy and no technology can quench that thirst. We seek a love that endures beyond

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momentary pleasures, a safe harbor where we can end our restless wanderings, an infinite embrace that forgives and reconciles. How important this is, when we consider today’s widespread fear that it is impossible to be forgiven, rehabilitated and redeemed from our weaknesses. For us Catholics, among the most meaningful rites of the Holy Year is that of walking with humility and trust through the door—the Holy Door—to find ourselves fully reconciled by the mercy of God, who forgives our trespasses. But this demands that we too forgive those who trespass against us (cf. Mt 6:12), the brothers and sisters who have offended us. We receive God’s forgiveness in order to share it with others. Forgiveness is surely the greatest gift we can give to others, because it is the most costly. Yet at the same time, it is what makes us most like God. Mercy extends also to the world around us, to our common home, which we are called to protect and preserve from unbridled and rapacious consumption. Our commitment is needed for an education to sobriety and to respect, to a more simple and orderly way of life, in which the resources of creation are used with wisdom and moderation, with concern for humanity as a whole and coming generations, not simply the interests of our particular group and the benefits of the present moment. Today in particular, “the gravity of the ecological crisis demands that we all look to the common good, embarking on a path of dialogue which requires patience, self-discipline and generosity” (Laudato Si’, 201). May this be the path we take. May we reject the aimless paths of disagreement and closed-mindedness. May it never happen again that the religions, because of the conduct of some of their followers, convey a distorted message, out of tune with that of mercy. Sadly, not a day passes that we do not hear of acts of violence, conflict, kidnapping, terrorist attacks, killings and destruction. It is horrible that at times, to justify such barbarism, the name of a religion or the name of God himself is invoked. May there be clear condemnation of these iniquitous attitudes that profane the name of God and sully the religious quest of mankind. May there instead be fostered everywhere the peaceful encounter of believers and genuine religious freedom. Here, our responsibility before God, humanity and the future is great; it calls for unremitting effort, without dissimulation. It is a call that challenges us, a path to be taken together, for the good of all, and with hope. May the religions be wombs of life, bearing the merciful love of God to a wounded and needy humanity; may they be doors of hope helping to penetrate the walls erected by pride and fear. Thank you.

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Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Egypt, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Participants in the International Peace Conference in Cairo, 28 April 2017 As-salamu alaykum! I consider it a great gift to be able to begin my visit to Egypt here, and to address you in the context of this International Peace Conference. I thank my brother, the Grand Imam, for having planned and organized this Conference, and for kindly inviting me to take part. I would like to offer you a few thoughts, drawing on the glorious history of this land, which over the ages has appeared to the world as a land of civilizations and a land of covenants. A Land of Civilizations From ancient times, the culture that arose along the banks of the Nile was synonymous with civilization. Egypt lifted the lamp of knowledge, giving birth to an inestimable cultural heritage, made up of wisdom and ingenuity, mathematical and astronomical discoveries, and remarkable forms of architecture and figurative art. The quest for knowledge and the value placed on education were the result of conscious decisions on the part of the ancient inhabitants of this land, and were to bear much fruit for the future. Similar decisions are needed for our own future, decisions of peace and for peace, for there will be no peace without the proper education of coming generations. Nor can young people today be properly educated unless the training they receive corresponds to the nature of man as an open and relational being. Education indeed becomes wisdom for life if it is capable of “drawing out” of men and women the very best of themselves, in contact with the One who transcends them and with the world around them, fostering a sense of identity that is open and not self-enclosed. Wisdom seeks the other, overcoming temptations to rigidity and closed-mindedness; it is open and in motion, at once humble and inquisitive; it is able to value the past and set it in dialogue with the present, while employing a suitable hermeneutics. Wisdom prepares a future in which people do not attempt to push their own agenda but rather to include others as an integral part

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of themselves. Wisdom tirelessly seeks, even now, to identify opportunities for encounter and sharing; from the past, it learns that evil only gives rise to more evil, and violence to more violence, in a spiral that ends by imprisoning everyone. Wisdom, in rejecting the dishonesty and the abuse of power, is centered on human dignity, a dignity which is precious in God’s eyes, and on an ethics worthy of man, one that is unafraid of others and fearlessly employs those means of knowledge bestowed on us by the Creator. Precisely in the field of dialogue, particularly interreligious dialogue, we are constantly called to walk together, in the conviction that the future also depends on the encounter of religions and cultures. In this regard, the work of the Mixed Committee for Dialogue between the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Committee of Al-Azhar for Dialogue offers us a concrete and encouraging example. Three basic areas, if properly linked to one another, can assist in this dialogue: the duty to respect one’s own identity and that of others, the courage to accept differences, and sincerity of intentions. The duty to respect one’s own identity and that of others, because true dialogue cannot be built on ambiguity or a willingness to sacrifice some good for the sake of pleasing others. The courage to accept differences, because those who are different, either culturally or religiously, should not be seen or treated as enemies, but rather welcomed as fellow-travelers, in the genuine conviction that the good of each resides in the good of all. Sincerity of intentions, because dialogue, as an authentic expression of our humanity, is not a strategy for achieving specific goals, but rather a path to truth, one that deserves to be undertaken patiently, in order to transform competition into cooperation. An education in respectful openness and sincere dialogue with others, recognizing their rights and basic freedoms, particularly religious freedom, represents the best way to build the future together, to be builders of civility. For the only alternative to the civility of encounter is the incivility of conflict; there is no other way. To counter effectively the barbarity of those who foment hatred and violence, we need to accompany young people, helping them on the path to maturity and teaching them to respond to the incendiary logic of evil by patiently working for the growth of goodness. In this way, young people, like well-planted trees, can be firmly rooted in the soil of history, and, growing heavenward in one another’s company, can daily turn the polluted air of hatred into the oxygen of fraternity.

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In facing this great cultural challenge, one that is both urgent and exciting, we, Christians, Muslims and all believers, are called to offer our specific contribution: “We live under the sun of the one merciful God … Thus, in a true sense, we can call one another brothers and sisters… since without God the life of man would be like the heavens without the sun.” May the sun of a renewed fraternity in the name of God rise in this sun-­ drenched land, to be the dawn of a civilization of peace and encounter. May Saint Francis of Assisi, who eight centuries ago came to Egypt and met Sultan Malik al Kamil, intercede for this intention. A Land of Covenants In Egypt, not only did the sun of wisdom rise, but also the variegated light of the religions shone in this land. Here, down the centuries, differences of religion constituted “a form of mutual enrichment in the service of the one national community.” Different faiths met and a variety of cultures blended without being confused, while acknowledging the importance of working together for the common good. Such “covenants” are urgently needed today. Here I would take as a symbol the “Mount of the Covenant” which rises up in this land. Sinai reminds us above all that authentic covenants on earth cannot ignore heaven, that human beings cannot attempt to encounter one another in peace by eliminating God from the horizon, nor can they climb the mountain to appropriate God for themselves (cf. Ex 19:12). This is a timely reminder in the face of a dangerous paradox of the present moment. On the one hand, religion tends to be relegated to the private sphere, as if it were not an essential dimension of the human person and society. At the same time, the religious and political spheres are confused and not properly distinguished. Religion risks being absorbed into the administration of temporal affairs and tempted by the allure of worldly powers that in fact exploit it. Our world has seen the globalization of many useful technical instruments, but also a globalization of indifference and negligence, and it moves at a frenetic pace that is difficult to sustain. As a result, there is renewed interest in the great questions about the meaning of life. These are the questions that the religions bring to the fore, reminding us of our origins and ultimate calling. We are not meant to spend all our energies on the uncertain and shifting affairs of this world, but to journey towards the Absolute that is our goal. For all these reasons, especially today, religion is not a problem but a part of the solution: against the

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temptation to settle into a banal and uninspired life, where everything begins and ends here below, religion reminds us of the need to lift our hearts to the Most High in order to learn how to build the city of man. To return to the image of Mount Sinai, I would like to mention the commandments that were promulgated there, even before they were sculpted on tablets of stone. At the center of this “Decalogue,” there resounds, addressed to each individual and to people of all ages, the commandment: “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex 20:13). God, the lover of life, never ceases to love man, and so he exhorts us to reject the way of violence as the necessary condition for every earthly “covenant.” Above all and especially in our day, the religions are called to respect this imperative, since, for all our need of the Absolute, it is essential that we reject any “absolutizing” that would justify violence. For violence is the negation of every authentic religious expression. As religious leaders, we are called, therefore, to unmask the violence that masquerades as purported sanctity and is based more on the “absolutizing” of selfishness than on authentic openness to the Absolute. We have an obligation to denounce violations of human dignity and human rights, to expose attempts to justify every form of hatred in the name of religion, and to condemn these attempts as idolatrous caricatures of God: Holy is his name, he is the God of peace, God salaam. Peace alone, therefore, is holy and no act of violence can be perpetrated in the name of God, for it would profane his Name. Together, in the land where heaven and earth meet, this land of covenants between peoples and believers, let us say once more a firm and clear “No!” to every form of violence, vengeance and hatred carried out in the name of religion or in the name of God. Together let us affirm the incompatibility of violence and faith, belief and hatred. Together let us declare the sacredness of every human life against every form of violence, whether physical, social, educational or psychological. Unless it is born of a sincere heart and authentic love towards the Merciful God, faith is no more than a conventional or social construct that does not liberate man, but crushes him. Let us say together: the more we grow in the love of God, the more we grow in the love of our neighbor. Religion, however, is not meant only to unmask evil; it has an intrinsic vocation to promote peace, today perhaps more than ever. Without giving in to forms of facile syncretism, our task is that of praying for one another, imploring from God the gift of peace, encountering one another, engaging in dialogue and promoting harmony in the spirit of cooperation and

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friendship. For our part, as Christians—and I am a Christian—“we cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat any people as other than brothers and sisters, for all are created in God’s image.” All are brothers and sisters. Moreover, we know that, engaged in a constant battle against the evil that threatens a world which is no longer “a place of genuine fraternity,” God assures all those who trust in his love that “the way of love lies open to men and that the effort to establish universal brotherhood is not vain.” Rather, that effort is essential: it is of little or no use to raise our voices and run about to find weapons for our protection: what is needed today are peacemakers, not makers of arms; what is needed are peacemakers, and not fomenters of conflict; firefighters and not arsonists; preachers of reconciliation and not instigators of destruction. It is disconcerting to note that, as the concrete realities of people’s lives are increasingly ignored in favor of obscure machinations, demagogic forms of populism are on the rise. These certainly do not help to consolidate peace and stability: no incitement to violence will guarantee peace, and every unilateral action that does not promote constructive and shared processes is in reality a gift to the proponents of radicalism and violence. In order to prevent conflicts and build peace, it is essential that we spare no effort in eliminating situations of poverty and exploitation where extremism more easily takes root, and in blocking the flow of money and weapons destined to those who provoke violence. Even more radically, an end must be put to the proliferation of arms; if they are produced and sold, sooner or later they will be used. Only by bringing into the light of day the murky maneuverings that feed the cancer of war can its real causes be prevented. National leaders, institutions and the media are obliged to undertake this urgent and grave task. So too are all of us who play a leading role in culture; each in his or her own area, we are charged by God, by history and by the future to initiate processes of peace, seeking to lay a solid basis for agreements between peoples and states. It is my hope that this noble and beloved land of Egypt, with God’s help, may continue to respond to the calling it has received to be a land of civilization and covenant, and thus to contribute to the development of processes of peace for its beloved people and for the entire region of the Middle East. As-salamu alaykum!

PART II

Seven Traditions Respond

Jewish Responses 3. “The Church Also Is Enriched When She Receives the Values of Judaism”: Shared Faith Responses to Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue Edward Kessler 4. On Donkey Drivers, Interreligious Dialogue, and Shared Tasks: A Jewish Response to Pope Francis on Interreligious Relations and Collaboration Debbie Young-Somers Christian Responses 5. Is Pope Francis an Anonymous Feminist? Helene Egnell 6. Is the Pope Catholic? A Question of Identity in Pope Francis’s Practical Theology of Interreligious Dialogue Stephen B. Roberts

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Muslim Responses 7. Pope Francis’s Compassion Amineh A. Hoti 8. Pope Francis, Islam, and Dialogue Ataullah Siddiqui Hindu Responses 9. Cautious Hope: Hindu Reflections on Pope Francis Jeffery D. Long 10. Do We Have a Religious Need for Each Other? Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue Anantanand Rambachan Sikh Responses 11. A Sikh in Dialogue with Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium Dharam Singh 12. Let’s Get Off Our Cell Phones and Hear a Sikh Maxim from Pope Francis Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh A Buddhist Response 13.  Toward Dialogue with Pope Francis: A Japanese Buddhist Perspective Dennis Hirota A Secular-Humanist Response 14. What Do We Share? A Secular-Humanist Response Shoshana Ronen

CHAPTER 3

“The Church Also Is Enriched When She Receives the Values of Judaism”: Shared Faith Responses to Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue

Edward Kessler

In the Footsteps of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI: Pope Francis and Jewish-Christian Dialogue Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known as Pope Francis, comes from Argentina, a country with 230,000 Jews in a population of 37 million, of whom 80% are Roman Catholic. In his engagement and encounters with Jews and Judaism, he has followed in the footsteps of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Appointed cardinal by John Paul II on 21 December 2001, he is Latin American with Italian roots and studied in Germany. His relations with Jews are warm and Jewish-Christian dialogue regularly receives his personal encouragement.

E. Kessler (*) Woolf Institute, Cambridge, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_3

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Before he became bishop of Rome on 13 March 2013, Bergoglio participated in meetings organised by the Latin American Council of Bishops, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Latin American Jewish Congress. He was praised by the Jewish community for his compassionate response to one of the worst anti-Semitic attacks in Latin America: the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires of a seven-storey building housing the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association and the Delegation of the Argentine Jewish Association. He delivered a major address at a meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee in Buenos Aires on 18 July 2004, on the theme of tzedeq and tzedeqa (justice and charity), and encouraged all participants to visit the site of the bombing. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio also attended the Rosh Hashanah service on 13 September 2007. I have met Pope Francis on three occasions, and each time came away with the realisation that he intuitively knows among ordinary Jews and Christians there is less interest in the theological reflections and intellectual musings of his predecessor than in a metaphorical hug and kiss. His pastoral gifts are extraordinary. This was demonstrated in 2016, when he visited the Rome synagogue on 17 January (an annual day of Judaism in the Catholic Church in Italy) and simply said “We are one family” and “Shabbat Shalom” which was enough for the community to acclaim him as one of their own. Francis was elected pope two years before the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate, which revolutionised Catholic-Jewish relations and, according to Fr Edward Flannery, “terminated in a stroke a millennial teaching of contempt of Jews and Judaism and unequivocally asserted the Church’s debt to its Jewish heritage.”1 Known as the aggiornamento (bringing up to date), the Second Vatican Council marked the beginning of a fresh approach when the Roman Catholic Church joined the Protestant churches in reflecting positively on the mystery of Israel. In the five decades since, Christians—so long instigators of negative attitudes towards Jews—have rediscovered a respect and admiration for Judaism, and the once-close relationship, which had become a distant memory, has been to a large extent restored. Francis continues on this path of reconciliation. For Jews, the traditional view that Christianity was simply hostile has been replaced by a realisation that dialogue, even partnership, with Christians is possible. Pope Francis’s meetings with Jews have reinforced this view (more so than his writings, on which there is more below).

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“Ours is a spiritual journey,” he said of his friendship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, rector of the Latin American Rabbinic Seminary, which dates to 1997 when Bergoglio became coadjutor bishop of the Buenos Aires archdiocese. “Like him I don’t much like the protocol, and like him I too go for the essentials,” he added.2 Since then, the rabbi and the pope have done many things together, including jointly writing a book based on their public dialogues. Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra (On Heaven and Earth) has been translated into several languages, including Hebrew.3 Francis invited Skorka to the Vatican soon after his election and provided kosher food as they spent a couple of days together. Friendship with a rabbi and his wider pastoral engagement with the Jewish community are more important to Francis than scholarly work and theological reflection. As he said during the general audience at St Peter’s Square on 28 October 2015: “It is my hope that the forthcoming Jubilee of Mercy will be an occasion for ever greater interreligious cooperation in works of charity, reconciliation and care for God’s gift of creation.” According to Skorka: “We hold to different traditions, but we are creating a dialogue. … We want to move ahead by actions, we must advance by building bridges, through a living dialogue; not a dialogue of words, but a dialogue of actions that reflect our commitment.”4 Like Martin Buber, Pope Francis seeks a genuine religious conversation, a physical and spiritual encounter that involves a respect that takes the other as seriously as one demands to be taken oneself. This is no easy task and requires presence, wonderfully illustrated by Buber’s inscription in a first edition of I and Thou (1923), which was presented to Francis at the official celebrations of the Nostra Aetate anniversary at the Vatican on 30 June 2015. Buber had written that “only by spending time together can we meet the challenges of our time.” This is a theme of the Pope Francis pontificate. Because personal engagement is his priority, he will often take time to greet participants individually, sometimes hundreds of people, leaving his advisors to look at their watches with increasing concern as the papal schedule is further delayed. The final words of his speech at the anniversary celebration moved participants most of all because he not only blessed everyone present with the priestly blessing from the Book of Numbers (6:24–26)—also a contemporary Jewish blessing—but also because he asked everyone to pray for him. Indeed, he repeated this on each occasion he and I met.

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Some years ago, I participated with the then British Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, in a papal audience with Benedict XVI, and I was moved intellectually. With Francis, one is moved spiritually.

A Culture of Dialogue Under the Twitter handle, @pontifex, Pope Francis regularly tweets about dialogue: “Dialogue is born when I am capable of recognising others as a gift of God and accept they have something to tell me.”5 He echoes the approach of the early twentieth-century Jewish philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig, who argued that both Jews and Christians participate in God’s revelation and both are, in different ways, intended by God. Only for God is the truth one; earthly truth remains divided. For Francis, conversations with Jews and speeches devoted to Jewish-Christian relations are an opportunity to affirm God’s covenant with the Jewish people and also with the Church. He demonstrates a desire to establish a relationship based not on a lack of hostility but on common values, not on a lack of suspicion but on the creation of trust, a shared mission, critical solidarity, and mutual affirmation. He reminded Jews and Christians that “we are strangers no more, but friends and brothers and sisters. … All Christians have Jewish roots.”6 As a consequence, Christians see their reflection in a Jewish mirror, deepening their faith in Christ as well as showing respect to their elder siblings. In his first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, he declared that “God continues to work among the people of the Old Covenant and to bring forth treasures of wisdom which flow from their encounter with his word. For this reason, the Church also is enriched when she receives the values of Judaism.”7 Perhaps this is what Francis meant when he asked that we pray for him.

The Gifts and Calling of God Are Irrevocable It is worth touching on the most important Vatican statement on relations with Jews published during the pontificate of Pope Francis, as he approved its publication and it epitomises his approach to Judaism. The Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, whose president is Cardinal Kurt Koch, set itself the task to consider two crucial questions: Can Christians view Judaism as a valid religion in its own terms and to what extent can Christianity differentiate itself from Judaism without asserting itself as either opposed to Judaism or simply as the replacement of Judaism?8

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The Commission (like Nostra Aetate and many other Christian statements) turned to the writings of the Apostle Paul in whose view both Israel and the Church are elect and both participate in the covenant of God. For Paul, it was impossible to imagine that the Jewish people as a whole could first have been elected by God and then later displaced. God would not simply elect and then reject. The Church’s election derives from that of Israel, but this does not imply that God’s covenant with Israel is broken. Rather, it remains unbroken—irrevocably (Romans 11:29). For Paul, the mystery of Israel is that their rejection and their stumbling do not mean that they cease to be accepted by God. Rather, they allow the Gentiles to participate in the peoplehood of Israel. Indeed, so strongly does Paul make this point that he offers a severe warning that Gentile Christians should not be haughty or boastful towards ­ ersecution unbelieving Jews—much less cultivate evil intent and engage in p against them. Christians have often remembered Jews as “enemies” but not as “beloved” of God (Romans 11:28) and have taken to heart Paul’s criticisms, using them against Jews while forgetting Paul’s love for Jews and their traditions (Romans 9:1–5). Romans 9–11 therefore provides the biblical basis upon which Christian attitudes towards Jews were revised and the continuing validity of God’s covenant with the Jewish people was affirmed. On 10 December 2015, the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations issued The Gifts and Calling of God Are Irrevocable, a term taken from Romans 11:29.9 As a Jewish partner in today’s dialogue, I was one of two Jewish theologians (the other being former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, David Rosen) invited to comment on the document before it was published. The invitation symbolised not only a personal friendship but also a genuine desire in the Vatican for Jewish participation in interreligious dialogue. Of course, this is a Roman Catholic document affirming Catholic perspectives, quite different from Jewish, but Jewish participation was part of ever-growing mutual respect and appreciation. The Gifts discussed missionary activity towards Jews. Strikingly, it stated that Catholics should not try to convert Jews: “The church is therefore obliged to view evangelization to Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views. … In concrete terms this means that the Catholic church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews.”

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This is a remarkable assertion and marked the end of missions to the Jews and any initiatives that have the purpose of convincing Jews to accept Christianity. However, individual Catholics are not asked to renounce the right to bear witness to their own beliefs to Jews, but even this they need to do very sensitively. The Gifts also tackles a dilemma at the heart of the Christian understanding of Judaism. On the one hand, Nostra Aetate states that “the church is the new people of God,” while, on the other, “the Jews remain most dear to God because of their fathers, for He does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues” (cf. Romans 11:28–29).10 How is it possible to reconcile both statements? During one of my conversations with Cardinal Koch at the time of the launch, he told me that the theological centrepiece of the new document is that Jews can be saved while not believing in Christ and that this “remains an unfathomable mystery in the salvific plan of God.” “Since God has never revoked his covenant,” the cardinal said, “so there cannot be different ways of approaches to salvation through God. There is only one God, the God of Israel, revealed in Jesus Christ. How salvation will be possible without a belief in Jesus Christ is a divine mystery that cannot be resolved by human beings, but that Jews are part of God’s salvation is beyond theological discussion.”11 Thus, it seems, lack of Jewish belief in the divinity of Jesus no longer bars Jews from salvation. Coincidentally, a few days before The Gifts was issued, a group of Orthodox rabbis issued another significant declaration entitled To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians, which stated: “We acknowledge that Christianity is neither an accident nor an error, but the willed divine outcome and gift to the nations. In separating Judaism and Christianity, God willed a separation between partners with significant theological differences, not a separation between enemies.”12 Of course, not all Orthodox Jewish rabbis endorsed their colleagues’ position, but the coincidence of timing in the publication of these two important statements on Jewish-Christian relations symbolises a flowering of relations, both pastoral and theological.

Not All Is Rosy: The Return of Some Old Tropes In the 50 years since Nostra Aetate, there has been a massive shift in the Christian reading of the New Testament, which now acknowledges that Jesus was born, lived, and died a Jew and that the first Christians were

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Jews. Yet, few have reflected on the fact that the harsh criticism of the Pharisees in the Gospels has as much to do with the closeness and rivalry between the communities at the time in which the texts were written, as with anything that happened during the lifetime of Jesus. While Jesus’s condemnation of the Pharisees is understood by New Testament scholars, as well as those engaged in Jewish-Christian dialogue, as an inner-Jewish critique, this realisation has not filtered into many pews, nor has it been preached from many pulpits, including from the highest citadel in the Vatican. The caricature of the Pharisees as hypocrites and legalists has resulted in much misunderstanding about the period to which Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism trace their origins. Pope Francis seems too often to draw on the Gospel accounts in which the Pharisees are depicted as the leaders of the Jewish people who oversaw a legalistic, exclusive religion lacking any sense of charity and compassion, without nuance or context. The New Testament describes how Jesus taught his fellow Jews, some of whom followed his teaching, while others did not. His Jewish followers argued amongst themselves about the conditions under which Gentiles might be admitted to this new Jewish movement and with other Jews over issues such as Torah observance and claims about Jesus. The New Testament bears witness to the disputes, which were vigorous and often bitter, but until recently, scholars had almost completely neglected the fact that these arguments were between Jews, about a Jew, or about Jewish issues. Traditionally, polemical passages were read as if they were Christian arguments against Jews. To read them in this way is to misread them, and this misreading contributed significantly to the Christian teaching of contempt. Since the ministry of Jesus can only be understood in the context of first-century Palestinian Judaism, the concerns of Jesus and his followers are Jewish concerns. Despite the disagreements, much of the polemic reflects the situation in which the Gospels were written when Jews and Jewish followers of Jesus had come to view each other in terms of hostility and disagreement. The criticism of the Pharisees is especially pronounced because it was Rabbinic Judaism, based on Pharisaic Judaism, which survived the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the dispersion from the Land of Israel. The conflict was over interpretation and over who should lead. In other words, the final text of the Gospels was edited long after the events described, and the authors were concerned with denigrating those Jews

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who did not follow Jesus. At the same time, they were equally concerned with vindicating the Romans, whose goodwill they were seeking. This was courageously admitted by the Vatican’s 1985 Notes on Preaching and Catechesis, which stated forthrightly: It cannot be ruled out that some references hostile or less than favorable to the Jews have their historical context in conflicts between the nascent Church and the Jewish community. … Certain controversies reflect Christian-Jewish relations long after the time of Jesus. To establish this is of capital importance if we wish to bring out the meaning of certain Gospel texts for the Christians of today.13

Unlike his predecessor, Francis easily falls back into old-fashioned tropes, with little serious theological or scholarly content. He appears somewhat dismissive of scholarly sensitivity, for example, not understanding what might be problematic with the use of stereotypes about the Pharisees, such as referring to Pharisees as hypocrites at the morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta on 16 October 2015. “And Jesus tells us,” the pope preached, “‘Beware of bad leaven, that of the Pharisees.’ And what is that? It’s hypocrisy. Be on your guard against the Pharisees’ leaven which is hypocrisy.” Hypocrisy, he pointed out, is when we invoke God with our lips, but our hearts are distant from God.14 Elsewhere he falls into the trope of condemning as superficial and pedantic the Pharisees who were weighed down by the burden of the law, demonstrating a failure to understand the meaning of the Hebrew word Torah. Though “Law” is most often used to translate Torah, the word reflects the Greek (Septuagint) and Latin (Vulgate) translations, which have nomos and lex, respectively. Thus, Judaism has been commonly and mistakenly portrayed as legalistic and fossilised by the time of Jesus. While the Torah does contain commandments and precepts, it has another equally important characteristic, namely, instruction or teaching, of which Pope Francis seems unaware. The following words in the Jubilee Bull demonstrate this: Jesus speaks several times of the importance of faith over and above the observance of the law. It is in this sense that we must understand his words when, reclining at table with Matthew and other tax collectors and sinners, he says to the Pharisees raising objections to him, “Go and learn the meaning of ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice.’ I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13). Faced with a vision of justice as the mere

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observance of the law that judges people simply by dividing them into two groups—the just and sinners—Jesus is bent on revealing the great gift of mercy that searches out sinners and offers them pardon and salvation. One can see why, on the basis of such a liberating vision of mercy as a source of new life, Jesus was rejected by the Pharisees and the other teachers of the law. In an attempt to remain faithful to the law, they merely placed burdens on the shoulders of others and undermined the Father’s mercy. The appeal to a faithful observance of the law must not prevent attention from being given to matters that touch upon the dignity of the person.15

While Pope Francis’s commitment to fostering better relations between Christians and Jews, as well as to Christian-Jewish dialogue in general, is undoubted, his inappropriate language is an area of weakness and cause of concern, especially when his homilies and speeches are read by Catholics far away from real encounters with Jews and Judaism. For the most part, however, Francis’s warm and engaging pastoral style has enabled him to evade criticism.

Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust Understandably, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust are often mentioned as examples of the division between Christianity and Judaism. Yet, the flowering in relations between Christians and Jews in recent decades has impacted this area too, as Christianity shifted from what was, for the most part, an inherent need to condemn Judaism to one of a condemnation of Christian anti-Judaism. This led not to a separation from all things Jewish but, in fact, to a closer relationship with “the elder brother.” In the words of German theologian Johannes Metz, “Christian theology after Auschwitz must stress anew the Jewish dimension of Christian beliefs and must overcome the forced blocking-out of the Jewish heritage within Christianity.”16 Pope Francis has followed the lead of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI: “I would like to repeat once more,” he said to the Jewish community of Rome on 11 October 2014, “it is a contradiction for a Christian to be anti-Semitic. His roots are in part Jewish. A Christian cannot be anti-­ Semitic! May anti-Semitism be banished from the heart and the life of every man and woman!”17 Pope John Paul II, whose pontificate witnessed more progress between Catholics and Jews than any other, was the first pope to visit a concentration camp (Auschwitz) and to pray there (1979), the first to visit Yad

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Vashem in his pilgrimage to Israel (2000), and the first to pray at the Western Wall—asking for God’s forgiveness for sins against the Jewish people and leaving his prayer in the crack of the wall, according to Jewish custom.18 His example has been followed by Benedict XVI and Francis. As the survivors of the Holocaust grow older and die, the legacy of the Shoah will suffer the loss of an exceptionally powerful voice. It remains to be seen if Christians and Jews will embrace the ethical demands of remembering this painful chapter in their history. In addition, the southern hemisphere is becoming the demographic centre of Christianity, and there are increasing numbers of people who do not see themselves reflected in the history of Europe. The prospect of sharing the burdens of this legacy will in large measure depend on the educational discovery that the spiritual and moral credibility of churches everywhere is inseparable from an honest reckoning with this past. That is one reason why the Argentinian pope’s visit to Auschwitz, the third consecutive pontiff to make the pilgrimage to where more than 1 million people—most of them Jews—were killed, was so important. As a pope from another continent, his visit underlined the universal ­importance of Auschwitz, a site that each year draws more visitors from around the world, from 147,000 in 1947 to 1.5 million in 2014.19 Altogether, it was a deeply contemplative and private visit of nearly two hours that Francis passed in total silence, except for a few words he exchanged with camp survivors and Holocaust rescuers. Vatican and Polish Church officials explained that Francis wanted to express his sorrow in silence at the site, mourning the victims in quiet prayer and meditation. Both Judaism and Christianity are grounded in revelatory affirmations of God as the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of the world. God is revealed not only in the natural order but also through the course of history, most especially in the election and covenantal formation of Jews and Christians whose destinies are indissolubly bound to God’s ongoing involvement in the world. Since God is understood as the Lord of all history, evil as well as good is classically attributed to the inscrutable will of the Almighty. Disasters have, traditionally, been interpreted as punishment that serves to reorient the wayward or as the necessary birth pangs of the messianic era. The logic of this faith generates an untenable conclusion: if God is not the author of the Holocaust, God at the very least shares responsibility for the tragedy.

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Is it possible to reflect on the Holocaust as a revelatory event, to discern in it God’s relationship to humanity and humanity’s response? How are we to understand God in the context of such a catastrophe? The results of such inquiry can only be tentative, and as one Jewish philosopher, Emil Fackenheim, has stated there can be no understanding of the Holocaust theologically: “One does not practice Holocaust theology for there cannot be such a discipline. There is only a theology that is threatened by the Holocaust and saves its integrity by self-exposure to it.”20 Pope Francis’s visit was about silence and listening. The Holocaust continues to raise questions about God’s presence or absence, God’s power and freedom, and, I think, God’s silence as well. This may explain why Francis was silent at Auschwitz. He was listening carefully to God and to God’s silence.

Israel-Palestine One topic not mentioned in Nostra Aetate, but which causes more controversy than any other in Jewish-Christian relations is the subject of peace and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians or, perhaps more realistically, conflict and misunderstanding. Political factors alone do not fully explain why the state of Israel is such a controversial topic. Why do conversations brim with so much emotion and passion? For Jews, of course, the centrality of the Land of the Bible, as well as the survival of over a third of world Jewry, is at stake. Christians, for their part, not only disagree as to the place of the people of Israel in Christian theology but also feel concern for Christians who live in the nation state as well as Palestinians more generally. There are also many Muslims, as well as Christians and Jews, who are deeply concerned about “the other,” making this a complicated picture to understand. Although there have been great changes in Christian teaching on Judaism, attitudes towards Israel continue to be difficult. Simply put, it has been easier for the Church to condemn anti-Semitism as a misunderstanding of Christian teaching than to come to terms with the re-­ establishment of the Jewish state. Once again, it was John Paul II who was the first to exchange ambassadors with the State of Israel (1994) and to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the millennium. Pope Benedict followed in 2009. Pope Francis’s visit in 2014 was not his first. Friar Jorge Bergoglio was in Israel in October 1973, when he was Provincial of the Jesuits, but the

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Yom Kippur War obliged him to stay in his hotel, so he spent most of his time reading the Bible, not giving him much opportunity to tour. It was different this time. He arrived in Jordan on 24 May, accompanied by his friends, Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Omar Abboud, the Muslim director of the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue. They were received by the King of Jordan and travelled to Bethany, near the river Jordan, the place of Jesus’s baptism. Like Pope Paul VI, Pope Francis blessed the river. During his pilgrimage he visited the Dome of the Rock, met the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and prayed at the Western Wall, where he left a note in a crack of the wall. It was tempting to think that with talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority stalled, if not moribund, a visit by Pope Francis might breathe new life into the peace process. It spluttered and then returned to its dormant state. As well as encouraging Christians to engage further in dialogue with Jews and Muslims, he came face to face with some of the problems faced by Christians in the Middle East. Jerusalem was on lock-down to ensure his security, causing enormous difficulty for any Christians seeking the opportunity to see the pope. On the other hand, as Israelis like to remind visitors, while their neighbours are oppressing Christians, Israel can be proud of the religious freedoms and safety it affords Christianity. Indeed, the Christian population is growing, while elsewhere in the Middle East the Christian presence is diminishing, in some places, dramatically. At the same time, some Christians are extremely critical of Israel, such as the authors of Kairos Palestine, a document issued in 2010 by a number of leading Christians from the Holy Land, which depicts Israel as responsible for a complex conflict.21 When churches adopt divestment initiatives directed against Israel, a country whose policies they liken to the former apartheid regime in South Africa, some see these as attempts to delegitimize Israel’s very existence, although that may not be the intention. The fact that the churches are not consistent regarding human rights abuses and state violence in some other places, especially in the wider Middle East, adds to the strain. There is another complicating factor. For Christians in the Holy Land, the relationship with Jews exists within a framework of a larger dialogue with Muslims. Christian Palestinians are concerned at the prospect of the gradual Islamization of the nascent state and of a time when Hamas and other Islamist parties might take over completely. Nablus, a city which once had a sizeable Christian population, now has almost none.

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The significant reduction in the Christian population elsewhere in the Middle East increases feelings of insecurity. Adding to the pressure is a growing number of hate crimes—so-called price-tag attacks, which consist of right-wing Jewish extremists vandalising Muslim and Christian sites with graffiti and sometimes arson. Carmi Gillon, former head of the Israeli Security Services, has said that not only are the young people who commit these acts well known to the Security Services but their rabbis, who incite them, are also well known.22 Israeli author Amos Oz has called the assailants “Hebrew Neo Nazis.”23 Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, the most senior Roman Catholic in the Holy Land, stated that “the unrestrained acts of vandalism poison the atmosphere” and “are a blight on Israeli democracy.”24 The price-tag attacks have drawn condemnation by Israeli leaders but few arrests. The argument that the situation of Christians in Israel is not as bad as it is in Syria or Iraq is hardly adequate. As Rabbi Ron Kronish, a leader in interfaith dialogue in Israel, stated: “We must ask ourselves time and time again, what kind of country do we envision for our children? It is time for the silent majority to wake up and demand action from its government.”25 Some Jews would like the Church to formally endorse Judaism’s claim to the Land of Israel. Politically, they would settle for more sympathy in Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. Palestinians naturally seek the opposite and Francis’s visit to the region was seen by some as a propaganda coup, partly because it included an unscheduled stop at the Israeli security barrier, under graffiti reading “Free Palestine!” Most Christians in Israel and Palestine are Palestinians, and most of the bishops are Arabs, meaning they hold a strong influence on any pope in his thinking about the conflict. On 12 May 2015, the Vatican signed a treaty with what it formally recognised as the “State of Palestine.” In the Pope Francis era, not allowing Catholic-Jewish relations to be hijacked by Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a challenge.

Conclusion During the five decades since Nostra Aetate was issued, Jews and Catholics have witnessed a transformation in relations, demonstrated by the regular participations in and support of Pope Francis in Jewish-Christian dialogue, as well as the 2015 publication of The Gifts and Calling of God Are

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Irrevocable. Giant strides have been made but we are talking of a dynamic and relentless process. We will never be able to sit back and say, “The work is done. The agenda is completed.” On many major issues, Jews and Christians find themselves on the same side of the fence, faced with the same challenges. The agenda is changing, and new agendas are no less vital and pressing. So, despite great advances, Pope Francis still faces many challenges in Jewish-Christian relations, including avoiding falling back into old tropes as well as the pitfalls of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But on many major issues, Jews and Catholics find themselves on the same side of the theological fence, faced with the same challenges, and we are in the unusual position of seeking to tackle them together.

Notes 1. Edward Flannery, “Seminaries, Classrooms, Pulpits, Streets: Where We Have to Go” in Unanswered Questions: Theological Views of Jewish-Catholic Relations, ed. R.  Brooks (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 128–129. 2. Interview published in Vatican Insider (29 September 2013). http:// www.lastampa.it/2013/09/29/vaticaninsider/eng/the-vatican/popefrancis-and-rabbi-skorka-make-history-in-the-vatican-narDI8sAFN1GAMSmnTYqeI/pagina.html. 3. Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century (New York City: Image, 2013). 4. http://www.lastampa.it/2013/09/29/vaticaninsider/pope-francis-andrabbi-skorka-make-histor y-in-the-vatican-narDI8sAFN1GAMSmnTYqeI/pagina.html. 5. Tweeted on 21 September 2016. 6. Papal Address to International Council of Christians and Jews (30 June 2015). http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/ june/documents/papa-francesco_20150630_iccj.html. 7. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium. html#Relations_with_Judaism, 249. 8. Questions also need to be considered from the Jewish perspective. What was the divine purpose behind the creation of Christianity? What are the implications for Jews that because Jesus was a Jew, two billion Christians now read the Jewish Bible? Martin Buber suggested that Jesus was “my elder brother.” See my article, “I Am Joseph Your Brother: A Jewish

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Perspective on Christian-Jewish Relations Since Nostra Aetate No. 4,” Theological Studies 74, no. 1 (2013): 48–72. 9. The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable (10 December 2015). http:// www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jewsdocs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20151210_ebraismo-nostra-aetate_en.html. 10. Nostra Aetate, Declaration by the Church on Relations to Non-Christian Religions (28 October 1965). http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html. 11. http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/blog/a-new-vatican-document. 12. To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians (12 March 2015). http://cjcuc.org/2015/12/03/ orthodox-rabbinic-statement-on-christianity/. 13. Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in the Preaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church (IV.1.A). http://www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_ chrstuni_doc_19820306_jews-judaism_en.html. 14. Mass at Santa Marta (16 October 2015). http://en.radiovaticana.va/ news/2015/10/16/pope_francis_beware_of_the_virus_of_ hypocrisy/1179682. 15. Papal Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus (11 April 2015). https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco_bolla_20150411_misericordiae-vultus.html. 16. Johannes-Baptist Metz, “Facing the Jews: Christian Theology after Auschwitz,” in The Holocaust as Interruption, Concilium 175, ed. Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza and David Tracy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1984), 27. 17. For full address, see http://nationalcouncilofsynagogues.org/wp-content/uploads/docs/Pope%20Francis%20to%20the%20Jewish%20 Community%20of%20Rome-Dialogue%20and%20encounter%20 derail%20prejudice.pdf. 18. To read the papal prayer of forgiveness, see http://www.ccjr.us/dialogikaresources/documents-and-statements/roman-catholic/ pope-john-paul-ii/338-jp2-00mar26. 19. Pope Francis visited Auschwitz on 29 July 2016. For figures of visitors to the memorial, see http://70.auschwitz.org/index.php?lang=en which marked the seventieth anniversary of liberation (27 January 1945). 20. Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought (New York City: Schocken Books, 1982), 11. 21. http://www.kairospalestine.ps/index.php/about-us/kairos-palestinedocument. 22. https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-shin-bet-head-says-rabbis-to-blamefor-rabins-death/.

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23. https://www.timesofisrael.com/amos-oz-price-tag-perpetratorsare-neo-nazis/. 24. http://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/05/13/patriarch-calls-for-israeliauthorities-to-crack-down-on-vandalism-at-religious-sites/. 25. http://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/2395/in-pursuit-of-peaceand-reconciliation.

CHAPTER 4

On Donkey Drivers, Interreligious Dialogue, and Shared Tasks: A Jewish Response to Pope Francis on Interreligious Relations and Collaboration Debbie Young-Somers

This is a pope I want to agree with. He behaves and writes empathetically and behaves with what seems like huge care and humility, which goes a long way. Within the confines of Catholic theology, he comes across as a reformer, perhaps even a radical, disavowing the pomp of the Vatican and, from the outside at least, trying to build bridges with those who may have felt alienated from the church in preceding years. I have found myself trawling through quotes dragged out of speeches and longer pieces in order to identify a thought process or specific approach from Pope Francis to the important work of interfaith relations. Prior to Pope Francis, a huge amount had been achieved with regard to Jewish-­ Catholic relations during the twentieth century. Much has been said and written about the importance of the Second Vatican Council, and especially Nostra Aetate, for the Catholic Church’s relationships with those of

D. Young-Somers (*) Community Educator at Reform Judaism, Hertfordshire, UK © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_4

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other faiths, much of it groundbreaking work which acknowledged the holy task of those outside the bounds of Catholicism. The pope’s incredibly warm welcome and acceptance of those of other faiths, and indeed of no faith, is identifiable in both his words and actions. I must confess I was surprised to find such warmth extended even to atheists: “The Lord has redeemed all of us, with the Blood of Christ; all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! … Even atheists … and this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace” (from his homily during a Mass, 22 May 2013). It is clearly not how I would articulate such a welcome, but it allows room for an open-armed embrace of the other. Yet it is not as radical as one might imagine, and is, along with so much achievement in repairing Jewish-Christian relations, also firmly rooted in the work of Vatican II. Catholic thinkers and popes of bygone eras have certainly issued statements to the contrary of this approach, but Francis is clearly following in the footsteps of his more recent predecessors: I do not approach the relationship in order to proselytize, or convert the atheist; I respect him … nor would I say that his life is condemned, because I am convinced that I do not have the right to make a judgment about the honesty of that person … every man is the image of God, whether he is a believer or not. For that reason alone everyone has a series of virtues, qualities, and a greatness of his own.1

Considering how young the current papacy is, it is unsurprising then that relatively little material exists examining Pope Francis’s approach to interfaith work. Yet, perhaps naively, I thought I would be able to find more from the current pope, who is arguably the most public of theologians and who has been so explicit in his warmth of welcome to different faith communities and to Jewish-Christian relations specifically. But Pope Francis is not a classic scholar; he is an amicable man of the people. Indeed, as Catholic journalists have acknowledged, “Pope Francis does not speak like an intellectual. He is not, like John Paul II, an original thinker, or, like Benedict XVI, a supreme scholar of the Tradition. He is a pope whose manner is simpler and more ordinary.”2 It is possible, however, that his actions seek to create change by subverting the institutions of power and transforming the structures of the Church in new ways. Perhaps it is this that excites me most about the work of Pope Francis. There have been so many words in the world of interfaith

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relations, especially in Jewish-Christian relations. Perhaps now is the time for action. My favorite text when exploring dialogue from a Jewish perspective comes from the Midrash Tanhuma, on the parashah of Mishapatim (a section of the Book of Exodus): Rabbi Alexandri said: Two donkey drivers who hated each other were walking along the road. The donkey of one of them lay down. His fellow passed by and saw he was lying down under his burden. He said: “Does it not say in the Torah ‘If you see the ass of him that hates you … you shall surely raise it with him?’” What did he do? He turned back and loaded [the animal] and accompanied [his enemy]. He began to converse with him. He loosened [the straps] a little from one side, lifted [it] from the other side, and strapped on that side until he had reloaded [the donkey] with him. The result was that they made peace with each other. The other said: “Didn’t I think he was my enemy? See how he had mercy on me when he saw me and my donkey in dire straits.” The consequence was that they entered an inn and ate and drank together. They developed affection for each other.

This model of dialogue feels like it might work as a helpful parallel to the current pope’s approach: find a common task to complete; work together (distracted by the common task, accidental conversation and then maybe even friendship emerge where previously there may have been hurt and disagreement); hearts and minds are slowly drawn toward friendship; share food and drink together (or go to the pub!). Previously I have struggled with one particular element of this text— that it is not our natural instinct to turn to one another, to reach out, to offer help. We need the Torah, in this case, to instruct us, to remind us, to compel us to do the right thing. But perhaps this reflects a more realistic approach to human nature; we need pushing and reminding to do that which is right. So what is it that is pushing and driving the current pope to reflect the values of Tanhuma and actively reach out to all? Vatican II may well have provided much of the groundwork, but it seems there is much more in Francis’s biography and theology that is contributing to this. The pope’s friendship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka (whom he addresses as Brother and has called friend since he was a priest in Buenos Aires) is well documented. Throughout their friendship, they have found common tasks and endeavors to complete together, such as hosting interfaith discussions between their communities and publishing a book together

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(2010). In the summer of 2017, they appeared together in a video series on YouTube entitled “Make Friends,” sponsored by the Elijah Interfaith Institute.3 In this short film, I was particularly moved by Rabbi Skorka’s assertion that both he and the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires became more religious and more engaged with their own faiths through their encounters with one another. They learned not only about one another but also about themselves. Of course in dialogue, when we know each other, it is much harder to generalize and dismiss an entire group. This particular friendship has clearly been one of deep importance to Pope Francis and serves to model the benefits to clergy of nourishing serious, ongoing, interfaith relationships. But it may also be a seed that has sprouted much goodness in the pope’s statements on interfaith and intercommunal relations. Indeed, at the outset of his papacy he wrote to the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, inviting him to his inauguration Mass: “I very much hope to be able to contribute to the progress that relations between Jews and Catholics have experienced since the Second Vatican Council, in a spirit of renewed and collaboration and at the service of a world that can be ever more harmonious with the will of the Creator.”4 Unsurprisingly, it is not exactly the Torah that constantly pulls the pope to reach out the arm of friendship, but the reality of God is very much at the center of his dialogical work. For many, Christ is a stumbling block for dialogue when the insistence is made that only believers or followers of Jesus can come to the one true God. However, Vatican II not only solved this for those engaged in the Jewish-Christian dialogical endeavor but also for dialogue more broadly. Pope Francis has been somewhat circumspect in publicly proclaiming his personal theology. So once again, we are dependent to a great extent on some degree of intuition, chutzpah, and guesswork. I find myself observing details within the pope’s words and deeds which suggest something akin to the Augustinian emphasis of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Augustine reasons that if we cannot catch intellectual sight of the Trinity directly, at least we can see reflections, images, or indications of the Trinity in the created realm, above all in the highest part of human beings (the mind), who are made “in the image and likeness of God.”5 The extension of this into a theology of personalism is perhaps crucial to understanding how theology becomes lived dialogue for Pope Francis. Again, he has not publicly laid claim to personalism explicitly as a theological approach that he embraces, but it would seem to me to fit. Within

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personalism, being human means being—as we say in Hebrew—B’tzelem Elohim (made in the image of God). We are all absolutely unique and unrepeatable. Personalism was expressed by one of Pope Francis’s predecessors, Pope John Paul II, who suggested (perhaps comparable in thought to the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber) that people are not objects of use, but are beings at the core of which is goodness, and to which the only adequate response is love.6 Through the exercise of love toward others, one can experience communion with God. Thus a philosophy of personalism might be assumed in Pope Francis’s words, yet, more importantly, in his deeds. Pope Francis does not just speak of love but attempts to embody it in his interactions with others. Examples abound, but one pertinent to us might be his description from On Heaven and Earth: I do not know if you remember, when I began the Te Deum Masses as Archbishop, I came down with the nuncio accompanying the president and we walked him to the door. All of you, representatives from other faiths, would remain in your place, like puppets in an exhibition. I changed that: now the president goes up and greets all of the representatives of the other faiths … but the representatives of other faiths also present their own prayers [at his interreligious prayer meetings]. Now there is greater participation.7

As a congregational rabbi, I was responsible for organizing fairly regular interfaith celebrations (which some might term services). Shifting these from pleasant spectator sports to acts of engaging dialogue for all was very important to me and to the growth of the relationships between the communities involved, but the radical nature of the pope’s active engagement of others in worship—as above—should not be underestimated. He has certainly been criticized by more conservative voices for such lived engagement with the other: seen as validating theologies other than those that comply with church doctrine. The pope is not a holder of hard power in governmental terms, but he holds a huge amount of symbolic power and the opportunity to form hearts and minds through what he is seen doing. It will be interesting to see what the legacy of Pope Francis becomes, as his visible acts send such a clear message, while he is perhaps more circumspect on the theologies behind them. But the pope is, of course, rooted in centuries of Catholic theology and spirituality. However, my strong sense that Francis’s assumption of personalism at the heart of his theological thrust might be further enhanced

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by noting the role of Ignatian spirituality informing much of his overall approach to the world, including therefore to other faiths. As a Jesuit, Pope Francis emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit at work in all of creation. Ignatius Loyola suggested that God is already at work in everything, and our task is simply to discover how. If it is in the created world around us that God is reflected and is at work, this must surely impact on how the pope engages with that creation, and his actions and engagements to date do certainly seem to reflect a love and compassion for all that he encounters. If God is at work in all of creation, this most likely includes other faiths as well. And this has not been missed by the Jewish community, with reflections such as this from the online magazine The Forward not being uncommon: Through his official statements and in his personal gestures, Francis has come to be viewed by many in the Jewish community as among the friendliest popes they have ever seen. During the two years of his papacy, Jews have been impressed by, among other things, his strong stance against anti-­ Semitism, his more flexible approach to some social and political issues on which most Jews take a liberal stand and even by his close Jewish friends.8

“If the pope was up for election, it is likely he would get a strong majority of the Jewish vote,” said Adam Gregerman, assistant director of the Jewish-Catholic relations institute at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. And Gregerman continued: “He has many fans in the Jewish community because he is perceived as progressive, tolerant, and not dogmatic.”9 Pope Francis has even managed to avoid the pitfalls that have dogged many other world leaders in relation to the issues of Israel and Palestine. He has somehow achieved the enviable—allowing both Palestinians and Israelis to feel that somehow he is on “their side”—symbolically being pictured at a section of the wall dividing West Bank Bethlehem from the surrounding countryside during a trip in which he also acknowledged the right and just nature of Zionism’s aims. When United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) suggested the Jewish claim to a historic right in Jerusalem was false, he reiterated the ancient Jewish connection to the land. When US President Trump publicly confirmed his intentions to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the pope called for the status quo to be respected.

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There is most definitely a feel-good factor surrounding many Jews and the current pope. For me, I think there is a theological humility reflected in the pope’s actions and interactions that speaks directly to my own ­theological life. That said, while I like the idea of “God in everything,” it is not the position I emphasize in my own theological struggles. I have written about this previously in a dialogical context,10 but just as the pope’s personal theology seems to be lived out in his Catholic faith and his interfaith encounters, my theological grounding roots me whether I am exploring my Jewish faith internally or in dialogue. It begins with Exodus 33.17–23: And the Eternal said to Moses: “Even this thing that you have spoken, I will do, for you have found favour in My eyes, and I have known you by name.” And he [Moses] said: “Show me, now, Your glory!” He [God] said: “I will let all My goodness pass before you; I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you, and I will favour when I wish to favour, and I will have compassion when I wish to have compassion.” And He said, “You will not be able to see My face, for man shall not see Me and live.” And the Lord said: “Behold, there is a place with Me, and you shall stand on the rock. And it shall be that when My glory passes by, I will place you into the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand, and you will see My back but My face shall not be seen.”

For me, Exodus 33 is a profound moment of learning. Even as the Eternal is praising Moses, arguably the greatest leader we shall ever know as Jewish people, God is emphasizing that even such a favored one cannot see all of God. Thus none of us can know all Truth, and there might well be truth we can learn from others, who also cannot see it all, but might be afforded a glimpse. Midrashim (stories that expound on the Biblical text) go on to explore the fact that at Sinai, the Hebrews all experienced God in different ways, in ways that were appropriate to who they were and to what they could assent. We are potentially all afforded glimpses, but no one can claim to know the whole. And what of God in everything? As I have struggled with seeking a theodicy that makes a degree of sense to me, I have found myself drawn to philosophers such as Hans Jonas, who suggests a Lurianic style tzim tzum as being at the core of creation; a withdrawing of God into God’s self in order to create space for creation—in order to create space for us, and our interminable ability to create both utterly glorious and insufferably abhor-

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rent situations for the world, God needed to make space. One cannot be in relationship to the other if one is taking up all the space in the relationship. So, God created space for us and for all the good as well as evil that we might choose. Midrash Bereishit Rabbah suggests we are created with an equal amount of evil inclination and good inclination and that both are a necessary part of life; learning to hold them in balance is the key to living well. While this line of thinking does not quite work with the idea of God in everything, perhaps it is not so far away from the Ignatian Spirituality that Francis treasures, where the reality of both our good and evil natures are acknowledged, discerned, and dealt with differently because we are all unique and different in our natures and abilities. Ignatius identifies evil as an absence: it is what happens when something that should be there is not. This may also suggest a theodicy that allows for the absence of God. However, with tzim tzum, this absence allows for both our good choices and our evil choices to become manifest, not just the latter. If we return to our Midrash of the donkey drivers, perhaps the question that must be asked in order to advance Jewish-Christian relations or interfaith relations more broadly is this: what is the task? What will be the thing to distract us from our prior hatred and disagreement? For the pope, the task might more easily be deduced from his politics and economics than his theology. In 2015, on what could be called a homecoming tour of South America, he addressed an audience in Paraguay, asking them “not to yield to an economic model which is idolatrous, which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit.”11 There is certainly plenty of religion in his words, but it is, in this and many other examples, where we see the impact of a particular emphasis from his South American Catholicism, an emphasis which works hand in hand with economics and politics and has done so since before the era of Peron. It is often a surprise to the established Jewish community, but I believe Judaism is increasingly being framed in similar terms, that is, it is radically engaging with the world to challenge economical and political norms. From Shabbat, which asks us to withdraw from technology and economic consumption, to Shmita, the sabbatical year asks us to consider notions such as the ownership of property and to experience what it means to live as if nothing is “mine” or “yours” but all is “ours.” As I come from a generation which frequently sees itself as trapped in economic stagnation, for me, Judaism offers similarly radical propositions and reminds me that ours is a task of living well together and not just living for myself.

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When we turn to issues of ecology, Pope Francis is not the first pope to address the precarious situation we have created in our treatment of the environment. Indeed, he himself cites many of his predecessors in his encyclical letter, Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home. It is perhaps unsurprising that the task of caring for our earth would be one of the areas Francis would turn to early in his papacy. He took the name of Saint Francis of Assisi because he believes “that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically.”12 Care for the earth, it seems, fulfills Francis’s theology, spirituality, and politics and—I would further argue—might constitute the most compelling task we of different faiths could face together and, in doing so, distract us from our previous disagreements. The pope uses his encyclical letter not only to call us to action but also to remind us of the spirituality inherent in our relationship with the earth: What is more, Saint Francis, faithful to Scripture, invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. “Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to know by analogy their maker” (Wis 13:5); indeed, “his eternal power and divinity have been made known through his works since the creation of the world” (Rom 1:20). For this reason, Francis asked that part of the friary garden always be left untouched, so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there, and those who saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such beauty. Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.13

It sometimes feels too easy to find God in the awe and wonder of nature, when the same awe can so quickly become horror in nature’s strength and brutality. Yet it is a truth for so many of us that the beauty of nature opens us up to a sense of the spiritual in ways that other parts of religious life are often unable to do. I would suggest, however, that this is not just about the spiritual for Pope Francis. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home: Here I want to recognize, encourage, and thank all those striving in countless ways to guarantee the protection of the home which we share. Particular appreciation is owed to those who tirelessly seek to resolve the tragic effects of environmental degradation on the lives of the world’s poorest. Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.14

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Politics and economics are alive here too, and perhaps most of all this is where I find myself in sympathy with Pope Francis—for Judaism, as I experience it, establishes a way of life that asks me to embrace certain spiritual disciplines, underneath which is a message of economic justice and care for the earth. Perhaps so many of us feel a kinship with the current pope because we find that our instincts for justice and peace-building, together with our increasing discomfort at our shallow obsession with consumption and style over substance, are met by the pope’s ability to bring these lived challenges into spiritual and religious perspectives. Although, as an Archbishop, Francis opposed liberation theology, there does seem to have been a degree of rehabilitation of it during his papacy. It is a religious understanding that does not distinguish between economics, politics, and theology as separate spheres, and which Francis also seems to model. The Jewish community has often been wary of liberation theology, as it has at times displayed a tendency to slip into anti-Semitic tropes. But there is nothing inherent in liberation theology which should in principle be alien to Judaism. After all, Judaism’s founding story is one of liberation from slavery. With Francis, Jews should feel at home with his lived embrace of economics, politics, and theology weaving them into a whole cloth. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis is perhaps reenacting on a global scale the story of our donkey drivers. We all have reason to feel that “X” hates us, or to resent “Y” for previous wrongs. But we all have a common challenge facing us, whether we realize it or not. We may just be able to unite in this moment of crisis, overcome our fears of difference in the natural conversation that emerges from sharing a common goal, and as a result discover the presence of God in one another, and the humility in ourselves that allows us to hear the other’s truth. I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenges we are facing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all. In finding a common task together, may we find ourselves, like the donkey drivers, embedded in a new dialogue of trust and understanding, and a healing, principally of the world but also of our fragile human relationships.

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Notes 1. Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, On Heaven and Earth (New York City, Image, 2013), 12–13. 2. Katie Van Schaijik, “Personalism Is the Key to Understanding Pope Francis,” National Catholic Register (5 November 2014). http://www. ncregister.com/daily-news/personalism-is-the-key-to-understandingpope-francis. 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGHulZc0NFk&t=174s. 4. http://www.catholic.co.il/index.php?option=com_content&view=article &id=2029:pope-francis-to-rabbi-di-segni&catid=64&lang=en&Ite mid=127. 5. Augustine, On Trinity, 231 [VII.4.12]; Genesis 1:26. 6. Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II, The Jeweler’s Shop: A Meditation on the Sacrament of Matrimony Passing on Occasion Into a Drama (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992). First published in 1960. 7. Bergoglio and Skorka, On Heaven, 219–220. 8. Nathan Guttman, “Why Jews Believe Pope Feels Bond in his Kishkes,” The Forward (18 September 2015). https://forward.com/news/321101/ why-pope-francis-has-an-unlikely-jewish-fan-club/. 9. Ibid. 10. Debbie Young-Somers, “A Jewish Theology Embracing Difference,” in Deep Calls to Deep: Transforming Conversations Between Jews and Christians, ed. Tony Bayfield (London: SCM Press, 2017). 11. Reuters (12 July 2015). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-popelatam-paraguay-idUSKCN0PL0Q420150712. 12. Laudato Si’, 9. 13. Ibid., 12. 14. Ibid., 13.

CHAPTER 5

Is Pope Francis an Anonymous Feminist? Helene Egnell

The title of this chapter is, of course, a bit tongue-in-cheek, as it alludes to the now almost abandoned concept of anonymous Christians, as well as to the fact that gender discourse is not one of the present pontiff’s strong points. Be that as it may, reading what Pope Francis has to say about interreligious dialogue, I was struck by how well it responded to the traits my research has identified as central in feminist Christian approaches to religious plurality. Consequently, the correspondence between the pope’s interreligious concerns and those I have found in women’s interreligious projects and the feminist critique against mainstream dialogue will be my starting point for these reflections. I will also discuss whether only those who are firmly anchored in one religious tradition can and should take part in interreligious dialogue. Finally, I will propose that, though often insisting that he is not a theologian, Pope Francis is developing a theology of dialogue. My vantage point in writing this chapter is that of a Swedish Lutheran priest with a long-standing engagement in feminism, ecumenism, and interreligious dialogue, who spent much time during her theologically for-

H. Egnell (*) Stockholms Stift, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_5

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mative years in a Catholic study and retreat center run by ecumenically minded Dominican sisters. From a Roman Catholic point of view, Sweden is one of the areas on the periphery, which Pope Francis has expressed a desire to pay more attention to—in our case by celebrating the ecumenical service in Lund on the brink of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, as well as by appointing Bishop Anders Arborelius as a cardinal. When I watched Pope Francis enter the cathedral in Lund, together with Archbishop Antje Jackelén and the leaders of the Lutheran World Federation on 31 October 2016, I thought to myself that probably not many who are watching this broadcast on Swedish television understand what a momentous event this is. I recall how our teacher at the Irish School of Ecumenics enthused about the drama of the Second Vatican Council in a way that made me aware of what an incredible watershed it was—both in ecumenical and in interreligious terms. Having grown up in an era of ecumenism, in a church that plays an important role in the ecumenical movement, and in a feminist theological movement that was inherently ecumenical, I had taken good relations for granted. My ecumenical studies made me aware of how far we have come, as well as how far we have yet to travel.

Communication and Mercy: A Fruitful Encounter The first thing that sprang to my mind as I received the invitation to participate in this volume was the video production that launched the first prayer intention of the Jubilee Year of Mercy in January 2016.1 The prayer intention was “that sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice,” and the video, which went viral, featured representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, who first professed their respective faiths and then declared themselves to believe in love. In this first ever prayer intention released through a video, the pope says: Many think differently, feel differently, they seek God or meet God in different ways. In this crowd, in this range of religions, there is only one certainty we have for all: We are all children of God. I hope you will spread my prayer request this month that sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice. I trust in your prayers.2

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Interreligious dialogue had already featured in the Papal Bull which announced the Jubilee year, where the pope stated that mercy “relates us to Judaism and Islam, both of which consider mercy to be one of God’s most important attributes.”3 Pope Francis thus does not want to claim mercy only for his own religious tradition but recognizes it as the heritage of many traditions. In his meeting with the Supreme Sangha Council in Myanmar, November 2017, he likewise mentioned “loving kindness and compassion” as the heritage of both traditions.4 In the Bull he expresses a wish that this year may “open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we might know and understand one another better.”5 Among the moving responses to this wish is another video, “Les enfants de la miséricorde,” created by a young Salesian Priest, Benjamin Dewitte Dubrana, in which young people of the three monotheistic religions and no religion perform a song and in which each verse was written by a young person of different beliefs, while the chorus repeats the words “mercy, the heart of the Father, Mother’s heart.”6 I have referred to these videos because I think they are emblematic of the way Pope Francis approaches interreligious dialogue and the response it invokes. Mercy is a keyword for his ministry, as his motto miserando atque eligendo makes clear. That peace and justice and care for the creation must be the fruit of sincere dialogue is a recurring theme whenever he speaks of it. The pope’s message for World Communications Day in 2016 had the heading “Communication and Mercy: A Fruitful Encounter.” Pope Francis is above all a very communicative person. Dialogue appears to be his esse, and he talks as much through his actions as through his speeches and writings. In his address at an interreligious audience on 3 November 2016, when the Jubilee year was drawing to a close, Pope Francis expressed the hope that the religions would be “wombs of life.”7 This imagery was inspired by the word for mercy in Hebrew and Arabic, where the triliteral root R-H-M is related to the womb, “the deepest source of human life, the feelings of a mother for the child to whom she will give birth.” The pope went on to quote the prophet Isaiah as he likens God’s love and mercy to that of a mother.8 Thus, he concludes his address: “May the religions be wombs of life, bearing the merciful love of God to a wounded and needy humanity; may they be doors of hope helping to penetrate the walls erected by pride and fear.”9

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Relations and Processes Are Primary “Feminist theology: Passion from the womb” is the title of an early article by Chinese-American feminist theologian Kwok Pui Lan.10 However, it is not the female imagery that mainly resonates with those women involved in the various interreligious projects that I studied for my doctoral dissertation on feminist approaches to interreligious dialogue.11 It is rather the constant call for an ethics of justice and care above doctrine, and for the priority of building relations as a foundation for dialogue, that assumes priority. The most striking feature in feminist interfaith projects is how they are geared toward participation and process through relation-building and the sharing of life stories, in which the participants feel free to express emotions, including anger and frustration, and to extend care and compassion toward each other. This enables conflicts to be acknowledged and dealt with in a constructive manner. The starting point for the conferences is always lived reality: the social and political issues the participants are engaged in. There is also a consciousness that dialogue should happen at and from the margins of society and religious institutions, and with a privileging of “the little tradition/religion as practiced” over “the great tradition/religion as prescribed.”12 Pope Francis often talks of the importance of relation and the human face is a recurring theme in his speeches. Already in the interview by Fr. Antonio Spadaro in 2013, he says: “God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.”13 An incident from the pope’s visit to Sri Lanka is typical of his famous spontaneity but also of how he acts upon his conviction that relations are primary. He had made a visit to a Buddhist temple outside the scheduled program and was questioned about it on the flight from Sri Lanka to the Philippines. He simply stated, “So he (the head of the temple) came to greet me at the airport and I went to visit him.” Pope Francis then went on to explain how impressed he was that among the crowds who came to greet him were not only Catholics but also people of other faiths: “There is in the people—and the people are never wrong—they sense that there is something there that unites them. And if they are so naturally united in going together to pray at that shrine—which is Christian but not only Christian, because all want [to go there], then why shouldn’t I go to a Buddhist temple to greet them?”14 Instead of being satisfied that people come to him, that non-Christians come to a Christian shrine, he feels compelled to visit them in return. In true relation, there is reciprocity.

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To respond to an invitation, to be moved by the people’s religious feelings, is to give priority to relations and to a dialogue from below. The phrase “the people are never wrong” echoes a section in Evangelii Gaudium, in which Pope Francis states that all the baptized, through the work of the Holy Spirit, are “infallible in credendo.”15 It appears then that he would like to somehow extend this infallibility to all sincere believers, regardless of creed. In a similar vein, he extols popular piety and “the inculturated gospel” in Evangelii Gaudium.16 Further, he often quotes his grandmother as a teacher of faith, and indeed did so during the inflight press conference when traveling from Colombo, Sri Lanka, to Manila, Philippines, in January 2015, where he explains how she was the first person he heard say anything good about a person of another religion, when she told him that Salvation Army officers were good people even though they were Protestants!17 Maybe we can say that grandma sowed the seed of openness to other faiths, while the friendship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka later brought it to fruition! Again: relationships as formative. Process is another word that appears frequently in Pope Francis’s speeches and writings. In Evangelii Gaudium he presents four principles “which can guide the development of life in society and the building of a people where differences are harmonized within a shared pursuit.”18 The first of these is “Time is greater than space,” where he explains that giving priority to time “means being concerned about initiating processes rather than possessing spaces.”19 Being process-oriented requires patience as opposed to seeking immediate results. The second principle is “Unity prevails over conflict.” Here, Pope Francis explains that there is a third way between ignoring or embracing conflicts, where it is “possible to build communion amid disagreement, but this can only be achieved by those great persons who are willing to go beyond the surface of the conflict and to see others in their deepest dignity.”20 When we meet as persons and build relations, we need not shy away from conflicts. Pope Francis often says that interreligious dialogue must not be a diplomatic exercise in which one stays on the surface and avoids contentious issues. His journey to Myanmar during the Rohingya refugee crisis was a test of his ability to live up to this ideal. In his meeting with the Supreme Sangha Council, he alluded to the similarities between the Buddha’s teachings on overcoming anger with non-anger and St. Francis’s prayer “where there is hatred, let me sow love.” He went on to point out that “it is the particular responsibility of civil and religious lead-

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ers to ensure that every voice be heard, so that the challenges and needs of this moment may be clearly understood and confronted in a spirit of fairness and mutual solidarity.”21 The third principle, “Realities are more important than ideas,” with its insistence that “ideas—conceptual elaborations—are at the service of communication, understanding, and praxis,” corresponds to the pope’s frequent claim “I’m not a theologian.”22 The strongest expression of this kind was perhaps on the inflight interview from the Apostolic journey to Turkey, when he quoted Athenagoras’s words to Pope Paul VI: “Let’s put the theologians on an island to discuss among themselves and we’ll just get on with things!”23 “Getting on with things” means working for justice and peace and care for creation, as Pope Francis makes clear in anything he says on interreligious dialogue. In one of his early speeches, he says that dialogue should be “like a net of peace that protects the world and especially protects the weakest members.”24

Ora et labora As religious people, we are people of prayer. Shared worship and ritual is an important feature of women’s interreligious activities, sometimes in the form of shared newly created rituals, but more often in the form of prayers and rituals from one tradition being performed with an invitation to others to participate to the extent they feel it is possible. In the feminist setting, this has the added value of seeing women, who have traditionally been excluded from performing religious rites, “taking symbols of their faiths in their hands and using them creatively.”25 Pope Francis stresses prayer as much as work for peace and justice when he talks about interreligious dialogue. With reference to the first interreligious meeting in Assisi, he says that “dialogue is intimately bound to prayer,” and quotes Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Ecclesiam Suam: “Religion of its very nature is a certain relationship between God and man. It finds expression in prayer, and prayer is dialogue.”26 I have the impression that Pope Francis wants to move beyond the coming together to pray of the first Assisi meeting, to praying together. The most tangible expression of this desire is the fact that he concludes the encyclical Laudato Si’ with a prayer for the earth which “we can share with all who believe in a God who is the all-powerful Creator.”27 It is also noteworthy that the second prayer intention of the Jubilee year concerned

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“care for the creation” and begins with the statement that “believers and non-believers agree that the earth is our common heritage, the fruits of which should benefit everyone.”28 Another example of this is his spontaneous prayer in the Sultan Ahmet Mosque on the journey to Turkey in November 2014. He was questioned about it on the flight back to Rome, and he responded by explaining how he had come to Turkey as a pilgrim for an ecumenical (intra-Christian) celebration and how he could not turn into a mere tourist when he visited the mosque. He explained how the meeting with the Mufti prompted the need to pray. So, for Pope Francis the primacy of relation-building is two-dimensional.29 Despite his emphasis on prayer, there are not many references in Pope Francis’s speeches to the monastic dialogue, where Catholic and especially Buddhist contemplatives meet at the level of religious experience and practice. However, in his speech to the US Congress he chose to mention the great champion of this kind of dialogue, Thomas Merton, as one of the four important Americans “for the capacity for dialogue and openness to God.”30 According to Pope Francis, the great sickness of our time is indifference; he consistently calls for engagement. Against indifference he sets the “thirst for peace,” which “has become a prayer to God,” engagement itself being an inarticulate prayer.31 Ora et labora: engagement for peace, justice, and the care for creation through prayer and practical action is what interreligious dialogue is about, according to Pope Francis.

Change When women meet for interreligious dialogue, it is a meeting on the margins. They meet with the shared experience of being excluded from positions of influence within their religious communities, and of struggling with scriptures and tradition that are outright oppressive. Thus, they must grapple with the ambiguity of religion: finding enough spiritual nourishment to want to stay while feeling the need to criticize from within. The aim of interfaith dialogue with a feminist agenda, then, is to change not only society but also religious institutions. This is, of course, very far from the position of a pope who epitomizes the center of his religious tradition—indeed Christendom as a whole—and is counted as one of the most influential persons in the world. His role is to guard the authentic teachings of the church, not to change them. The truths

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of faith are “nonnegotiable,” as Pope Francis (then Archbishop Bergoglio) pointed out in his conversations with Rabbi Abraham Skorka—even though they are “capable of being deepened through human thought” through a slow and careful process.32 However, Pope Francis is committed to revitalizing the process that was set in motion by the Second Vatican Council. According to the interview by Spadaro, he “simply considers the Council an event that is not up for debate and that, as if to stress its fundamental importance, is not worth discussing at too great a length.”33 He also warns against the kind of certainty that claims to have the answers to all the questions; there must be room for doubt, lest faith becomes an ideology instead of a journey, a quest, an adventure: “God is always a surprise, so you never know where and how you will find him. You are not setting the time and place of the encounter with him. You must, therefore, discern the encounter. Discernment is essential.”34 Here speaks the Jesuit; with proper discernment you can be audacious in dialogue. It is not a coincidence that Jesuits have been prominent in contextualization and dialogue enterprises. This aversion to certainties is expressed in the pope’s frequent repudiations of fundamentalism. In Evangelii Gaudium he says that fundamentalism is an obstacle to interreligious dialogue,35 and emphasizes that these “small groups” exist in all religious traditions.36

Identity “You need to be secure in your own religious identity to engage in interreligious dialogue.” This is an often-repeated axiom, and Pope Francis often emphasizes that “we cannot enter into dialogue if we do not approach it from the perspective of our own identity.”37 Relativism and syncretism are inimical to dialogue, he believes. However, unlike many others who seem to be concerned above all with the purity of belief of the dialogue participant, I sense that Pope Francis’s main concern is that the dialogue be fruitful. Unless the participants approach dialogue from the perspective of their own identity, it becomes illusory and insubstantial. Further, identity is only one side of the coin; the other is empathy: Nor can there be authentic dialogue unless we are capable of opening our minds and hearts, in empathy and sincere receptivity, to those with whom we speak. In other words, an attentiveness in which the Holy Spirit is our guide. A clear sense of one’s own identity and a capacity for empathy are thus the points of departure for all dialogue.38

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Moreover, the Christian identity is not primarily about doctrine but about the living faith in Christ, as Pope Francis told the bishops of Asia: It is from this deep identity—our being grounded in a living faith in Christ— it is from this profound reality that our dialogue begins, and this is what we are asked to share, sincerely, honestly, and without pretense, in the dialogue of everyday life, in the dialogue of charity, and in those more formal opportunities which may present themselves.39

I wish to take issue with this axiom, however, even in the soft version of Pope Francis. When it comes to the formal dialogue in which bishops take part, it might still be true. But in the dialogue of life and charity, we have to take into account the reality of multiple religious belonging, hybrid identities, and the move from “fate” to “choice” in religious matters. As early as 1991, the sociologist Peter Berger pointed out: It is not clear anymore who is an “insider” and who is an “outsider.” Much of what goes under the name of interreligious dialogue is still under the image that here there are people in one tradition to which they belong, and there are people in another tradition to which they fully belong, and these two groups of people get together. Then, from their positions of affirmation, they negotiate. I am sure this is true of some people. I can honestly say I envy them. But it is not my situation, and I don’t think it is the situation of most people at this conference.40

Further, Berger claims that such a “meeting between uncertainties” need not be superficial, but can be profound, and that it poses a challenge which should be high on the theological agenda.41 Interreligious dialogue could also be “the common search for truth by people who are not safely grounded in any tradition.”42 Twenty-six years later, this challenge to the conventional understanding of interreligious dialogue is paramount. If Pope Francis really thinks, as he often states, that interreligious dialogue should not be only for the elite, if he wants people to engage in the dialogue of life and praxis, then he cannot expect them to be secure in one religious identity only. He rejoiced that non-Christians came to the Catholic shrine in Sri Lanka, but then he must be aware that many Christians in Asia also visit Hindu or Buddhist shrines or have recourse to shamanist rituals. That religious boundaries are fluent and permeable was a reality acknowledged by the feminist projects I studied, especially the Women’s Interfaith Journey, where project leader Diane D’Souza explained:

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“Reviewing candidates for the Indian team, a small group consciously striving for diversity. In age, regions, cultures, experiences. But was she ‘Hindu’ enough? … ‘Muslim’ enough? … ‘Christian’ enough? … We quickly realized the absurdity of such thinking. People’s lives, thoughts, and relationships were so much more complex than a singular descriptive.”43 Maybe this is something Pope Francis should consider if he truly wants interreligious dialogue to be “a conversation about human existence.”44

Are the Others Still Anonymous Christians? One of the most well-known interreligious gestures of Pope Francis was his inclusion of non-Christians (as well as women) in the Holy Thursday foot-washing ceremony. As beautiful and moving as it is, I can’t help wondering whether it is, in a way, an expression of the idea of anonymous Christians. Could it be interpreted as a paternalistic wish to enclose all in the fold of the church? I ask these questions as a member of a majority church, a former state church, which feels the need to be on its guard against paternalistic tendencies. Likewise, when the Jew, the Muslim, and the Buddhist profess their faith in love in the prayer intention video, does that really come natural to them? Love is a very “Christian” word—so does this video force them to express themselves in Christian terms? Why wasn’t the word mercy, or compassion, chosen—words that might be closer to the vocabulary of all those traditions? But again, might love been chosen because it is a word that appeals also to non-religious people, who the pope is careful to include in his invitations to work together for the common good? Or chosen to gainsay the popular Islamophobic trope that the Qur’an does not speak of love? Or chosen to overcome the idea of the dichotomy between the “wrathful God of the Old Testament and the Gospel message of love?” Or to undermine the image of Buddhists as being unconcerned for their fellow human beings? Nostra Aetate has been criticized, not least by adherents of other faiths, for appreciating other religious traditions only insofar as they ­conform to the truths embraced by the Roman Catholic Church. Is there another way to approach theology of religions other than the competitive one in which we look for underlying similarities between the religions? “Might there be teachings that, though different from those of the Catholic Church, are workable and worthwhile?” asked Rita M. Gross in a Buddhist response to Nostra Aetate.45

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Pope Francis generally conforms to the inclusivism of Nostra Aetate, reiterating that the “rites and signs” of others “lack the meaning and efficacy of the sacraments instituted by Christ,”46 even though “the Spirit brings forth various forms of practical wisdom,” and that Christians “can also benefit from these treasures built up over many centuries, which can help us better to live our own beliefs.”47 Still, isn’t there implicit in the claim that participants in interreligious dialogue must be true to their own identity, an acknowledgment that each can learn from something that is unique to the other? In his meeting with leaders of other religions in Tirana, Pope Francis said: “Deep down, we are all pilgrims on this earth, and on this pilgrim journey, as we yearn for truth and eternity, we do not live autonomous and self-sufficient individual lives; the same applies to religious, cultural, and national communities. We need each other and are entrusted to each other’s care. Each religious tradition, from within, must be able to take account of others.”48 Likewise, when, in his address to the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Francis commends “teaching the discovery and acceptance of difference as richness and fruitfulness,” it would indicate that what we find and appreciate in the religious other is not total sameness.49 Maybe when Pope Francis claims not to be a theologian, it is an expression of the intuition that the lived dialogue of prayer and praxis that he favors will always go beyond not only tolerance but also dogmatic purity.

A Theology of Dialogue The term “theology of dialogue” or “dialogue theology” is a relatively new one, and not very common. Michael Barnes S.J. uses the concept in his Theology and the Dialogue of Religions in which he proposes a theology rooted in the themes of welcome and hospitality, developed through learning from the other.50 A recent Norwegian publication, Dialogteologi på norsk (Dialogue Theology in Norwegian), explores and develops the concept in depth.51 It is an anthology with contributions by dialogue practitioners from the Church of Norway (an Evangelical-Lutheran church) who reflect upon their experiences of dialogue, mostly in a setting of parish ministry. The book was commissioned by the Synod of the Church of Norway and the editors explain what they mean by dialogue theology in the introduction to the book in the following terms:

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It is a theology that emerges in a pluralist context, which is allowed to challenge and make its impression upon it; it is process-oriented and experience-­ based; it is a form of contextual theology characterized by openness towards the new insights about self and others, reality and ultimately the triune God, that can be gained through dialogue. Unlike “theology of religions” with which it is connected, it is a practical approach starting in people’s lives here and now, rather than a philosophical and comparative approach which enquires into classical theological questions.52

I would like to suggest that Pope Francis embodies a theology of dialogue as defined above. As I have tried to convey, Pope Francis theologizes as much through his actions as through his speeches and writings. It is obvious that he responds to the words and actions of others, and though many of his words and actions are spontaneous, they are firmly grounded in his attitude to life and faith. The man who warns against certainties says: “I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life.”53 From this certainty springs his conviction that the relation to God is inseparable from our relations to others, that we are interconnected, that relations are primary. This theology of dialogue is also expressed in Amoris Laetitia, where the section on dialogue could be applied to interreligious relations as well as the family. Indeed many of the themes recur in what he says about interreligious dialogue, such as taking time to listen until you are sure you have heard everything the other person says54 and thereby acknowledge their truth and deepest concerns,55 that diversity is a good thing, and that “we need to free ourselves from feeling that we all have to be alike.”56 However, his recurring repudiation of syncretism would probably prevent him from applying the thesis that “the combination of two different ways of thinking can lead to a synthesis that enriches both” in the context of interfaith dialogue.57

An Anonymous Feminist? In June 2017, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue held a session on “The Role of Women in Education toward Universal Fraternity.” In his address to the assembly Pope Francis concluded: Women are engaged, often more than men, at the level of the “dialogue of life” in the interreligious sphere, and thus contribute to a better understanding of the challenges typical of a multicultural reality. But women are also able to fully integrate in exchanges at the level of religious experience, as

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well as in those at the theological level. Many women are well prepared to take on encounters of interreligious dialogue at the highest levels and not only on the Catholic side. This means that women’s contribution must not be limited to “feminine” topics or to encounters only among women. Dialogue is a journey that men and women must undertake together. Today more than ever, it is necessary that women be present.58

This is an encouraging statement, considering Pope Francis’s record on women’s issues. Maybe the pope is learning from earlier mistakes? There have been some remarks on “feminine genius,” “strawberries on the cake,” and “feminist machismo” that have made feminists wince. On the inflight journey from the visit in Sweden, for example, he almost ruined the good impression he had made on the Swedish public through an unfortunate remark on how Swedish women are said to be so strong that the men seek wives abroad. This was in response to a question about the possibility of the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, which was a rather stupid question, as even journalists should know that the pope could not give any other answer than the dogmatically correct one on this issue. However, this time he did not rise to the occasion, as he has done previously when receiving tricky questions. The Swedish ambassador to the Holy See, Ulla Gudmundsson, took the opportunity to present Pope Francis with a bucket list of 50 books by feminist theologians as a farewell gift when she left her post. Maybe he has started reading? Or listening to the many networks, organizations, and conferences that are working to find ways of making women’s voices heard in the Catholic Church? In 2016, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith invited women theologians to a symposium on the role of women in the church. The same year, the pope announced that a commission would be set up to investigate the possibility of a female diaconate. Things appear to be moving, albeit very slowly. When I suggest that the pope might be an ­anonymous feminist, it has nothing to do with what he has explicitly said and done regarding women and feminism, but rather with an attitude that very much resembles the qualities he ascribes to women, and which is in tune with feminist approaches to interfaith dialogue. Women were the first to pick up the dissatisfaction with an interreligious dialogue that was on its way into an impasse with its focus on doctrinal differences. They paved the way for methods that aimed at building relations, acknowledging conflicts and power imbalances, and taking its starting point at the margins of society and religious institutions. Much of

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mainstream dialogue and theology of religions has followed suit. When I discover similarities between feminist approaches to dialogue and those of Pope Francis, it is a sign that he is a pope for our time, one who has taken these insights on board. If he is serious in the claim above that women “contribute to a better understanding of the challenges typical of a multicultural reality,” maybe he will listen to them as they explain the reality of multiple and hybrid religious belonging and be willing to ponder its impact on interreligious dialogue. Will he, as someone who has a heart for the marginalized in society and on the geographical periphery of the Catholic Church, also be prepared to listen to the voices from the margins of the power structure of the church? As little as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists appreciate being called anonymous Christians, I imagine Pope Francis would feel similarly at being labeled an anonymous feminist. I understand he is not the “liberal” or “radical” pope that some would like him to be, and neither is he a feminist. But I think he is a listening pope who might eventually want to listen to feminists, to hear truly what they are saying. It has been an unexpected joy to plunge into the sea of papal encyclicals, exhortations, addresses, speeches, and actions. It has been edifying and inspiring to explore Pope Francis’s theology. If he would ever happen to read this piece, I hope he would read it as a kind of declaration of love from a “separated sister,” one who also considers the Et incarnatus est from Mozart’s Mass in C minor to be matchless!59

Notes 1. https://thepopevideo.org/en/video/interreligious-dialogue.html. 2. Ibid. 3. Misericordiae vultus 23. 4. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/november/documents/papa-francesco_20171129_viaggioapostolico-myanmarmonaci-buddisti.html. 5. Misericordiae vultus 23. 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImUxTanBDR0. 7. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/november/documents/papa-francesco_20161103_udienza-interreligiosa.html. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Info on Human Development 12, no. 2 (February 1985): 8–9.

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11. Helene Egnell, Other Voices: A Study of Christian Feminist Approaches to Religious Plurality East and West (Uppsala: Swedish Institute of Mission Research, 2006). 12. Ibid., 160–167. 13. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130921_intervista-spadaro.html. 14. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/january/ documents/papa-francesco_20150115_srilanka-filippine-incontro-giornalisti.html. 15. Evangelii Gaudium, 119. 16. Ibid., 122–126. 17. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/january/ documents/papa-francesco_20150115_srilanka-filippine-incontro-giornalisti.html. 18. Ibid., 221. 19. Ibid., 223. 20. Ibid., 228. 21. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/november/documents/papa-francesco_20171129_viaggioapostolico-myanmarmonaci-buddisti.html. 22. Evangelii Gaudium, 232. 23. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa. html. 24. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130930_incontro-pace-s-egidio.html. 25. Egnell, Other Voices, 163. 26. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130930_incontro-pace-s-egidio.html. 27. Laudato Si’, 246. 28. https://thepopevideo.org/en/video/care-creation.html. 29. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa. html. 30. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/september/documents/papa-francesco_20150924_usa-us-congress.html. 31. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/september/documents/papa-francesco_20160920_assisi-preghiera-pace.html. 32. Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, On Heaven and Earth (New York: Image, 2013), 25–26. 33. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130921_intervista-spadaro.html. 34. Ibid.

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35. Evangelii Gaudium, 250. 36. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa. html. 37. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/september/documents/papa-francesco_20140921_albania-leaders-altre-religioni.html. 38. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/august/ documents/papa-francesco_20140817_corea-vescovi-asia.html. 39. Ibid. 40. Peter Berger, “Pluralism, Uncertainty, and Interreligious Dialogue,” Inculturation 6, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 4. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid., 6. 43. Egnell, Other Voices, 62. 44. Evangelii Gaudium, 250. 45. Rita M. Gross, “A Buddhist Response to Nostra Aetate,” in The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multireligious Conversation on Nostra Aetate, eds. Charles L.  Cohen et  al. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017), 237–248. 46. Evangelii Gaudium, 254. 47. Ibid. 48. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/september/documents/papa-fra, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2015/january/documents/papa-francesco_20150124_pisai. htmlncesco_20140921_albania-leaders-altre-religioni.html. 49. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/january/ documents/papa-francesco_20150124_pisai.html. 50. Michael Barnes S. J., Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 51. Beate Fagerli et  al., Dialogteologi på norsk (Verbum, 2016) (Author’s translation). 52. Ibid., 13–14. 53. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130921_intervista-spadaro.html. 54. Amoris Laetitia, 137. 55. Ibid., 138. 56. Ibid., 139. 57. Ibid. 58. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/june/documents/papa-francesco_20170609_pontconsiglio-dialogo-interreligioso.html. 59. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130921_intervista-spadaro.html.

CHAPTER 6

Is the Pope Catholic? A Question of Identity in Pope Francis’s Practical Theology of Interreligious Dialogue Stephen B. Roberts

The question “Is the pope Catholic?” is a conversational gambit used to indicate an incontestable certainty, something that is clearly and unambiguously the case. So, for example, if asked whether I like jazz, my responding “Is the pope Catholic?” would indicate that my love of the genre is beyond doubt. This conversational convention works because of the unequivocal Catholic identity of the pope. In this chapter, my analysis of Pope Francis’s approach to interreligious dialogue focuses on this question of Catholic identity. I begin by considering the ways in which Pope Francis stands clearly in the tradition of post-Vatican II thinking about the relationship between the religions. This demonstrates that when responding to religious diversity the pope is most definitely Catholic, not least in his emphasis on the importance of entering into dialogue with a clear and confident identity.

S. B. Roberts (*) University of Chichester, Chichester, UK © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_6

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I then go on to argue, however, that this emphasis on identity is not without its problems and that Pope Francis’s emphasis on listening to the theological voice of the people, particularly the poor, might challenge the notion of solid identities and open up new avenues for theological thinking about interreligious dialogue. Alongside the evident continuity with what has gone before, there is something new and distinctive that is emerging in his approach that, when examined from the perspective of practical theology, offers a quite different vision for interreligious understanding.

Catholic Continuity There is much in Pope Francis’s approach to relations between the faiths that stands clearly and firmly in a tradition of Catholic thought and practice going back to the Second Vatican Council, as expressed in Nostra Aetate, Gaudium et Spes, Lumen Gentium, and numerous subsequent documents. For example, when addressing an interreligious audience in Sri Lanka, Pope Francis reaffirms the Council’s “sincere respect” for the traditions and beliefs of those present because the Catholic Church “rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions.”1 This is the classic and oft-quoted affirmation of Vatican II.  Again, on the subject of Christian-­Jewish relations, which can be seen as having opened up Catholic teaching on other religions more broadly,2 he echoes Nostra Aetate when addressing the Jewish community in Rome and affirming the “rich common spiritual patrimony” shared by Jews and Christians as a foundation on which to build.3 The apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium further exemplifies the continuity.4 It is concerned with evangelization as a priority for the church, both to spread the Gospel more widely and to renew the life of the church, and stresses its fundamental compatibility with dialogue as two related callings of Christians today. Dialogue is an essential part of the church’s commitment to the common good, but it is also an integral component to the missionary calling of the church. In taking this approach, the text stands in direct continuity with the emphasis of Dialogue and Proclamation (1991). Rooted in its commitment to proclaim the good news of the Gospel, the Church engages openly in dialogue. A similar emphasis on interreligious encounter that respects the distinctive particularities of traditions is seen in another important point of continuity. When addressing the International Meeting for Peace sponsored by the Sant’Egidio community, Pope Francis stands firmly in continuity

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with the interreligious gathering for prayer in Assisi initiated by Pope John Paul II in 1986, in which representative groups from the different religions pray together in time and as part of a shared gathering but in different spaces according to their own traditions.5 In his dialogue with Abraham Skorka, Francis addresses this point specifically, speaking of the value of shared prayer with those of other traditions, but noting the importance of “each one praying according to his tradition.”6 This emphasis is found at the World Day of Prayer in Assisi (2016), when again the different faith traditions prayed alongside one another according to their own understandings and practices: “Without syncretism or relativism, we have rather prayed side by side and for each other.”7 Examples of continuity could be multiplied with ease, but this discussion of the Catholic continuity of Pope Francis’s approach to dialogue can be effectively focused on two distinct aspects: theological understandings of the religious other and dialogue serving the common good. Exploring these two themes leads to the conclusion that this pope’s classic post-­ Vatican II vision of Catholic engagement with the religious other is one of dialogue as rooted openness.

Theology of Religions There are several points at which a theological account of the religious other can be found in his writings. So, for example, on the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate, Francis affirms the central theological convictions of that watershed document, that the God “who revealed himself in creation and in history … speaks to the heart and to the spirit of every human being who seeks the truth and how to practice it.”8 This is the theological basis of the recognition of that which is true and holy in other religions. But it is Evangelii Gaudium that contains the most developed theology of religions, a theological understanding of the fact of religious diversity. It is an approach that goes back to the German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, writing on these topics in the 1950s and 1960s, but echoed in a 1997 publication of the International Theological Commission (ITC).9 Rahner’s “anonymous Christian” thesis is well known. What is sometimes overlooked, however, is his recognition not just that those outside the Church might be saved by Christ on account of their unwitting response to his grace that is present in human history beyond the Church, but that their adherence to a non-Christian religion is a significant part of that response such that it too is a vehicle of divine grace. In one of the classic statements

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of the anonymous Christianity thesis, Rahner states that a non-Christian religion “contains also supernatural elements arising out of the grace which is given to men [sic] as a gratuitous gift on account of Christ.”10 Or, again, “if there has to be a presence of Christ throughout the whole history of salvation, it cannot be missing where in the concrete man [sic] is religious in his history, namely, in the history of religion.”11 This classic statement of an inclusivist position seeks to create theological space for the religious other without abandoning the central convictions of Catholic Christianity.12 The salvific value of non-Christian religions is affirmed, albeit, this is entirely on the basis of a Christian understanding of the nature of salvation. It is this approach that is articulated in the ITC document which follows John Paul II’s Redemptoris Missio (1990) in affirming the “spiritual riches” to be found in non-Christian religions,13 before going on to affirm, however cautiously, that they might fulfil “a certain salvific function.”14 There are certainly problems with this approach in that the religious other is not understood on their own terms but only on terms determined in advance by Christian theology. Yet against the background of the extra ecclesiam nulla salus tradition, it represented a remarkable shift and one which is picked up by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium. He chooses his words carefully, drawing on the theology of the ITC document without explicitly avowing any salvific efficacy in non-Christian religions. He affirms that through faithfulness to conscience, non-Christians can be justified by God’s grace and “associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ”15 and that this association is connected to communal forms of religious identity: “due to the sacramental dimension of sanctifying grace, God’s working in them tends to produce signs and rites, sacred expressions which in turn bring others to a communitarian experience of journeying towards God.”16 More than this, he is prepared to acknowledge the religions as having a liberative significance: “They can be channels which the Holy Spirit raises up in order to liberate non-Christians from atheistic immanentism or from purely individual religious experiences.”17 But such “liberation” is not the fullness of salvation as understood in Catholic theology. He is seeking to maintain the distinctiveness of Catholic faith and avoid any hint of relativism, while aspiring to make theological space for other religions. And, to repeat, the problems with such an approach should not blind us to its significant advance on earlier accounts that saw no value in other religions on Christian terms, let alone on their own terms.

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Yet, such strategies can only take us so far. Lying behind this approach is the belief that in order to relate well across religious boundaries, what is needed is a better theological account of other religious traditions and their place in the purposes of God. This approach to thinking theologically about the religious other has been critiqued by Michael Barnes as offering a theology “for” dialogue, when what is really needed is a theology “of” dialogue.18 Pope Francis may not have such a developed theology “of” dialogue as Barnes proposes, but another example of continuity with post-­ Vatican II approaches to religious diversity is his consistent advocacy of dialogue as part of an ongoing commitment to the common good.

Dialogue and the Common Good Much of what Pope Francis has said about dialogue and the relationship between the religions emerges in the context of a concern for the common good, a concept itself rooted in the tradition of Catholic social teaching. The belief that Christian theology has valuable insights to resource shared approaches to social questions can be extended to other religious traditions working together for the common good. Speaking in Turkey about violations of human dignity and rights, he advocates the cooperation of governments, political and religious leaders, representatives of civil society, and all men and women of goodwill. But he notes the unique contribution of religious leaders, who “can offer a vital contribution by expressing the values of their respective traditions … [as] bearers of spiritual treasures of inestimable worth.” This is not done in isolation from one another: “Recognizing and developing our common spiritual heritage—through interreligious dialogue—helps us to promote and to uphold moral values, peace, and freedom in society.”19 This is a clear instance of interreligious dialogue in service of the common good. For another example, we can look to Pope Francis’s visit to the synagogue in Rome, where he contends that one of the things binding Jews and Christians together is a shared responsibility for the good of the city and, beyond that, the environment: “An integral ecology is now a priority and as Christians and Jews we can and must offer the whole of humanity the Bible’s message on the safeguard of Creation.”20 When Jews and Christians engage with one another from their shared inheritance of faith, they do so for the sake of the common good and the world we inhabit together. This concern is seen most strongly perhaps in Laudato Si’, the encyclical on the environment addressed to all people of goodwill who

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share “our common home.” The fact that “the majority of people living on our planet profess to be believers … should spur religions to dialogue among themselves for the sake of protecting nature.”21 Again, speaking to an interreligious audience in Azerbaijan, Francis reflects on the enrichment to be found in openness to the religious other, seeing this as deriving from our participation in “a greater collectivity” in which we “understand our life as a gift for others” and “see as the goal, not our own interests, but rather the good of humanity.”22 It is possible to interpret this theme more or less theologically. At one level it can be seen as a pragmatic question of working together with people of goodwill for the sake of shared goals. In this example, though, “fraternity and sharing are invoked and longed for by those who desire the common good, and are above all pleasing to God, the Compassionate and All Merciful, who wishes his sons and daughters in the one human family to be ever more united among themselves and always in dialogue with one another.”23 This is suggestive of a theological approach to dialogue in which the negotiation of religious diversity is rooted in a vision of the kingdom of God, an approach advocated by Paul Knitter and characterized by Jacques Dupuis as “regnocentrism,” focused less on a notion of a shared vision of ultimate reality and more on collaborating towards the kingdom of God.24 The influence of Liberation Theology on this approach suggests that it might be legitimate to read Pope Francis in this light, albeit, he would baulk at aspects of the pluralistic underpinning in Knitter’s case.

Dialogue as Rooted Openness Seen through the double lens of his theology of religions and emphasis on the common good, Pope Francis’s approach to interreligious dialogue can be described as a rooted openness. This is made explicit when, speaking at the Heydar Aliyev Mosque in Azerbaijan, he celebrates “a desire to protect the great heritage of religions and, at the same time, a pursuit of deeper and more fruitful openness.”25 The importance of being rooted is further evidenced by the significant emphasis he places on identity. The word “identity” occurs at least 37 times in the texts included in section one of this book, and in nearly every instance, Pope Francis is making reference to the importance of strong and confident religious identities as providing the basis for healthy dialogue. This is seen as essential for any conversation across religious boundaries because, “for a worthwhile dialogue we have to have something to say.”26 In other words, we need to be secure in our

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identity and know where we speak from. He describes the importance of identities being “solid” and “established,”27 stating the importance of Christians being “solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity”28 and warning against that which undermines the “solidity of our Christian identity.”29 Sometimes identity is contrasted with other terms, such as “ambiguity,”30 although he does recognize that a sense of identity can be “open and not self-enclosed.”31 This commitment to Christian identity is grounded in a certain understanding of the nature of the faith and the revelation on which it is built. In his dialogue with Rabbi Skorka, he affirms the non-negotiable inheritance of faith received from the apostles, departure from which is heresy.32 There is a core identity of Christianity that Christians, however open to a deepening understanding of their inheritance, cannot expose to questioning and challenge. The solid identity of Christians in dialogue is built on a firm foundation of non-­negotiable apostolic faith. Thus, the commitment to a rooted openness is encapsulated in the focus on identity and it has much to commend it. For those who have a strong sense of their religious identity—as many clearly do—it is important that dialogue and cooperation with the religious other should respect such identities.33 But, this is not the only way of being religious and the emphasis on fixed and solid identities is not unproblematic. Marianne Moyaert highlights a key tension in interreligious dialogue “between too much openness and too little openness” that she explores by means of Paul Ricoeur’s conception of human beings as fragile, not in a pathological sense but in the sense of the potentiality of human life as a project.34 It is a way of describing the “tension between what is given and what is possible.”35 Moyaert relates this to identity, suggesting that identities are not solid, strong, and unchanging but marked by fragility and an expectation of change, development, and evolution. “Human fragility stamps personal identity,” she writes. “Identity is not something human beings control; rather, it is a hermeneutical project that never ends.”36 Recognizing the significance of fragile identities for engaging in this hermeneutical project in dialogue across religious boundaries does not make such dialogue easy. In fact, it explains just how fraught can be the tension between too much and too little openness. It involves the recognition that “[a]t any time we could be confronted with something/someone that/ who causes our whole identity to waver, making it difficult, if not impossible, to narrate our own identity.”37 It is the recognition of this insight that perhaps leads Pope Francis to emphasize the importance of identity, to resist the vulnerability associated with interreligious encounter. This,

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though, is to deny something that, on Ricoeur’s understanding, is essential to being human. Even if it is possible to argue that a sense of identity is an important precursor to dialogue, that is only the case if such identities are acknowledged to be fragile. This provides a significant challenge to the emphasis on clear and fixed identities, although a good case can be made for speaking of fluid rather than fragile identities. The changing and shifting of identities over time can be much more organic and gradually evolving than the language of fragility suggests.

Practical Theology The biggest challenge to the notion of strong and solid identities, however, comes not from Moyaert’s systematic theological reflections but from Pope Francis himself, from a central plank of his theological method. In this final section, I argue that when interpreted from the perspective of practical theology, or ordinary theology,38 his commitment to the Argentine “theology of the people,” which sees “the religion of the ‘faithful people of God’ as a key source for theological reflection,”39 leads to a potential contradiction in the current pope’s approach. Paul Vallely notes that a defining moment for Jorge Bergoglio’s theological development is the Aparecida meeting and document: [It] encapsulated his conviction that his duty was “to proclaim the Gospel by going out to find people, not by sitting [around] waiting for people to come to us.” More than that, there was a sensus fidei (sense of the faith) among the everyday lives of ordinary men and women which helped them grasp the reality of the faith with more clarity than that of many specialists, theologians, and priests. “To remain faithful we need to go outside”, Bergoglio concluded.40

It was this theme that struck a chord during the congregations preceding the conclave through which he would be elected pope. In a speech to the assembled cardinals, he argued that “the next Pope should be someone who helps the Church surge forth to the peripheries.”41 This emphasis, in continuity with the Aparecida document, underpins his commitment to dialogue. In his emphasis on listening to the voice of the people, not least on the peripheries, he reflects the influence of Liberation Theology on his work. One of the intriguing features of Vallely’s study of Pope Francis is his sus-

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tained attention to the question of what changed Bergoglio from a ­conservative opponent of Liberation Theology, sceptical about the reforms proposed by Vatican II, into a wholehearted advocate of liberationist perspectives, pushing through a radical transformation of the Church according to the principles of the Council. His answer to this question resonates with practical theological understandings. Vallely quotes Bergoglio’s old friend from Buenos Aires, Rabbi Abraham Skorka: “He’s a very dynamic person. He’s a person who is learning from life. He’s very sensitive and has great empathy. He has changed according to his life’s experience.”42 Timothy Radcliffe, also cited by Vallely, is more explicit about the influences on Pope Francis’s vision for the Church: “It is ecclesiastically radical. He has thought through what he is doing. It is the product of the many years of practical theology.”43 Both the change and the continuity in Bergoglio’s approach are encapsulated in his embrace of Argentine “People’s Theology” in its closeness to Liberation Theology (reflecting the change) and in the place it gives to popular religiosity (reflecting the continuity).44 Vallely traces the roots of Bergoglio’s sympathetic attitude towards popular religiosity to the influence of his grandmother and observes how this lays him open to “criticisms that he is pandering to the superstitions of folk religion,” particularly in the intellectual milieu of his Jesuit order.45 His predecessor had recognized the value of popular piety to a degree, but Francis is much more open to such expressions of faith, precisely because of his commitment to the poor.46 Padre Pepe said of his relationship to the people of the slums of Buenos Aires that Bergoglio “was trying to show that the slums were not just important for the people who live here but for the whole Church.”47 It was during his period as “bishop of the slums” that his openness to both ecumenical and interreligious relationships began to take shape, with an attitude of careful and attentive listening to others at its heart.48 It is this listening which leads me to describe him as a practical theologian; and it is what leads me to call his emphasis on identity into question. The poor are not always very good at behaving themselves religiously. To be sure, there are examples of ordinary, grassroots believers having a strong and clear Catholic faith and being the preservers of orthodoxy. John Henry Newman famously celebrated the role of the faithful in preserving the faith of the apostles during the fourth-century Arian controversy when the church hierarchy were the ones falling prey to heretical teaching: “in that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of our

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Lord’s divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved, far more by the ‘Ecclesia docta’ than the ‘Ecclesia docens.’”49 But this is certainly not always the case. The laity on the ground can equally sit lightly to the purity of the faith as promulgated by the institutional guardians of an inherited tradition. Another example from the fourth century is particularly pertinent. As already noted, Pope Francis has continued the post-Vatican II process of healing the fractured relationship with Judaism, in which the Adversus Judaeos literature epitomized by John Chrysostom’s homilies against the Jews occupies a central and disturbing place. What those homilies reveal is that the ordinary members of Chrysostom’s congregation in Antioch were much less concerned with a strict Christian identity over against the Judaism that still thrived in that city. His invective was directed precisely against those Christians who were attending the Jewish festivals, not just as respectful observers of another tradition but in some sense as participants.50 When speaking to the Jewish community of Rome, Francis states his belief that when it comes to relationships between Christians and Jews, “the People of God have their own nose and they sense the path that God is asking them to take. In this case it is the path of friendship, closeness and fraternity.”51 That, and more, was evidently the case in Chrysostom’s Antioch, and Chrysostom did not like it; identities were shown to be fluid and he wanted to change that. This, however, is not just a fourth-century aberration as other examples illustrate. It is sometimes observed that the population of Haiti is 100 ­percent Catholic and 90 percent Vodou.52 This is not a mathematical error; it is a recognition that Catholic identities are inextricably bound up with Vodou practices and beliefs. In his study of Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti, Leslie Desmangles describes how Haitians may attend an all-­night Vodou ceremony on a Saturday and then “while their clothes are still wet with the perspiration caused by the exhausting contortions of their sacred dances” will walk straight to Mass.53 There is no sense that there is any insecurity about this form of Catholic-Vodou hybrid identity. Arguably, these are indeed strong and confident hybrid identities, but they may not be the kind that Pope Francis has in mind. Such forms of dual religious belonging and “inter-riting” are not the result of theological laziness or a lack of commitment to a core Catholic identity.54 They are perhaps best seen pragmatically as complex, hybrid, religious identities that work for their adherents, a form of religious creolization. In her classic study of Haitian Vodou, Maya Deren describes the

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harsh conditions of Haitian life and, reflecting on the place of religion in such a context, observes that someone “of such a culture must be, necessarily, a pragmatist.”55 Here religion “must do more than provide a reason for living; it must provide the means for living.”56 In a different but not unrelated context, Anthony Pinn recognizes this pragmatic emphasis when he notes that African-American religiosity was shaped by a concern with what was effective for liberation. In that context “conjure” could play a role alongside traditional Christian expression, albeit often secretly.57 This pragmatic concern among ordinary people for what is religiously effective is not a recent phenomenon either. It is seen, too, in the earlier example of Chrysostom’s Antioch. In his diatribe against the Jews, he recounts his witnessing of “a free woman of good bearing, modest, and a believer” being forced by a fellow Christian “to enter the shrine of the Hebrews and to swear there an oath about some matters under dispute.”58 When Chrysostom confronted the man and asked why he had done this, “[h]e answered that many people had told him that oaths sworn there were more to be feared.”59 Chrysostom’s concern with a strong, clear, and theologically grounded Christian identity is trumped by the needs of everyday life. We find another example of misbehaving popular religiosity in Bergoglio’s home territory of Buenos Aires. Marcella Althaus-Reid is well known for challenging the one-dimensional understanding of poverty that she finds in traditional forms of Liberation Theology, an understanding focused on the rural poor that ignores the prominence of sexuality that is more obviously manifest in urban poverty. She argues that “Liberation Theology has been walking in the streets without noticing the life of the rebellious poor urban women who do not use underwear, and the richness of the metaphors of God, based on the interface between their sexuality and poverty.”60 Here the rebelliousness of the poor is focused on sexuality. Elsewhere, however, Althaus-Reid has interrogated the place of Mariology in Latin America and observes how the imported European image of Mary, occupying an “oligarchic position in society given by the fact that she has a powerful son from a powerful father,” can be oppressive rather than liberating for indigenous women living in poverty.61 A source of empowerment comes instead from the traditional devotion to the WOMAN, Althaus-­ Reid’s translation of Cihuacóatl, the “female-represented God of Duality” of the traditional Mexica pantheon.62 During the Conquista some women managed to preserve their liberating devotion to this feminine representa-

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tion of God: “For the women who survived swearing fidelity to the Christian faith, it was possible to hide their original worship of the WOMAN in the skirts of la Vírgen. This is a metaphor for the origins of the Christian syncretism of popular religiosity in Latin America.”63 Here, too, are confident religious identities, but ones marked by hybridity or syncretism that have been shaped over time by historical events; fluid identities that are not concerned for the integrity of dominant religious traditions. For these women too, there is a concern for what works religiously. One way of interpreting this phenomenon is through a lens supplied by Michel de Certeau, who makes a distinction between the strategies of the powerful and the tactics of the weak.64 The hybrid religiosity we have been considering, whether of fourth-century Antioch or twentiethand twenty-first-century Haiti and Buenos Aires, might be seen as a form of tactical religion embracing what works. However much Pope Francis’s concern with the voice of the people might be something to celebrate, in his emphasis on the importance of identity, he reflects the strategic voice of a powerful Catholicism. If Pope Francis is serious about listening to the voices of the ordinary faithful as part of his theological method, then he opens his emphasis on strong and boundaried religious identities to be challenged by those who are more tactical, pragmatic, and fluid in their approach to Catholic faith. Listening to the theology of the people—whether that theology be explicitly formulated or implicit in life and practice—will, as the examples given have suggested, yield diverse and complex insights that cannot leave normative theological accounts unaffected. Such an approach is reminiscent of practical theological method and to conclude the chapter, I bring this reading of Pope Francis into dialogue with Jeff Astley’s Ordinary Theology.65 Ordinary theology is concerned with the beliefs and ways of believing of those with no formal theological education and employs an inductive approach to theological method, listening to the theology found in the real-life contexts of ordinary believers. This is significant, Astley suggests, because religion is something that is learned, where learning is an ongoing experiential process that takes place through the course of everyday life.66 He relates this process specifically to the theology of religions learned through experience by one of the most influential and controversial figures to think theologically about the fact of religious diversity. As noted above, John Hick came to his famous pluralist hypothesis not through a process of detached reflection in an ivory tower but in response to his lived experience and involvement in religious education in the multicultural

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context of 1960s Birmingham (UK). Astley argues it was the educational challenges that led Hick to adopt his position.67 To be sure, there are problems with Hick’s approach and, indeed, it is partly against such understandings that Pope Francis emphasizes the importance of rootedness and identity in interreligious encounter; but the point here is that attitudes to religious diversity are an area of theology where religious learning on the ground is likely to continue apace in contexts of local multiculturalism and global interconnectedness. Astley refers to studies that have shown unorthodox theological attitudes emerging in the face of an increasing exposure to religious diversity. One survey, for example, found that 50 percent of churchgoers believed all religions to be equally true.68 Of course, this is only one study and the task of ordinary theology in exploring this field in depth would be a substantial one. What I have hoped to show, though, is that listening to the theology of the people might just lead Pope Francis away from his emphasis on strong and stable identities towards a more fluid understanding of the pragmatic, learned, religious identities formed in contexts of religious diversity. This in turn could have profound implications for theological thinking about pluralism and interreligious encounter.

Conclusion So, in concluding, I return to the question with which I opened. Is the pope Catholic? My reading of Pope Francis’s approach to religious diversity does not, of course, call into question his Catholicism. For a publicity-­ seeking author, the disappointing conclusion of this study is that the pope is, indeed, Catholic. But what this tale of two popes has shown is that there are different ways of being Catholic and Pope Francis’s openness to the theological significance of grassroots, ordinary, popular Catholicism has the potential to lead in a very different direction from the rooted openness of the mainstream approach of the post-Vatican II magisterium that in most respects he embodies. One of the things we can learn from this potentially radical agenda is that a practical theological approach to the negotiation of religious diversity that listens in a serious and sustained way to the ordinary experience of Christians in different parts of the world has yet to be adequately developed. To this Anglican, practical theologian, it is perhaps surprising that a spur to its development should have come from the See of Peter.

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Notes 1. Interreligious and Ecumenical Gathering in Colombo, Sri Lanka (13 January 2015), citing Nostra Aetate, 2. 2. Michael Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 31–64. 3. Visit to the Synagogue of Rome (17 January 2016), citing Nostra Aetate 4. 4. Evangelii Gaudium. 5. International Meeting for Peace, Community of Sant’Egidio (30 September 2013). 6. Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, On Heaven and Earth (New York City: Image, 1995), 221. 7. World Day of Prayer at Assisi (20 September 2016), Address of the Holy Father, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/september/documents/papa-francesco_20160920_assisi-preghiera-pace.html. 8. Fiftieth Anniversary of Nostra Aetate (28 October 2015). 9. International Theological Commission, Christianity and the World Religions (1997). 10. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 5 (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1966), 121. 11. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1978), 313. 12. Alan Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism (London: SCM Press, 1983), pp. 38–69. 13. Redemptoris Missio 55 (1990), http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paulii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_07121990_redemptorismissio.html; Christianity and the World Religions, 83 (1997), http:// www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/ rc_cti_1997_cristianesimo-religioni_en.html. 14. Christianity and the World Religions, 84 (1997). 15. Evangelii Gaudium, 254, quoting Christianity and the World Religions, 72. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Barnes, Theology, 53. 19. Visit to the President of the Diyanet (28 November 2014). 20. Visit to the Synagogue of Rome (17 January 2016). 21. Laudato Si’, 201. 22. Interreligious Encounter in the Aliyev Mosque (2 October 2016). 23. Ibid. 24. See, for example, Paul F.  Knitter, One Earth Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995). Jacques Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 193–195.

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25. At the Aliyev Mosque (2 October 2016). 26. Amoris Laetitia, 141. 27. Trip to Sarajevo (6 June 2015). 28. Evangelii Gaudium, 253. 29. Meeting with the Bishops of Asia (17 August 2014). 30. International Peace Conference in Cairo (28 April 2017). 31. Ibid. 32. Bergoglio and Skorka, On Heaven and Earth, 25. 33. Gavin D’Costa, for example, has argued that a deeply rooted Roman Catholicism can provide a better account of tolerance and openness than a pluralist account in Gavin D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). 34. Marianne Moyaert, Fragile Identities: Towards a Theology of Interreligious Hospitality (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2011), 280. 35. Ibid., 281. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid., 282. 38. As will be discussed towards the end of the chapter, Jeff Astley specifically notes that it was the reflection on lived experience of religious diversity that led to John Hick’s pluralist theology of religions. Jeff Astley, Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2002), 23. 39. Juan Carlos Scannone, S.J., “Pope Francis and the Theology of the People,” Theological Studies 77, no. 1 (2016): 118–135. 40. Paul Vallely, Pope Francis: Untying the Knots (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 123. 41. Ibid., 157. 42. Ibid., 128. 43. Ibid., 166. 44. Ibid., 135–136. 45. Ibid., 32. 46. Ibid., 33. 47. Ibid., 100. 48. Ibid., 106–108. 49. John Henry Newman, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, ed. John Coulson (London: Sheed and Ward, 1961), 75–76. 50. Peter W. Van der Horst, “Jews and Christians in Antioch at the End of the Fourth Century,” in Christian-Jewish Relations through the Centuries, eds. Stanley E. Porter and Brook W. R. Pearson (London: T&T Clark, 2000), 228–238. 51. To the Jewish Community of Rome (11 October 2013). 52. Leslie G. Desmangles, The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 1.

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53. Ibid., 6. 54. Marianne Moyaert, “Introduction,” in Ritual Participation and Interreligious Dialogue: Boundaries, Transgressions and Innovations, eds. Marianne Moyaert and Joris Geldof (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 1–16. 55. Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (New York: McPherson, 1983), 73. 56. Ibid., 73. 57. Anthony Pinn, Varieties of African American Religious Experience: Towards a Comparative Black Theology, Twentieth Anniversary Edition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017), xxvii-xxviii. 58. John Chrysostom, Discourses Against Judaizing Christians (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1979), 11–12. 59. Ibid., 12. 60. Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 6. 61. Marcella Althaus-Reid, From Feminist Theology to Indecent Theology: Readings on Poverty, Sexual Identity, and God (London: SCM, 2004), 32. 62. Althaus-Reid, From Feminist Theology, 34. 63. Ibid., 38. 64. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 65. Astley, Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 66. Ibid., 17. 67. Ibid., 23. 68. Ibid., 158.

CHAPTER 7

Pope Francis’s Compassion Amineh A. Hoti

Introduction As a doctor of philosophy from the University of Cambridge, a mother, a scholar, a person with troublingly profound levels of empathy and sensitivity to the cause of our collective humanity and dignity, a global citizen, and a Muslim, these are deeply uncomfortable times for me. Constant, tormenting news of the genocide of innocent people across the world from Myanmar to Bosnia and the rape of thousands of innocent vulnerable women in honor-based societies such as the Bosniaks, the Rohingyas, the Kashmiris, and others—all committed by mighty and callous military men—is deeply troubling. It worries me to read and hear of such devastating rhetoric, open talk of “a Muslim Holocaust”1 in the heart of Europe, following the Holocaust of the 1940s, when at least six million Jews and others were sadly exterminated. With global threats of terrorism and a subsequent constant fear and added problems like global warming, what kind of a world are we leaving behind for our children? Who are the global leaders who have the courage to speak out and impact policy?

A. A. Hoti (*) The Centre for Dialogue and Action, Islamabad, Pakistan © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_7

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In this scene of global gloom and self-destruction, there is one, amongst a few prominent actors who stands out and is trying to reach all of humanity. Pope Francis has stepped into our troubled times embodying the Abrahamic ideals of compassion and love of neighbor.  Despite criticism of his own church members for issues relating to child abuse, he has reached out to refugees, bent down on his knees, and washed and kissed their tired feet. It did not matter to him, despite disapproval, that these human beings were actually Muslims.2 He has also traveled to the coasts of Italy and received the young boys and girls, and mothers who are arriving barely alive after the ordeal of the turbulent waters. Many have sadly perished. Pope Francis has also reached out to the Rohingya Muslims in a time when few are willing to speak up firmly against this terrible genocide, a troubling repeat of past inaction toward genocide as seen throughout history. Take, for example, the 937 Jews who tried to escape the Holocaust across the Atlantic.3 They were practically “stateless,” and despite escaping Europe’s genocide and Kristallnacht in November 1938 with nothing but barely their lives, their boat, the St. Louis, was turned back from Cuba in 1939 before being rejected from the US on the basis of anti-Semitic immigration restrictions. Hundreds of those same passengers of the St. Louis were rounded up from Europe and exterminated by the Nazis. Today, three decades later, we have memorials, museums, and movies stating “NEVER AGAIN!” Some have argued that yesterday’s Jews are today’s Muslims. By reaching out to today’s refugees, who are predominantly Muslims, Pope Francis is showing a genuine passion for fighting for all of humanity. I will argue, in this chapter, that from my Muslim perspective, Pope Francis can teach us crucial lessons for overcoming divisions and building bridges in our faltering world.

A “Third World War” and a Call for Self-­reflection and Compassion Pope Francis has pointed out the ugly nature of our current affairs. Looking at parts of our world in war and terrible human suffering including Bosnia, Rohingya, Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, and parts of Africa, he has said, during his in-flight conference from Turkey, that we are seeing a “Third World War.” Pope Francis added, “Arms trafficking is terrible; it is

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one of the most powerful businesses right now. Therefore I believe that this reality is increasing because arms are being distributed.”4 For all human beings, as for Muslims, the heart is the seat of learning and compassion, as mentioned repeatedly in the Qur’an. The Prophet of Islam, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him), is known as Rahmat al Alamin (Mercy unto all of creation—humans, animals, and plants) because he showed through his actions and the challenges he faced that he cared for the weak, the poor, the downtrodden but also worked to reform those with power and influence. The quality of mercy and compassion derived from the heart is what drove his actions and that of other great men and women. Pope Francis, too, relies on his heart for showing and expressing compassion and transcending boundaries of cold neutrality. In contrast to the insensitive prism of objectivity, Pope Francis expresses human feelings and says: Whenever you find yourself facing human suffering, you have to do what your heart tells you to. Then people will say: “He did it for this or that political reason”; let them say what they want. But when you think of these men and women, these fathers and mothers who have lost their children, their brothers and sisters, of the immense pain of such a disaster, I don’t know, my heart. … I am a priest and I feel the need to draw near! That’s how I feel; that is the first thing. I know that the comfort that any word of mine might give is no cure, it doesn’t bring the dead back to life, but human closeness at these times gives us strength, there is solidarity. … Human suffering is powerful, and if at these sad times we draw closer, we help one another greatly. … Somebody came up to me and said: “You should be neutral. … But listen, where human suffering is involved, you can’t be neutral.” That was my answer; that’s how I feel.5

Modern Western education taught me to be objective; even the definition of ‘intellect’ is the faculty of reasoning and understanding with objectivity. But my faith, Islam in line with the Abrahamic faiths, taught me compassion, mercy and an emphasis on humanity. An emphasis on objectivity which may lead to cold scientific distancing and away from deeper understanding is problematic. It is this focus on humanity that makes Pope Francis special—the very practice of listening to our hearts. Pope Francis’s emphasis on humanity is self-reflective as he asks: Why did the first Fathers call the Church “mysterium lunae?” the mystery of the moon? Because it gives off light, but not its own: it’s what comes from

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the sun. And when the Church focuses too much on herself, divisions arise. And that’s what happened after the first millennium. … When the Church mirrors herself, she stops being the Church and becomes a “theological NGO.”6

This problem is not specific to Christianity  and is food for a lengthy discussion elsewhere.  Indeed, as Noam  Chomsky argues, “Among the hardest tasks that anyone can undertake, and one of the most important, is to look honestly in the mirror.” (Reference from Noam Chomsky in the book, Failed States, Holt: New York, 2006). Pope Francis, inspired by Jesus’s character, embodies love, inclusiveness, and compassion. In the face of our global problems, which include climate change, immigration, wars, and poverty, he has called for more dialogue and collaboration in order to strive to  seek global peace and justice.

Striving in the Footsteps of Jesus Pope Francis, in his inclusive acts, is directly inspired by Jesus Christ. But in his profoundly Christian actions, he is also following in the footsteps of his namesake, Francis of Assisi of the twelfth century. Francis of Assisi is one of the most venerated figures in history, particularly in Christian history, and is not only the patron saint of Italy but also of the natural environment, of animals, and of the poor. As a Muslim, my religion teaches me to look after all three. One wonderful story that embodies the spirit of Saint Francis is that when he was a young boy, he was strong, handsome, and witty. Being the son of a rich silk merchant, he spent lavishly on fine clothes and worldly pleasures. But one day, while he was selling his father’s silks and velvets at the Italian marketplace, a beggar in tattered clothes asked for alms. Francis waited till he had finished his business and then ran to catch up with the beggar, to whom he emptied all his pockets. This not only alarmed his colleagues and friends, but when he returned home, his father, the rich merchant who had just lost his gains, was mad with rage toward Francis. Despite his father’s rage, young Francis was now treading the path of saints. St. Francis then gave up his father’s wealth and adopted complete poverty, begged with the poor, nursed lepers, and gained spiritual enlightenment through a vision of Jesus Christ. He is also known as alter Christus

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(another Christ). St. Francis of Assisi’s message is such a relevant message for our world today, for instance, in regard to climate change. He believed that the environment and nature is the mirror of the Creator of the universe. He preached that God created this world as good and beautiful. St. Francis argues that all creatures are our “brothers and sisters,” including the moon (sister) and sun (brother) and the elements and, he believed, that it is the duty of human beings to protect and enjoy nature as God’s agents, stewards, or what Muslims call God’s vicegerents on earth. Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them) both showed compassion and respect toward animals. St. Francis preached that animals and birds are part of the creation of God to whom we must show care and compassion. It is because of this that, in 1979, Pope John Paul II declared St. Francis “Patron Saint of Ecology.” St. Francis believed that we have to overcome human sin by working toward good while remembering God and working in his path of healing and helping others. The idea of removing the stain or rust from the heart by praising and remembering God while doing good toward God’s creatures is also a strong Muslim theme based in the Qur’an and the prophetic traditions. St. Francis’s profound sense of human kinship and brother/sisterhood encompassed cherishing all of humanity. He even went to Muslim lands where he was received hospitably by Muslims, and he returned after the Crusades during a time of hostility between Christians and Muslims. Of all Christians, it was the Franciscans who were allowed to stay in and protect the Holy Land as the custodians of the holy Christian sites. This spirit of engaging with the perceived other is one we are seeing brought to life again today in some of the compassionate acts of Pope Francis when he reaches out to different vulnerable religious communities.

For Muslims, Jesus Is Holy: Muslim–Christian Relations For Muslims, Jesus Christ, or Isa Alayhi salaam—peace be upon him—is a revered figure. With deep love for Jesus and Mary, Muslims name their children Isa and Maryam. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said about himself, “there is no one who is closer to Jesus in love and reverence.” As a result, Christians always had a special place for Islam and Muslims had a special place for Christians, considering them to be as one ummah (community) with them.7

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When Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) experienced powerful revelations from God, he was shaken  as you can imagine and he  went back home where his wonderfully supportive wife, Khadijah, covered him with blankets. Later, she took him to her cousin, a Christian named Waraqah, who identified these apparitions as revelations from God in the line of the Biblical tradition. According to Sunni Muslims, the Holy Qur’an was to be the last revealed divine book of God. The special reverence and relationship between Muslims and Christians of the seventh century under the aegis of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is found in St. Catherine’s monastery. Here are excerpts from the letter Prophet Muhammad sent out to secure the lives, religious sites, and properties of Christians: This is a message from Muhammad … as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I … and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by God/Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them.  No compulsion is to be on them.  Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet (Muhammad, PBUH my emphasis). Verily, they are my allies [my emphasis] and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval [my emphasis]. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).8

The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) sent such strongly worded letters of interfaith policies via his delegates to all the Christians within and outside his area, guaranteeing them their properties and lives. This letter is so significant and stands as law from the words of the Prophet himself to this day. It reflects the inclusive and brotherly relations within diverse communities that prophets and saints struggle toward. Thus, as a Muslim, it is a pity when I read about churches being blown up at Christmas time or non-Muslim women being forcibly converted to Islam in Muslim lands. It is often because there is little study by local people of Islam; and tribal

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patriarchal cultures prevail in these contexts.9 This letter is evidence of cordial and respectful relationships which can be found in Sinai, and it establishes a clear relationship between Christians and Muslims. It also unequivocally states how Muslims must respect places of all worship and women and men of all faiths. The relationship between Christians and Muslims, in particular, was so close that in the time of the first Umayyad Caliph, Muawiyah, whose wife was Christian and whose community was well integrated into the larger community, the Christians of Muawiyah’s army fought alongside the Muslims against the Christians of the Byzantine Empire. The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries saw Crusades encouraged and some even led by the popes in order to regain political and religious control and power. These led to attacks on both Muslims and Christians of Arab lands as captured in Amin Maalouf’s book, The Crusades through Arab Eyes (1984). The book captures, from an Arab perspective, how the Western world and its people were seen as largely barbaric with a lack of understanding of core human values—honor, dignity, knowledge, and compassion. Yet in the West, the reverse was seen as the “truth”: Muslims were counted as barbaric. Muhammad Buaben’s book, Image of the Prophet Muhammad in the West: A Study of Muir, Margoliouth, and Watt (1996), explores some of the medieval Christian thinking and assumptions about Islam that there was no truth outside of the church and that Islam was the work of the devil. Buaben writes about Western medieval thinkers and scholars as follows: “With this line of thinking there was nothing about Islam to be accepted. To [the medieval  Christian person] them, Muhammad was a false prophet.”10 Buaben points out that, “Fables were invented to discredit Muhammad—some of them still popular today … and little thought was given as to their credibility.”11 Buaben adds: On the question of idolatry, the Crusades were fought with this whipped-up enthusiasm and emotion, that the [medieval] Christians were fighting idolaters who had usurped the holy land. … The church used recruitment as an acid-test for true Christian belief and the propaganda was couched in the most appealing language. The Crusades were “divinely backed holy wars” which offered absolution from sins or martyrdom.12

Buaben writes that when Islam was not such a big threat after the Crusades, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the tone of the

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popes and scholars toward Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) became less hostile. Nevertheless, despite changes in tone and methodology, the average Western scholar’s view of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) for Muslims has still not reached a level of satisfaction, as it does not allow for dispassionate academic study. This is because, writes Buaben, “a change in methodology per se does not necessarily entail in a change in attitude. The human touch, the personal experience of Muslims and Muslim societies, is what most Western scholars miss to their cost.”13 In sharp contrast to the orientalist scholars and some of the previous popes who encouraged confrontation, Pope Francis is reversing this and has specifically asked his community to reach out to all of humanity, and especially to Muslims, as they are significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries. This year (2018), I had the privilege of being invited by HRH Prince Hassan of Jordan to a three-day conference called “Religions and the Dignity of Life: Christian and Muslim Viewpoints” at the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS) in Amman, Jordan. I had the honour of making friends with some of the delegates from the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) of the Vatican City, such as the Most Reverend Bishop Miguel Ayuso, Secretary of the Council and Monsignor Khaled Akasheh, Bureau Chief for Islam at the Vatican City. We had discussions over Jordanian lunch on the same table as HRH and exchanged ideas and laughs. This consubstantiation helped break down the cold formalities and helped us understand and humanize the other. At the conference, I talked about the pope and Prince Hassan’s contributions in bridge building efforts.  Pope Francis appreciates Muslims, who worship God, the One, Living, and Merciful, and appreciates their “will to grow in mutual esteem and in cooperation for the common good of humanity.”14 He says, “We must never forget that they profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day.”15 The pope acknowledges the Qur’an which “retained some Christian teachings; Jesus and Mary receive profound veneration,” and he admires Muslim commitment to prayer and God and the value of showing mercy toward those in need.16 Indeed, just as the Qur’an talks about the People of the Book as an ummah (one community), the pope quotes the prayer of Jesus that “they may all be one” (John 17:21). Pope Francis says of dialogue with Muslims:

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In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.17

Yet, in practice and with the rise of xenophobia, human beings from different religious groups need to reach out to each other and understand the bridge-building verses from their sacred texts and listen to the pope, as there is a brewing crisis which affects the everyday lives of ordinary people who find themselves as “minorities” in certain contexts—Christians in Muslim-majority countries and Muslims in Christian-majority and secular countries.

Christianophobia and Islamophobia On Christianophobia, the Pope Francis speaks candidly: It’s true; I’m not going to soften my words, no. We Christians are being chased out of the Middle East. In some cases, as we have seen in Iraq, in the Mosul area, they have to leave or pay a tax which then makes no sense … in one country, a husband lives in one place and his wife in another … let the man come and live with his wife. … This is happening in several countries. It’s as if they wished that there were no more Christians, that nothing remains of Christianity. In that region this is happening. It’s true, it’s first of all a result of terrorism, but when it’s done diplomatically with white gloves, it’s because there’s something behind it. This is not good.18

The problem of a lack of acceptance is both local and global. Whereas the world seems to be on fire in regard to increasing hatred for “the Other,” many regions of the world are facing communal violence. In South Asia for a project on different religions, I attended Christmas Mass

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in 2017 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Karachi, following the footsteps of the leader of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who visited in 1947. I was deeply saddened when a few days earlier a church in Quetta was targeted by extremists, which killed nine people and injured many others. Pakistani Hindus told me that their young girls were abducted and forcibly converted to Islam by locals. It is worth noting that the people who do this are not in any way the best representatives of Islam, as such acts are truly against the message of the Prophet of Islam as reflected in his letter to the Christian monasteries above. Hindus, Christians, Zikris, Ahmedis, Parsis, Ba’hais, Muslims, Kalash, and others in South Asia and elsewhere in the world face discrimination and a lack of respect for liberty, life, and property where they are a minority. Meanwhile, throughout Europe and the US, there is growing hatred for certain groups, particularly Muslims, who face being scapegoated and stereotyped. In the worst cases, community members who dress in a way that fits the stereotype even lose their lives, as when an imam was stabbed in New York and a woman with a hijab had her headdress set on fire by racists who told her to go back home. Schoolchildren and even army officers who happen to be Muslim in today’s America face the brunt of racism and hatred as when an American sergeant told Muslim army officers under training to renounce Islam, and when they refused, they were tortured in a tumble dryer!19 There is growing Islamophobia, as the European Islamophobia Report 2015 repeatedly proves through extensive data and study based in ­different European countries.20 Pope Francis points out that there should always be a distinction between what a religion proposes and the concrete practice of that proposal by any specific government. “One may say: “I’m Muslim,” “I’m Jewish,” “I’m Christian.” But you don’t govern your country as Muslim or Jewish or Christian. There’s an abyss. The distinction must be made, because so often the name is used but the reality does not reflect what the religion says.”21

Women, Children, and Men: Victims of War and Torture In contemporary times, women and children are the first victims of war. With specific reference to Korea, the pope has pointed out: Koreans are a people who have not lost their dignity. As a people, they were invaded, humiliated, they experienced wars, now they are divided, with

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great suffering. Yesterday … I visited the Museum of the Martyrs. It is terrible, the suffering which those people endured, simply for refusing to trample on the cross! It is an historic pain or suffering. This is a people with the ability to suffer, and this too is part of their dignity. Today, there were these elderly women present at Mass. To think that in that invasion they were carried off as young girls into barracks to be used. … And they did not lose their dignity. Today they were there, as elderly women, the last ones remaining.22

Reflecting the crisis of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, news reports, WhatsApp Messenger images, and videos have exposed terrible crimes against Rohingya women committed by the Myanmar army in an effort of ethnic cleansing. There are newspaper reports of women being gang-­ raped by Burmese so-called security officers: They thrust their gun into women’s private parts and shoot. They ask them if they have given birth to Rohingya offspring and when the woman says yes, they pull the trigger. … One mother recounted how her five-year-old daughter was trying to protect her from rape when a [Burmese army] man “took out a long knife and killed her by slitting her throat.” In another case, an eight-month-old baby was killed while his mother was gang-raped by five security officers.23

A Pakistani Rohingya, who migrated at the time of partition during the 1940s, says in the same newspaper: “Our relatives [in Burma] say … this [new] wave of violence is to clear the land [we live on] so that new projects can be initiated.”24 During a research project in which I was involved, entitled Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2018) and led by Professor Akbar S. Ahmed, I walked through a sea of mass graves and heard the stories of Serbs savagely turning on innocent neighboring Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). Babies, as young as two days old, were murdered and men, as old as 95, were shot mercilessly. Pregnant mothers were beaten by drunken men in army boots until they bled and lost their babies through miscarriage. Fifty-thousand women and girls from 10 to 60 plus years of age were grouped together in former school halls and hotel rooms, which formed a network of 100 concentration camps, and were repeatedly raped by the Serbian army over

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a three-year period. These women were enslaved and terrorized, and the country was under brutal attack by an organized army whose mission, based on extreme cruelty, became to ethnically cleanse Bosnia of Bosniaks. Sitting amidst the sea of graves of the young and the old in Srebrenica and the nearby village of Potocari, a few hours from Sarajevo, I interviewed a “Mother of Srebrenica,” Hatidza Mehmedovic (the local spelling of Khadija Muhammad). Hatidza’s 2 young teenage sons and husband were forcefully separated from her, along with more than 8370 men from the village, and were brutally shackled with steel wires. They were forced to take off their clothes and dig their own graves—starving and naked. They were massacred by the Serb army, known as the Chetniks. The Chetniks “were fanatically devoted to the Serbian Orthodox Church, which actively promoted their activities” writes Sara Manisera in her 2016 Al Jazeera article “The Chetnik Priest: I’m still in a mood to kill”. The radical nationalist priest, Vojislav Carkic, who blessed the arms of those who terrorized, rampantly raped, and murdered thousands of civilians told Sara that he had “always been a soldier of Christ”. The priest, who before the war had been friends with an imam, openly admitted that his soldiers would get drunk day and night and some keep themselves on heroin, and he claims that he does not regret anything in his life as “everything was made by God”, he says and continues, “Whatever I have done so far, I would repeat again. But if you ask me if I have a soul, I’d say that I don’t anymore”. Among the thousands of innocent men, 50 male members of Hatidza’s family were slaughtered. Hatidza’s sister, with thousands of other young women, was a victim of rape. Hatidza said her sister has children from this terrible time but won’t ever talk about this deep pain. She added, with tears pouring down her cheeks: “Women went mad after what they experienced. I will not talk about this.” As a Muslim woman whose very identity is built on the concept of avoiding shame and maintaining haya (physical honor), it was worse than death. “Killed Souls” is the title of a sketch in the Bosniak Institute in Sarajevo painted by Mevludin Ekmecic which shows a young 12-year-old girl terribly abused by many soldiers in front of her parents and younger siblings. The subtitle reads, “I forgive you my life but save my dignity.” Hassan, our translator, recalled his own harrowing escape from Serb soldiers. When he was just a boy, Hassan ran alongside his twin brother and father through the woods for seven days and was, in his own words, “hunted like an animal” in the mountains. Sadly, he alone survived the open fire that ruthlessly and cruelly rained down upon them. Here were

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European Muslims being slaughtered in masses in the heart of Europe, and the Bosniaks themselves told our research team that the so-called neutral authorities in Europe at the time simply turned away at best and at worst encouraged the massacre. Pope Francis captures the human suffering caused by death and destruction: “Tears at so much devastation and ruin, past and present. … We weep out of a sense of helplessness in the face of injustice, murder, and the failure to settle conflicts through dialogue. … We mourn the wrongful and senseless loss of innocent lives because of the inability to find solutions which respect the common good.”25 In modern warfare, particularly in impoverished countries like Pakistan, Syria, Iraq and other places, I have often wondered how many innocent people have died alongside those who are targeted by bombs and drones. The pope highlights this too: I would like to reflect on two words. The first is cruelty. Today children don’t count! We used to speak of conventional wars; today, this does not count. I’m not saying that conventional wars are a good thing, of course not. But today a bomb is dropped and kills the innocent with the guilty, the child and the woman with him, his mother. … They kill everybody. But we need to stop and think a bit about the degree of cruelty at which we have arrived. This should frighten us! I don’t say this to create fear: one can make an empirical study. The degree of mankind’s cruelty is presently frightening. The other word on which I would like to reflect, and which is related to this, is torture. Today, torture is an almost, I would say, ordinary means used in intelligence work, in trials. … And torture is a sin against humanity, it is a crime against humanity. And to Catholics, I say: to torture a person is a mortal sin; it is a grave sin, but even more, it is a sin against humanity. Cruelty and torture. I would like it very much if you, in your media, would reflect on these things.26

On Conservatism and the Need for Dialogue In his quest for peace, the pope is inclusive in his stance, even toward those who are seemingly too conservative. It is important to remember that all people are on a journey in life and it is unfair to judge someone at one moment in time based on their ideas at that particular moment, as ideas are constantly evolving and developing. In reading some of Pope Francis’s ideas, I learned that it is important not to be impatient with those in our own faiths who criticize us or our stance for being “too

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i­nclusive” of others and therefore “too liberal” or “too compromising.” Reflecting on his childhood, Pope Francis says: When I was a child, some seventy years ago, all Protestants were going to hell, all of them. That’s what we were told. And I remember my first experience of ecumenism. I told it a little while ago to the leaders of the Salvation Army. I was four or five years old, but I can still remember it clearly. I was walking down the street with my grandmother, she was holding my hand. On the other sidewalk there were two ladies from the Salvation Army, with those hats with the bow they used to wear. And I asked my grandmother: “Grandma, are they nuns?” And she said to me: “No, they are Protestants, but they are good people.” This was the first time that I had ever heard someone say something good about a person of another religion, about a Protestant. At that time, in catechesis, they told us that everyone was going to hell! But I believe that the Church has become much more respectful—as I said during the interreligious meeting in Colombo—and appreciative. When we read what the Second Vatican Council said about the values to be found in other religions, the Church has grown greatly in this regard. And yes, there are dark periods in the history of the Church, we must admit, without being ashamed, because we too are on a path of constant conversion: always moving from sin to grace. And this interreligious experience of fraternity, each always respecting the other, is a grace.27

Irene Hernández Velasco said to Pope Francis: “I wanted to ask about your historic bow yesterday in front of the Patriarch of Constantinople. I wanted to especially know your thoughts on confronting the criticism of those who perhaps do not understand these gestures of openness, those who in particular are slightly ultraconservative, who are always looking with suspicion on these gestures of openness.” Pope Francis replied: Allow me to say that this is not just our problem. It is also their [the Orthodox] problem. They have the problem of certain monks in various monasteries going down this path. For example, one problem that has been discussed since the time of Blessed Paul VI was the date of Easter. And we still don’t agree! Because having it on the first moon, after 14 Nisan, runs the risk that in time our great-grandchildren will celebrate it in August! We must try. … Blessed Paul VI proposed establishing a date, a Sunday in April, which everyone agrees on. Bartholomew, for example, was courageous [and] in Finland, he said to the small Orthodox community, “Celebrate Easter with the Lutherans, on the Lutheran date,” so that in a country with a Christian minority there aren’t two Easters. Even the Eastern Catholics. …

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One time while I was eating on Via della Scrofa, I heard … the Catholic Church was preparing for Easter and there was an Eastern Catholic who said: “Oh no, our Christ rose one month later! Your Christ rises today?” And the other said: “Your Christ is my Christ.” The date of Easter is important. There is resistance to this, on their part and on ours.28

Of course, this problem of everyone clamoring for their version and ideas of religion as most authentic is not limited to Christianity alone. In the Muslim world, Muslims have several Eids, in Pakistan, the people of the Province of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa celebrate Eid on a different date to that of the rest of the country, there are also several different ways and ideas on how to be Muslim, on how to dress and eat, and so forth. This reminds me of a story as told by Rumi: A man gives one coin to be spent among four people. The Persian says, “I want angur.” The Arab says, “Inab, you rascal.” The Turk, “Uzum!” The Greek, “Shut up all of you. We’ll have istafil.” They begin pushing each other, then hitting with fists, no stopping it. If a many languaged master had been there, He could have made peace and told them, I can give each of you the grapes you want with this one coin. Trust me. Keep quiet, and you four enemies will agree.29

Pope Francis reminds us to be patient not just with people of other faiths who disagree with us, but also with those within our own faith who are sure they know it better: These conservative groups … we must be respectful towards them and we must not tire of explaining, catechizing, and discussing without insulting, badmouthing, or gossiping. Because you cannot dismiss someone by saying “He is a conservative.” No. He is a child of God just as much as I am. But come and we’ll talk. If he doesn’t want to speak, that’s his problem, but I am respectful. Patience, meekness, and dialogue.30

Indeed, this is a strong and wise message for people of all faiths; in the words of Pope Francis there is much to learn for all of us, particularly in the field of dialogue.

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Solutions: Dialogue, Reaching Out, and Prayer In Social Dialogue as a Contribution to Peace, the question is asked “What is dialogue?”31 The pope says: “To promote full human development and to pursue the common good,” dialogue must be held with states, society, cultures, and sciences and “with other believers who are not part of the Catholic Church.” This is because, as the pope states, Jesus “is himself peace (cf. Ephesians 2:14)” and that “the new evangelization calls on every baptized person to be a peacemaker,”32 thus making, in theory, every Christian a peacemaker—as is, in theory, every Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Sikh, Ba’hai, Parsi, Buddhist, and so forth. So then, why do members of each of these faiths practice violence toward others? Is it in the DNA of human beings? The first man born on earth, Cain, killed his brother Abel because of his envy for his wife. Some may say it is Satan at work, others that it is the weakness of human thought and flesh. The overriding question is how can we live together in peaceful coexistence while holding different worldviews and enter the path to understanding God via different perspectives and journeys of faith. In today’s world of chaos, where the Third World War is being fought in some parts of our world, Pope Francis affirms: Dialogue is not a luxury. It is essential, something which our world, wounded by conflict and division, increasingly needs … in an increasingly interdependent world, we see ever more clearly the need for interreligious understanding, friendship, and collaboration in defending the God-given dignity of individuals and peoples, and their right to live in freedom and happiness. By upholding respect for that dignity and those rights, the religions play an essential role in forming consciences, instilling in the young the profound spiritual values of our respective traditions, and training good citizens, capable of infusing civil society with honesty, integrity, and a world view which values the human person over power and material gain.33

Given that we are in such crisis, dialogue therefore is a necessity and in order to engage in dialogue we must reach out. The pope shares his own experience: When the new Turkish Ambassador to the Holy See came to deliver his Letters of Credence, over a month and a half ago, I saw an exceptional man before me, a man of profound piety. The President of that office was of the same school. They said something beautiful: They said: “Right now it seems

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like interreligious dialogue has come to an end. We need to take a qualitative leap, so that interreligious dialogue is not merely: ‘What do you think about this?’ We need to take this qualitative leap, we need to bring about a dialogue between religious figures of different faiths. This is a beautiful thing: men and women who meet other men and women and share experiences. We are not just talking about theology but religious experience. And this would be a beautiful step forward, beautiful.”34

Dialogue breaks down divisions, as Pope Francis rightly points out: “I repeat forcefully: it is neither a culture of confrontation nor a culture of conflict which builds harmony within and between peoples, but rather a culture of encounter and a culture of dialogue; this is the only way to peace.”35 When looking back at his journey to Turkey, Pope Francis described himself as a pilgrim. He acknowledged the generosity of Turkey in giving refuge to one million refugees and thanked them publicly. The pope went to Turkey to celebrate with Patriarch Bartholomew and said: When I entered the Mosque, I couldn’t say: now, I’m a tourist! No, it was completely religious. And I saw that wonder! The Mufti explained things very well to me, with such meekness, and using the Qur’an, which speaks of Mary and John the Baptist. He explained it all to me. … At that moment I felt the need to pray. So I asked him: “Shall we pray a little?” To which he responded: “Yes, yes.” I prayed for Turkey, for peace, for the Mufti, for everyone and for myself, as I need it. … I prayed, sincerely. … Most of all, I prayed for peace, and I said: “Lord, let’s put an end to these wars!” Thus, it was a moment of sincere prayer. Unity is a journey we have to take, but we need to do it together. This is spiritual ecumenism: praying together, working together. There are so many works of charity, so much work. … Teaching together. … Moving forward together.36

Understanding God Through Love, Not Fear “The God whom we seek to serve is a God of peace. His holy Name must never be used to justify hatred and violence,” said the pope in 2015.37 Rabbi Jonathan Sacks also speaks of God as the God of Love whose name must never be used to justify violence.38 God, in Islam, is the Wadud (Beloved); He is Rab (Lord, Sustainer, Cherisher, Master, Nourisher), and we understand him through love, not fear. Yet there are others who see God through fear and use hell as a threat in order to do what they think religion tells us to do.

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In 2013 Pope Francis said of our understanding of ourselves in relation to the charity and good works God, through His nature of love and care, encourages the true believer to do: There is much that we can do to benefit the poor, the needy and those who suffer, and to favour justice, promote reconciliation and build peace. But before all else we need to keep alive in our world the thirst for the absolute, and to counter the dominance of a one-dimensional vision of the human person, a vision which reduces human beings to what they produce and to what they consume: this is one of the most insidious temptations of our time.39

But he does not exclude atheists in the tasks which confront us: We also sense our closeness to all those men and women who, although not identifying themselves as followers of any religious tradition, are nonetheless searching for truth, goodness, and beauty, the truth. … They are our valued allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building a peaceful coexistence between peoples, and in safeguarding and caring for creation.40

The Future of Interreligious Dialogue Lies in Respectful Coexistence in a Society of Diversity The Vatican City, on 28 November 2013 (VIS), stated the need to promote friendship between people of different faiths because of the interconnectedness of our world and because of migration which brings people of different religions and cultures in contact: An attitude of openness in truth and in love must characterize the dialogue with the followers of non-Christian religions, in spite of various obstacles and difficulties, especially forms of fundamentalism on both sides … [in fact,] there is no lack, throughout the world, of contexts in which ­co-­existence is difficult: often political or economic motives overlap with cultural and religious differences, exploiting misunderstandings and past mistakes: all this risks generating diffidence and fear. There is only one route to conquering this fear, and it is encounter, characterized by friendship and respect.41

A few, not all, Muslims, whom I know, have argued with me that interfaith dialogue is diluting faith. In fact, I concur with the pope that:

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Dialogue does not mean renouncing one’s own identity in approaching others, nor does it mean accepting compromises on faith. … On the contrary, “true openness involves remaining steadfast in one’s deepest convictions, clear and joyful in one’s own identity,” and therefore convinced that the encounter with persons different to ourselves may offer an opportunity for growth in brotherhood, enrichment and witness.42

Constructive dialogue between people of different religious traditions also helps overcome fear, which we unfortunately find in the most strongly secularized societies: the fear of the various religious traditions and of the religious dimension as such. There is a widespread belief that coexistence would be possible only by concealing one’s own religious identity, encountering one another in a sort of neutral space, without references to the transcendent. However, how is it possible to create true relations, to build a society that is an authentic communal home, imposing that its members set aside an intimate part of their being? Certainly it is necessary that all this occurs with respect for the convictions of others, even those who do not believe, but we must have the courage and the patience to encounter and come toward each other as we are. This, too, is a challenge for Muslims generally who must realize their religious identity and take it along in a positive way in a context when their religion is under attack by Islamophobes. Recently, I have been involved in dialogue with the Abu Dhabi Peace Forum and with Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID)—both initiated by Muslims, both promoting peaceful dialogue and coexistence, and both challenging extremism and terrorism and challenging Islamophobia.43 The pope concludes: The future is in respectful co-existence in diversity, not in the uniformity of a single theoretically neutral thought. The recognition of the fundamental right to religious freedom, in all its dimensions, therefore becomes indispensable. … We are convinced that this is the route to building peace in the world.44

Conclusion: Hope, Unity, and Peace At Ground Zero in New York City, where thousands of people of all faiths, including Christians and Muslims, died on 11 September 2001, Pope Francis pointed out that:

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This place of death became a place of life too, a place of saved lives, a hymn to the triumph of life over the prophets of destruction and death, to goodness over evil, to reconciliation and unity over hatred and division. In opposing every attempt to create a rigid uniformity, we can and must build unity on the basis of our diversity of languages, cultures and religions, and lift our voices against everything which would stand in the way of human unity. Together we are called to say “no” to every attempt to impose uniformity and “yes” to diversity accepted and reconciled. This can only happen if we uproot from our hearts all feelings of hatred, vengeance and resentment. We know that that is only possible as a gift from heaven. Let us implore from on high the gift of commitment to the cause of peace. Peace in our homes, our families, our schools and our communities. Peace in all those places where war never seems to end. Peace for those faces which have known nothing but pain. Peace throughout this world which God has given us as the home of all and a home for all. Simply PEACE. (a moment of silence) In this way, the lives of our dear ones will not be lives which will one day be forgotten. Instead, they will be present whenever we strive to be prophets not of tearing down but of building up, prophets of reconciliation, prophets of peace.45

Pope Francis reminds us of our journey in life: We must never forget that we are pilgrims journeying alongside one another. This means that we must have sincere trust in our fellow pilgrims, putting aside all suspicion or mistrust, and turn our gaze to what we are all seeking: the radiant peace of God’s face. Trusting others is an art and peace is an art. Jesus told us: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9).46

When Pope Francis points out that others’ lives, including Muslims, can be “a gift for us,”47 he urges us “to accept others and their different ways of living, thinking, and speaking.”48 The pope speaks wisely when he states that we must work together toward “the goal of a just, responsive, and inclusive society”49 and we must especially include the young so that our present and future are secure and more peaceful. One of the ways to work toward a peaceful and more inclusive world is not only to empathize with people of other faiths and cultures but also to step into their shoes. The pope did this on two occasions. The first was when he washed the feet of female Muslim refugees who had been rejected by humanity and had traveled through hardship to get to Europe where some were hostile in accepting them. Yet, the pope bent down on his

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knees and washed and kissed their tired feet. This was a great act of humility in the footsteps of Jesus. The second outstanding incident was when Pope Francis went to meet the Rohingya Muslim refugees—no country in the world has accepted them—yet he begged their forgiveness on behalf of humanity. For me, both acts of compassion and mercy reflect the characteristics of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who was very kind to orphans and women and was called Rahmat al Alamin (Mercy unto  all of creation). In this way, the acts of mercy shown by the pope connect to that of my own faith. I want to, therefore, echo the words of Pope Francis when he says we must “love and protect … the whole of creation.” Let me end by reinforcing the pope’s words, “Let us continue to pray for peace in the world.”50

Notes 1. Mirnes Kovac, “A Prayer for Islamic Holocaust?” Huffington Post (15 November 2017). 2. This story was told to me in Islamabad by His Excellency Msgr. Ghaleb Bader who served as the Apostolic Nuncio in Pakistan from 2015 to 2017. 3. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267. 4. In-flight press conference of His Holiness Pope Francis from Istanbul to Rome, 30 November 2014. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/ en/speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_ turchia-conferenza-stampa.html. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. See Surah 23, v. 52; Surah 42, v. 13. 8. http://www.muslimsforpeace.org/holy_prophet/the-covenant/. 9. For one example of tribal customs versus religious practices, see my book, Sorrow and Joy Among Muslim Women: The Pukhtuns of Northern Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 10. Muhammad Buaben, Image of the Prophet Muhammad in the West: A Study of Muir, Margoliouth, and Watt (Leicestershire, UK: Kube Publishing LTD, 1996), 7. 11. Ibid., 9. 12. Ibid., 10. 13. Ibid., 16. 14. Audience with Representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of the Different Religions, Address of the Holy Father Pope Francis, 20 March 2013, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/

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speeches/2013/march/documents/papa-francesco_20130320_delegatifraterni.html. 15. Evangelii Gaudium, 252, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_exhor tations/documents/papa-francesco_esor tazioneap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#_ftnref198. 16. Ibid. 17. Evangelii Gaudium, 253. 18. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa. html. 19. Akbar Ahmed, “Muslims in Trump’s America,” Daily Times (6 January 2018). 20. http://www.islamophobiaeurope.com/reports/2015/en/EIR_2015. pdf. 21. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa. pdf. 22. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Republic of Korea on the Occasion of the 6th Asian Youth Day, 13–18 August 2014, https:// w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/august/documents/papa-francesco_20140818_corea-conferenza-stampa.html. 23. Ahmed Yusuf, “The Rohingya of Pakistan,” DAWN, Updated 17 September 2017, https://www.dawn.com/news/1357828. 24. Ibid. 25. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Cuba, to the United States of America and Visit to the United Nations Headquarters (19–28 September 2015), https://m.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2015/september/documents/papa-francesco_20150925_usaground-zero.html. 26. Apostolic Journey to the Republic of Korea, August 2014, https://w2. vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/august/documents/ papa-francesco_20140818_corea-conferenza-stampa.html. 27. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Sri Lanka and the Philippines, 12–19 January 2015, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/januar y/documents/papa-francesco_20150115_srilanka-filippine-incontro-giornalisti.html. 28. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Turkey, 28–30 November 2014, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa.html. 29. Coleman Barks, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2001), 51.

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30. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Turkey, 28–30 November 2014, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa.html. 31. Gaudium Evangelii, 238, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_exhor tations/documents/papa-francesco_esor tazioneap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#_ftnref198. 32. Ibid., 239. 33. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic, 25–30 November 2015, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/november/documents/ papa-francesco_20151126_kenya-incontro-interreligioso.html 34. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Turkey, 28–30 November 2014, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa.html. 35. Angelus Address, 1 September 2013, https://w2.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/angelus/2013/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20130901.html. 36. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Turkey, 28–30 November 2014, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_20141130_turchia-conferenza-stampa.html. 37. Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic, 25–30 November 2015, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/november/documents/ papa-francesco_20151126_kenya-incontro-interreligioso.html. 38. Jonathan Sacks, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence (New York City: Schocken Books, 2015). 39. Audience with Representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of the Different Religions, 20 March 2013, https://w2.vatican.va/ content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/march/documents/papa-francesco_20130320_delegati-fraterni.html. 40. Ibid. 41. The Future of Interreligious Dialogue Lies in Respectful Co-Existence in Diversity, Vatican City, 28 November 2013, VIS. 42. Ibid. 43. Amineh Hoti, “Promoting Peace in the Muslim World,” Daily Times (31 January 2018), https://dailytimes.com.pk/192194/promoting-peacemuslim-world/. 44. Vatican City, 28 November 2013, VIS.

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45. Interreligious meeting address of the Holy Father. Ground Zero Memorial, New York City, 25 September 2015. 46. Evangelii Gaudium, 244, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_exhor tations/documents/papa-francesco_esor tazioneap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#_ftnref198. 47. Ibid., 246. 48. Ibid., 250. 49. Ibid., 239. 50. Address of Pope Francis to participants in the International Meeting for Peace organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio, 30 September 2013. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130930_incontro-pace-s-egidio.html.

CHAPTER 8

Pope Francis, Islam, and Dialogue Ataullah Siddiqui

“The Center of Each Person Is Outside of Himself ”1

At a reception organized by Sheikh Allahshukur Pashazade, the Mufti of Azerbaijan, Pope Francis expressed the thought-provoking words quoted above. What the pope is saying, as I read it, is that our identity and our uniqueness can only be validated by the people around us. This is true at the individual level, but it is equally applicable at the collective level. At the same event, the pope also remarked that “we are oriented towards the Most High and towards the other, who is our neighbor.” This sentiment also reflects what is expressed in the October 2007 open letter from 138 Muslim leaders and scholars, entitled A Common Word Between Us and You: The Love of God and Love of Your Neighbor.2 These concepts are central to our understanding of an upright relationship with God in our prayers and supplications and what we may call our personal spiritual relationship with God. On another level, our relationship is an interconnected relationship to our fellow human beings and to our environment. The message is clear: to reach the Most High, one must

A. Siddiqui (*) Markfield Institute of Higher Education, Markfield, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_8

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go through the empathies, the pain, and sufferings of people, as well as the joy and happiness of his creation around us. In doing so we recognize the other and our unique ability to relate to others and so find meaning, security, and mutual assurances. The spirit of connecting with the Most High and his creation goes hand in hand with the pope’s vision of serving God. A separation of the two is not possible. If people wish to see a faithful community serving God and serving his creation around us, they must connect the two. In that spirit, the pope’s encyclical Evangelii Gaudium provides significant motivation when he says: I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures. If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life. (EG, 49)

Talking about inequality as being a direct result of economic exclusion of the people, he further states, “those are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised—they are no longer even a part of it.” The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers” (EG, 53). This is a pope who declared at his inauguration that he would like a Church “that is poor and for the poor.” Contrary to the usual practices of the Vatican, such as the celebration of the Last Supper at St. Peter’s Basilica and washing the feet of priests, he decided to go to a youth prison where he washed the feet of some inmates, including, for the first time, those of a woman and a Muslim. Pope Francis certainly wants to leave a lasting impact from his papacy. Only time will tell how this former bouncer will be able to “bounce” his powerful critique within and outside the Vatican.3

Context Let me initially make two observational points prior to developing the discussion. First, over the years, a series of popes who have ascended to the throne of Peter have come from Europe, particularly from Italy, as well as

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from Poland and Germany. The latest pope is from Argentina. It is noticeable that, prior to becoming pope, some of them had had contact with members of another faith, especially with the Jewish community. Karol Wojtyla’s classmate, Jerzy Kluger, was a Jew, and the two of them had a long-lasting friendship. It is said that this friendship was “revolutionary” and that the future pope “learned a lot about Judaism” from him.4 Such friendships shape perceptions and change minds, and in the case of Pope Saint John Paul II, it had a great impact on the relationship between Jews and Catholics. Jorge Mario Bergoglio formed a lasting friendship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka in Argentina. The conversations between the two on various religious and social issues are helpfully recorded.5 Such a close long-term friendship was almost nonexistent with Muslims. It took hundreds of years to have a pope from South America, and it is difficult to imagine a similar relationship emerging between a Muslim and a future pope. It will probably take another few hundred years to have a pope who has lived and worked among Muslims in Asian or African countries. The only pope who possibly had meaningful contact with Muslims was Pope John XXIII. However, he lived during a time in Turkey when that country had adopted secularism as state policy and was going through a period of major adjustment. Europe was also going through a tumultuous period of war, and we therefore know very little about Pope John’s theological explorations with Muslims in Turkey. Secondly, in the atmosphere that the pope, the Church, and Muslim communities live in, it is difficult to see clearly through the current “fog of war,” violence, and crisis over refugees. The requirement from a news-­ hungry, 24-hour social media for the pope to respond instantly to events is a demanding job, putting pressure on maintaining sanity. It seems that the pope has kept his sanity even in the harshest circumstances. One such example was in the wake of the murderous attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, after which the pope reportedly said that anyone who insults a religion could expect “a punch in the nose.” As Francis said, in talking to Alberto Gasparri, a Vatican official: “If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother he can expect a punch in the nose.”6 He further stated that this is normal: “You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.” He considers such people to be “provocateur.”7 He puts God and moral values at the center of the rejuvenation of social order.

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As a further example, when speaking about Albania’s past, with regard to any attempt “to remove God from society,” he stressed that “it ends up adoring idols, and very soon men and women lose their way, their dignity is trampled and their rights violated.”8 While he places significant importance on the challenge of poverty and its causes, he believes that “moral reconstruction” should take priority, followed by “economic reconstruction.”9 Given his views on such issues with regard to the centrality of faith in public life, using a moral compass will remain at the heart of his papacy.

Dialogue Pope Francis places special emphasis on inter-religious and intercultural dialogue. Once, he remarked: When leaders in various fields ask me for advice, my response is always the same: dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. The only way for individuals, families and societies to grow, the only way for the life of peoples to progress, is via the culture of encounter, a culture in which all have something good to give and all can receive something good in return … today, either we take the risk of dialogue, we risk the culture of encounter, or we all fall; this is the path that will bear fruit.10

This is a seemingly different approach to dialogue; certainly, it could be said to be a divergence in emphasis compared to Pope Francis’s predecessors, particularly Saint John Paul II. In his encyclical Redemptoris Missio, John Paul had suggested a closer link between the mission and dialogue. The encyclical states: “The Church sees no conflict between proclaiming Christ and enjoying inter-religious dialogue. Instead she feels the need to link the two in the context of her mission Ad Gentes.”11 This created a problem among those who believe that dialogue is primarily a human concern and that mission—as we understand it—is not the major objective of the Redemptoris Missio. They found themselves somewhat surprised when further explanation was given in the encyclical Dialogue and Proclamation. This was a joint effort of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to resolve the issue of the tension between dialogue and mission. It stated that the Church’s purpose, in dialogue, could be of human concern, but dialogue is not the Church’s primary purpose. It declares that “inter-religious dialogue and proclamation, though on the same level, are both authentic

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elements of the Church’s evangelizing mission.”12 It affirms that both are “legitimate and necessary.” However, they are “intimately related, but not interchangeable.”13 The encyclical Redemptoris Missio highlighted the fact that both activities, based on the Church’s experiences at a local level, can be conducted by one and the same person. Hence, it created a tension in that a priest of a local church could be a priest of dialogue and at the same time a priest of mission. Based on his living experiences in South America, Pope Francis places far more emphasis on dialogue. For him it is about peace and justice. He suggests that these two elements should form the basis of dialogue and perhaps the partnership between faiths: Interreligious dialogue is a necessary condition for peace in the world, and so it is a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities. This dialogue is in the first place a conversation about human existence or simply, as the bishops of India have put it, a matter of “being open to them, sharing their joys and sorrows.” In this way we learn to accept others and their different ways of living, thinking and speaking. We can then join one another in taking up the duty of serving justice and peace, which should become a basic principle of all our exchanges. A dialogue which seeks social peace and justice is in itself beyond all merely practical considerations, an ethical commitment which brings about a new social situation, a process in which, by mutual listening, both parts can be purified and enriched. These efforts, therefore, can also express love for truth.14

There is much to commend in this account of dialogue. Yet in the paragraph immediately following this one, Pope Francis fails to cut the umbilical cord between mission and dialogue: preferring the term “evangelization” to “mission,” he states that they are not in opposition but that they “mutually support one another.” This somewhat undermines confidence for the future of dialogue. The pope is not impressed by the ceremonial dialogue that he calls diplomatic openness, a dialogue that says “yes” to everything. Here, one may find allies in support of his views. Over the years, a sustained monologue has been conducted under the banner of dialogue. Participants shower praise on each other and share jam and juice but do not expect commitment of action from partners in dialogue. Furthermore, when dialogue has been conducted for the nicety of the occasion, but with no anticipation of working or engaging in a meaningful way, then the dialogue loses its value. As a result, the inherent misperceptions of others

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remain unchallenged, the value of exploring the otherness of the other remains undiscovered, and the commitment to change society remains untouched. Islam makes an appearance in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium in a very positive way in paragraphs 252–253, which are written in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and refer to Lumen Gentium.15 Nonetheless, the document remains a Christocentric one and Muslims should not expect otherwise. Evangelii Gaudium praises the daily Muslim prayers, performed by old and young and men and women, for their “deep conviction that their life, in its entirety, is from God and for God.” Interestingly, it further suggests that the Islamic scripture “retained some Christian teachings.”16 While the encyclical admires Muslim beliefs concerning Jesus and Mary in the spirit of Nostra Aetate, it repeats the mistake that Muslims venerate Jesus and Mary.17 The encyclical reminds us that the presence of Islam in traditionally Christian countries is now part of society and urges its followers to look at the commonality between the two faiths, but, more appropriately, it urges Christian followers to “embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries” (EG, 253). This is a bold statement from the pope and he goes further by asking people not to equate abhorrence of today’s “violent fundamentalism” pursued by some Muslims with “hateful generalizations” of Islam, and he urges the proper reading of the Qur’an.18 However, the pope has faced some serious criticism from among his own Church’s fanatical fundamentalists who are against Islam.19 In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis raises a serious issue with Muslims. He remarks: “I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to participate in their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries!” (EG, 253). This is a genuine appeal that requires a serious response. However, it needs to be divided into two parts. The first part is that Christians should be granted, without even asking, their own right to worship and to have places of worship in any Muslim country. This is especially so when set against the backdrop of Prophet Muhammad’s example that allowed a delegation of Christians with their bishops to perform their religious services in his own mosque in Madina. Christians in various settings have previously raised issues such as this—for example, in 1976, in Chambésy, Switzerland, at a dialogue hosted by the World Council of Churches on the theme of “Christian Mission and Islamic Dawah.” Both Muslims and Christians agreed that such an act is contrary to the Islamic spirit. They unanimously

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stated at the conference that they were “grieved to hear that some Christians in some Muslim countries have felt themselves limited in the exercise their religious freedom and have been denied their right to church buildings. The Muslim participants regard such violation as contrary to Islamic law as well as to the principle of religious freedom…”20 It is interesting to note that both the pope’s exhortation and the Chambésy statement appeal to Muslim governments. But Muslim populations have little meaningful input into the governance of their countries. Occasionally, some Muslim governments have been keen to show their dialogue credentials—even more so in the post-9/11 world—by spending millions of dollars; yet at home, basic rights for their minorities have been ignored. As far as the ordinary Muslim populace is concerned, perhaps they would be broadly content to have places of worship, a church or prayer halls, in areas where Christians need them. The other part of the pope’s remark is a little more difficult to follow. The pope asks that rights of worship should be granted “in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries!”21 This is the idea of reciprocity, but it is not something new. Some 20 years ago, the Islam in Europe Committee, a joint committee organized by the Conference of European Churches (CEC [Protestant]) and the Consilium Conferentiarum Episcopalium Europae (CCEE, Council of European Bishops’ Conferences [Eng.] [Roman Catholic]), floated the idea of reciprocity.22 But is the language of reciprocity an appropriate basis for living together? Both the Bible and the Qur’an demand from their followers that they “conquer evil with good” (Romans 12:21) and “remove evil by doing good” (Qur’an 41:34). The danger of reciprocity is that it could easily be turned into a language of tit for tat.

Justice and Dignity Pope Francis has consistently reminded his Church and others about the issues of justice, the dignity of human beings, and the environment. He has created a new dicastery (department of the Roman curia) with a wide-­ ranging brief focusing substantially on migrants and directly responsible to the pope. He has also instructed this body to collaborate with ­non-­Catholic institutions to make practical differences—that its research and work should permeate the system and bear fruit at a grassroots level. The pope has also placed this office under the leadership of Cardinal Peter Turkson from Ghana.23 Furthermore, Pope Francis has a firm conviction that

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“Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.”24 He encourages others, even outside the Church, to look for common ground. Over the years, various charities, both Muslim and Christian, have cooperated in relief work. Particularly during times of serious emergency, they have cooperated on issues such as the Ebola virus and other humanitarian works relating to human trafficking.25 Such cooperation should continue, and all signs are that it will. However, there is an issue about the theological transformation of understanding. How can one see the other as an ally in a common struggle against social injustice? An Indian Catholic missiologist, Michael Amaladoss, discusses the issue of justice and dignity among the poor in a new framework relating to mission. Referring to the current economic imbalances in the world and its predatory nature, he suggests that the Church should find new ways of challenging Mammon: We will not solve such questions without a real experience of working with other believers in our common fight with Mammon. Praxis must precede theory. Then we may discover that Christ is present, enabling the people, wherever the power of Mammon is challenged. Our mission to witness to this presence does not allow us to claim exclusive rights to it. What is more post-modern than such an experience of pluralism and a call to dialogue in the context of mutual respect and collaboration?26

Amaladoss’s appeal for mutual respect and collaboration also places a demand on other faiths such as Islam. It requires introspection and enquiry to find a new meaning for witness. We are living in a plural society with multiple identities. It demands a response from Muslims and Christians as to the meaning of our callings. We are living in a situation not simply of plurality of religions and multiple identities but of plurality of missions and dawah (call). Against this backdrop, what we need is a reexamination of our respective theologies. It is important to recognize that there is an obligation for Christians and Muslims to “co-witness.” The Islamo-­ Christian tradition still holds a great moral energy. What is required is to preach the Kingdom of God—a mission toward God—and in Islam a ­perception of dawah il-allah (a call toward God).27 The sense of injustice also requires a joint crafting of a social and moral framework that anchors us in the Divine and heals the wounded.

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The Place of the Prophet of Islam One of the issues that has been a challenge to both the Catholic Church and Muslims is the centrality of the Prophet Muhammad. Over the years, the subject has featured as an intra-Christian debate. During the twentieth century, Metropolitan George Khodr of Lebanon (of the Melkite tradition) looked at the issue of the Prophet Muhammad through the lens of an Arab. He viewed the prophet as being an Arab prophet who shaped the Arabian Peninsula and created a sociopolitical structure that included the Jews and Christians in its mission. But theologically this may have contradicted his opponents’ assessments and beliefs. However, for Khodr this is not a major issue. Although Muhammad rejected some core Christian and Jewish beliefs, for Khodr the significance of the prophet for Christians is twofold: first, its unwavering connection with an Arab patriarch— Abraham—and, second, that the rise of Islam within the Arab milieu secured Arab society and perhaps universalized it. Louis Massignon (d.1962) was a distinguished French Catholic whose thinking influenced the Catholic Church with regard to the understanding of Islam and also influenced the Second Vatican Council, even after his death. His deep connection with Islamic spirituality resulted in a close kinship between Christians and Muslims. For Massignon, Prophet Muhammad was prophet in a sense that “he was a witness, the Voice which cries in the desert, the final separation of the good from the evil, the witness of separations.”28 He argued against the old supposition of Muhammad being a “false prophet.”29 For him, Prophet Muhammad was a prophet in a sense that he foretold the second coming of Jesus. For Massignon, the Qur’anic idea of Jesus having the knowledge or being a sign of the Hour (43:61) attracted him the most. Secondly, like Khodr, he too placed great emphasis on the common heritage of the patriarch Abraham. He saw God’s transcendent meanings in Muhammad’s ministry, especially in the Qur’an’s affinity to the Virgin Mary. He highlighted the Church’s unfairness in the exclusion of the prophet from Abraham’s Promise.30 Massignon was not simply an advocate of Christian-Muslim relations (although these were words that he never uttered) but, rather, an advocate of justice. Hans Küng, a Swiss Catholic, is an influential theologian who left a mark on both Christianity and the Christian understanding of other faiths. He knows that any Christian understanding of Islam and the prophet will always be set against the background of past encounters and contemporary relations between Islam and the West.31 He finds Islam and Christianity

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as an interwoven religious movement and that Muhammad exercised a kind of creativeness upon Christianity that had been Westernized by overdependence on Hellenistic councils. He wished to rehabilitate Muhammad into a Christian theological setting through the prism of the Old Testament. From seven parallels, Küng concludes that for “the people of Arabia and finally far and beyond, Muhammad truly was and is the religious reformer, the Prophet.”32 These theological narratives are essential to show that there are strong voices within the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in other Christian denominations, whose thoughts regarding Muhammad are much more inclusive than has often been the case. They, and others, accept the central role that the prophet played in his society, providing both a religious reinterpretation of Abrahamic tradition and an anchoring in Abraham the common ancestor. Whether the Catholic Church will accept Muhammad as being aligned with the prophetic chain linking him through the Old Testament is too early to say. However, the question of unjustified assaults on Prophet Muhammad could be addressed by the Church, and for that, one does not need to wait for a Third Vatican Council. No doubt, the Second Vatican Council was a huge leap forward in the Church’s relationship with Muslims, with other faiths in general, and with Judaism in particular. The Council states that it is time for us “to forget the past,” and urges that a sincere effort be made to “achieve mutual understanding.” However, when the Council was in session, Muslims in France wrote to the Council with a request “to officially disavow” (to quote Muhammad Hamidullah) “and declare annulled the [Church’s] past unjustifiable resolutions of former Councils, Synods and other writings of anti-Islamic character.”33 Central to all of this is the attack on Prophet Muhammad. Would the pope be able or willing to say something as part of his future encyclical to rectify the past?

Conclusion Pope Francis has brought a fresh outlook during his papacy, a papacy that opens more opportunities for cooperation and action than perhaps previously anticipated. His emphasis on dialogue as a means of growing and creating progress is something that other faith communities should welcome. The call from the pope is that Christian individuals and institutions, in the pursuit of justice and dignity, require refocusing to find meaning outside the confinement of the Catholic Church, which he so eloquently states will win hearts and minds. We inhabit a world where the economic

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system that allows goods and services to be moved away from the poor to the rich, and where only a select few are permitted to cross the secure borders of nations, has created a multitude of mass-poor in the world. The mass-poor have been dehumanized by consumerist demands and oppressive politics. In this light, there is a case for Christians and Muslims to revisit their theologies and search for a meaningful “co-witness” in a world that cries out for greater justice. This essay has also raised another important issue relating to the nature of the Prophet Muhammad, an issue that has provoked in the recent past a huge crisis both inside and outside the Catholic Church. It is an issue that, in a way, is left over from the Second Vatican Council, the Council that shied away from naming him in the document. We are not at a point where a theological relocation of Muhammad has been called for; rather, a clear statement from the Church to dissociate itself from its past remarks on the prophet has been strongly requested. Theological relocation may come later once substantial trust has been built between the two communities. Such consideration is part of a continuous dialogue between the Church and Muslims—a significant point because a better relationship is essential. To quote David Kerr, for the Church to “affirm Muhammad as prophet is not to give unqualified approval to Islam as religion. Rather, it is to affirm that his option for the poor/mustad’afun constitutes, in Islamic terms, a prophet’s eschatological function in denouncing injustice within his own religious culture in order to advance the process of liberation and make real the Kingdom of God.”34 In this respect, we find our uniqueness can only have a meaning if the other recognizes equally, in turn, the otherness of the other.

Notes 1. Pope Francis spoke during a meeting with the region’s Muslim Sheikh and other faith leaders in Baku’s main mosque. See Catholic News Service (3 October 2016). 2. http://www.acommonword.com/the-acw-document/. 3. See Robert Draper, “Will the Pope Change the Vatican? Or Will the Vatican Change the Pope?” National Geographic 228, no. 2 (August 2015). 4. The Telegraph (2 January 2012), https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ religion/8988755/Jewish-friend-who-influenced-Pope-John-Paul-dies. html.

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5. See Rabbi Skorka and Cardinal Bergoglio’s conversations on various topics published in ed. Diego F. Rosemberg, On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Image, 1995). I say almost because I am aware of Pope Francis’s friendship with Omar Abboud who accompanied the pope to Jerusalem. 6. Nick Squires, “Pope Francis, ‘You cannot make fun of the faith of others,’” The Telegraph (15 January 2015) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (Accessed 4 May 2018). 7. Ibid. 8. Pope’s Address to Interreligious Leaders of Albania, https://zenit.org/ articles/pope-s-address-to-interreligious-leaders-of-albania/. 9. Ibid. 10. Meeting with Brazil’s Leaders of Society, (27 July 2013), http://w2.vatican. va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/july/documents/papa-francesco_20130727_gmg-classe-dirigente-rio.html (Accessed 4 May 2018). 11. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/ hf_jp-ii_enc_07121990_redemptoris-missio.html, paragraph 55. 12. Dialogue and Proclamation: Reflections and Orientations on Inter-­religious Dialogue and the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_ interelg_doc_19051991_dialogue-and-proclamatio_en.html. 13. Ibid. 14. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium. html. See also Jerusha Tanner Lamptey, “Beyond the Rays of Truth? Nostra Aetate, Islam, and the Value of Difference,” in The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multireligious Conversation on Nostra Aetate, eds. C.  Cohen, P.  Knitter, and U.  Rosenhagen (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2017). 15. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium. html, paragraph 17. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 253. 19. William Kilpatrick, “Evangelii Gaudium on Islam: Outreach or Overreach?” Crisis Magazine: A Voice of the Faithful Catholic Laity (6 January 2014). The magazine has allowed vitriolic attacks to follow this article and the author’s own track-record seems to be inspired by an inherent dislike of Islam. 20. The Islamic Foundation, Christian Mission and Islamic Da’wah: Proceedings of the Chambésy Dialogue Consultation (Leicester: Islamic Foundation, 1982), 100.

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21. Evangelii Gaudium, 253. 22. “Christian/Muslim Reciprocity: Consideration for the European Churches,” Encounters: Journal of Inter-Cultural Perspectives 2, vol. 1 (March 1996): 70–75; the comments by Khurram Murad were published in the same journal vol. 2, no. 2 (September 1996): 199–206. A third document, “Beyond Reciprocity towards Reconciliation to Live with Muslims in Justice, Peace and Love: Some Reflections for Christians” was further published in the same journal vol. 3, no. 1 (March 1997): 76–80. 23. The Tablet, the International Catholic News Weekly, reported 31 August 2016. 24. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/ papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html, 13. 25. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/july_2015/. See also the Joint Declaration of Catholic and Muslim Charities on Central Africa Republic, https://www.muslimaid.org/download/1072/. 26. “Mission in a Post-Modern World: A Call to be Counter-Cultural,” Services of Documentation and Study on Global Mission (SEDOS), http://sedosmission.org/mission-in-a-post-modern-world/. 27. Ataullah Siddiqui, “Islamic Witness in a Pluralistic World,” Concilium 1 (2011): 51–60. 28. Quoted in David A.  Kerr, “‘He Walked in the Path of the Prophets’: Towards Christian Theological Recognition of the Prophethood of Muhammad,” in Christian-Muslim Encounters, eds. Yvonne Y.  Haddad and Wadi Z. Haddad (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995), 429. 29. Ibid. 30. See David A.  Kerr, “Towards a Christian Recognition of Muhammad,” unpublished manuscript. On Louis Massignon, 5–7. 31. See a book length discussion on this issue in Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers at the Origins of Islam (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010). 32. Hans Küng, Islam: Past Present and Future (Oxford: Oneworld Publication, 2007), 122–124. 33. Correspondence with late Dr. Hamidullah of Paris dated 5 March 1991. The letter was written on behalf of the Muslim Association of Paris, but they did not receive any response. Howard Kainz summarizes some of the popes’ statements about Islam and Muhammad: “In the 14th century, Clement V bemoaned that in Christian lands one hears ‘the public invocation of the sacrilegious name of Mahomet’; in the 15th century, Callixtus III denounced Islam as a ‘diabolical sect’; Pius II warned against Muhammad as a ‘false prophet’; and Pope Eugene condemned ‘the abominable sect of Mahomet’; in the 16th century Pope Leo X portrayed the Muslims as replacing the light of salvation with ‘totally unyielding blind-

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ness’; and in the 18th century, Pope Benedict XIV castigated Christians who indirectly promote ‘the errors of Mohammed’ when they take Muslim names in order to avoid taxation and other penalties by Muslim authorities. And there was harsh criticism of Islam in past centuries by saints such as Thomas Aquinas, or John of Damascus, who called Islam ‘diabolical.’” See the “Church and Islam,” Catholic Citizens (2 March 2016), https:// catholiccitizens.org/views/64555/the-church-and-islam/. 34. David A. Kerr, “Towards a Christian Recognition of Muhammad,” unpublished manuscript, 22.

CHAPTER 9

Cautious Hope: Hindu Reflections on Pope Francis Jeffery D. Long

Introduction: A Daunting Task It was a profound honor to be contacted by the editors of this volume to share reflections on Pope Francis from a Hindu perspective. Fulfilling such a request is also, however, a daunting task, to say the least. As is certainly the case for anyone representing an ancient and widespread religious tradition, one feels a burden of responsibility to be true to the sensibilities of a vast and varied community, whose views on this topic, as most topics, are far from uniform. At the same time, one also feels the need to be true to oneself and one’s own views on this topic, suspecting that one has been called upon to take up this task because there is interest in one’s own distinctive perspective that one is not simply being asked to provide a survey or overview of Hindu responses to Pope Francis but is also, perhaps primarily, being asked to share one’s own reflections, informed by one’s Hindu religious

J. D. Long (*) Department of Religious Studies, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_9

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commitments, on this, in many ways, inspiring and revolutionary, but also deeply paradoxical, figure. In this chapter, I propose to do a bit of both: to give a broad overview of Hindu responses to Pope Francis and to contextualize these responses in terms of Hindu history and theology, and to set my personal response to Pope Francis within that wider context, as well as the context of my own life journey. As I embark on this task, I am deeply conscious of the fact that I am not at all a typical Hindu, if such a person even exists. Indeed, according to some definitions of what it means to be Hindu—and according to some Hindus—I would not even be a Hindu but rather a person who has been inspired and influenced by Hindu traditions. This is because, unlike most Hindus, I was not born to this tradition but came to it through a gradual process, as the result of a long and involved spiritual journey. For those Hindus who accept the idea that one can become a Hindu, this is not an issue. But there are also Hindus who see being Hindu as a matter of birth. Interestingly, given the fact that I have been asked to comment upon Pope Francis, I was, in fact, born into a Roman Catholic family. I attended a deeply Catholic university (the University of Notre Dame) for my undergraduate studies. For many years, from early childhood until about the age of 19, I intended to pursue a vocation as a Catholic priest. My Catholic upbringing, therefore, has certainly had a deep imprint upon how I conceptualize and practice Hinduism. It is also important to point out what kind of Hinduism I practice, there being no such thing as a generic Hindu (any more than there are generic Christians or Muslims or Buddhists or Jews). I am an adherent of the Vedanta tradition of Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1886) and his preeminent disciple, Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902). Institutionally, this is the tradition identified in India with the Ramakrishna Mission and the Ramakrishna Order of monks, and in North America with the Vedanta Society, all of which were established by Swami Vivekananda in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Distinctive, though not unique, features of this tradition include an adherence to the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy but balanced by a profound commitment to religious pluralism, as embodied in the multireligious sādhanas (spiritual practices) of its founder, Sri Ramakrishna, who held that all religions are paths to the realization of Brahman: yato mat, tato path. So, while advaitic or non-dual realization is the tradition’s ideal, it is affirmed that all paths, sincerely practiced, can contribute toward this realization. This includes, impor-

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tantly, the path of karma yoga, or selfless service to suffering beings as a way to surrender the ego and draw nearer to the divine in all beings. This gives the Ramakrishna Mission a mandate not only to teach philosophy and meditation but to provide concrete social services to the poor in the form of education, poverty relief, health care, and so on. Indeed, this is the tradition’s primary activity in India. In North America, by contrast, though the Vedanta Societies do engage in relief work of various kinds, the emphasis is primarily on the study of Vedanta philosophy and the cultivation of spiritual practice. In most other respects, the tradition reflects its roots in Hinduism, affirming such views as the reality of karma and rebirth and the aim of ultimate liberation from the rebirth cycle and also celebrating the major Hindu holidays, performing puja (worship), and so on.

From Hostility to Hope: A Spectrum of Hindu Views on Pope Francis The range of Hindu responses to Pope Francis is exceedingly wide. I have not carried out a scientific survey in this regard, so my evidence is anecdotal in nature, being drawn from firsthand interactions with Hindus, both in person and via social media. But my findings are also, I think, consistent with what one familiar with Hindu history and theology might expect. At one end of the spectrum there is a deep suspicion, bordering on outright hostility, rooted in the view that all Christians, Catholic or otherwise, ultimately desire the conversion of everyone in the world to Christianity: in the words of the apostle Paul, “that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”1 From this Hindu point of view, these words do not express, as they do for many Christians, a cherished hope for the spiritual unity of humankind but, rather, a call to religious warfare and imperialistic aggression aimed at wiping Hinduism, and all other religions, from the face of the earth. This perspective is supported by the history of Christian imperialism and the widespread destruction of traditional ways of life globally, from the paganism of pre-Christian Europe to the nature-based faiths of the Native Americans. Seeing a mandate to proselytize as intrinsic to Christianity, Hindus with this point of view regard Christian efforts to advance interfaith

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dialogue, mutual appreciation, and co-existence as a cover for the more aggressive agenda of finally winning over converts. From this perspective, the a­pparent openness that Pope Francis has displayed toward other religions, as well as the generally open-hearted and open-minded approach that he has taken on a variety of issues on which church leaders have more often come across as judgmental and dogmatic, is not to be believed but is part of a sinister strategy for putting non-Christians off their guard and allowing them to be lulled into complacency in the face of an underlying proselytizing agenda. Such suspicion is very much in evidence on social media, where Hindus who are active in such spaces as Twitter and Facebook express a great deal of skepticism toward Pope Francis and what many believe to be his ulterior motives. At the other end of the spectrum, there is a deep and genuine enthusiasm for Pope Francis among many other Hindus. This enthusiasm is fueled by the view that the values he represents are not only Christian values. They are also Hindu—and indeed, universal—values. The open-minded and open-hearted approach of Pope Francis is seen by these Hindus as heralding a new era in which the intrinsic unity and ultimate harmony of all religions, an idea that many Hindus hold deeply to be true, may finally be made manifest. There is a long history of Hindus appreciating sincerity and spiritual commitment wherever it may be found, whether among Hindus or non-­ Hindus. If one looks, for example, to the medieval period of India, one finds a host of saintly figures, such as the mystic Kabir (1440–1518) and Guru Nanak (1469–1539), the founder of the Sikh tradition, who, on principle, transgressed established religious boundaries. Islam and Hinduism, often depicted by their respective adherents as mutually antagonistic and as divergent from one another as two religions can possibly be, were seen by these figures, and continue to be seen by many in South Asia today, as different ways to draw nearer to the same God. As Kabir writes: If God be within the mosque, then to whom does this world belong? If Ram be within the image which you find upon your pilgrimage, then who is there to know what happens without? Hari is in the East, Allah is in the West. Look within your heart, for there you will find both Karim and Ram; All the men and women of the world are His living forms. Kabir is the child of Allah and of Ram: He is my Guru, He is my Pir.2

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This sensibility is continued into the modern period, as already mentioned, by such figures as Ramakrishna. From this Hindu point of view, Pope Francis is not the head of an institution that is inherently a­ ntagonistic to Hinduism. He is, rather, another holy man and the leader of a spiritual community as deserving of respect as the head of any Hindu saṃpradāya (denomination). When he expresses respect for other religions and promotes dialogue, he is taken at his word and, indeed, celebrated for taking such a positive attitude, which is seen as indicative of genuine spiritual depth. In the middle, I have found that there are reactions which draw from both ends of the spectrum but that seek to avoid what are perceived as their respective excesses. If the first reaction I have described seems unduly negative, and perhaps even paranoid, the second is also sometimes seen as naïve, given the history of Christian missionary activity, both in India and globally, and the fact that such activity has often operated in tandem with Western imperialism. I would describe this middle view, where I would also locate myself, as neither paranoia nor unbridled enthusiasm but, rather, cautious hope. On the one hand, the Hindu belief in dharma-samanvaya (harmony of religions) and sarva-dharma-sama-bhāva (equality of religions or an attitude of equal respect toward all religions) is sincere and deeply held. Hindus, for whom these are central and perhaps even defining Hindu values, are naturally hopeful at any overture or sign from the leader of a major religious tradition which points in the direction of mutual appreciation, respect, and peaceful co-existence. This instinctive enthusiasm, though, is tempered by historical awareness of the Indian colonial experience in which the advancement of Christianity was intrinsic to an ideology of domination and exploitation. Pope Francis thus makes many Hindus hopeful. It is, however, a cautious hope. As sincere as Pope Francis may be, how much power can he really exert upon the institution over which he presides? Will future popes build upon his legacy or seek to undo it? What internal political forces are operating in the background that could either propel the church forward, in the direction Pope Francis is indicating, or pull it backward in the direction of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the church, no salvation)? Finally, it should be mentioned that many Hindus have no view at all on Pope Francis, not being in a position to become particularly aware of him, or of any pope, due to being preoccupied mainly with the day-to-day struggle for existence in a country which, for all of its quite impressive

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advancements, is home to many of those human beings who continue to suffer under the burdens of extreme poverty. Reactions to Pope Francis are therefore largely confined to those Hindus—a substantial number of people, to be sure—with access to media that focus extensively upon him. In that sense, therefore, it must be borne in mind that all the reactions described thus far reflect a fairly privileged perspective within the global Hindu community: that of an educated and literate elite.

Why the Aversion to Proselytizing? Hindu Theology and History For many persons who grow up in a predominantly Christian milieu, like a small town in the American Midwest, the equation of religion with proselytizing is quite natural. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”3 This great commission, as it is called in Christian traditions, has been central to Christian teaching, it seems, from its inception. If one grows up Christian, one therefore tends to assume that all religions have some form or other of this missionary imperative: that going out to the world and converting other people to one’s religion is what religious people do. And, to be sure, there are other great missionary religions, like Islam and Buddhism, that have spread through the world largely through the efforts of those among their adherents who have found sharing their truth to be an essential obligation attached to the practice of the spiritual path. Hindus, however, tend to see this question very differently. From at least the predominant perspective of most Hindus today, what, in the West, is called one’s “religion” is part of one’s total dharma (way of life). Dharma is not simply identical to religion, though in many modern Indian languages, such as Hindi, dharma, or dharm, does essentially mean religion. But in its fuller, more traditional usages, dharma encompasses the totality of one’s worldly existence. So long as one is in saṃsāra (the cycle of death and rebirth within the realm of time, space, and causation), one has a dharma. One’s dharma includes one’s responsibilities to oneself, to one’s family, and to society as a whole, including the performance of one’s occupation. It also includes responsibilities specific to one’s particular phase or stage of life, such as the duty of a student to study, of parents to care for their children, and, as an adult, to care for one’s elderly parents. In religious terms, though, it also includes relationship to divinity, in the

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form of the deities revered by one’s community, the deities specific to one’s family, and one’s chosen deity, devotion to whom is vital to one’s path to eventual salvation or liberation from the cycle of rebirth. One’s religious identity is thus part of who one is as a participant in a vast and complex web of personal and social relations. One’s relationship with one’s iṣt ̣adevatā (chosen deity), in particular, is seen as deeply personal and private. It is not something with which anyone else may interfere. Such interference is seen as a form of aggression, of violence, against oneself. This is the perspective that informs a widely circulated essay entitled “Conversion Is an Act of Violence,” by the late Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1930–2015), founder of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha and a major Hindu leader of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: Religious conversion by missionary activity remains an act of violence. It is an act of violence because it hurts deeply, not only the other members of the family of the converted, but the entire community that comes to know of it. One is connected to various persons in one’s world. The religious person in every individual is the innermost, inasmuch as he or she is connected to a force beyond the empirical. The religious person is connected only to the force beyond he has now accepted. That is the reason why the hurt caused by religion can turn into violence. That is why a religious belief can motivate a missionary to be a martyr. When the hurt of the religious becomes acute, it explodes into violence. Conversion is violence. It generates violence.4

When the religious person in every individual, the innermost core of a person, where the person finds a connection with the all-pervading divinity within all beings, is disrupted, that disruption sends shockwaves, as it were, throughout that person’s web of relations: that person’s family, that person’s friends, and the wider community of which that person is a member. Mohandas K. Gandhi was similarly opposed to missionary activity and, for similar reasons, seeing proselytization as a form of violence deeply disruptive to human relations. While he was appreciative of the humanitarian impulse underlying much of Christian missionary activity, he saw the potential good that such activity could bring as being negated by the missionaries’ insistence that the people they serve convert to Christianity: Today they [the missionaries] tell people there is no salvation for them except through the Bible and through Christianity. It is customary to decry

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other religions and to offer their own as the one that can bring deliverance. That attitude should be radically changed. Let them appear before the ­people as they [the people] are, and try to rejoice in seeing Hindus become better Hindus and Muslims better Muslims. Let them start work at the bottom. Let them enter into what is best in their life and offering nothing inconsistent with it. That will make their work far more efficacious, and what they will say and offer to the people appreciated without suspicion or hostility. In a word, let them go to the people not as patrons, but as one of them, not to oblige them, but to serve them and to work among them.5

Swami Vivekananda, in a similar vein, states that people of different religions should learn from one another, draw the best from one another’s traditions, and thereby improve themselves. But this need not entail renouncing one’s own religious identity for another: Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. … But if anyone here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the other, to him I say, “Brother, yours is an impossible hope.” Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant. Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.6

It is important to note that neither Vivekananda nor Gandhi specifically opposed persons choosing to change their religious affiliations or identities if that reflected the sincere promptings of their hearts. Indeed, Vivekananda initiated Westerners into Hindu monasticism, the best known of these being an Irishwoman, Margaret E.  Noble (1867–1911), who became Sister Nivedita and dedicated her life both to the promotion of Vedanta and to the cause of Indian independence. One of Gandhi’s disciples, too, was an Englishwoman named Madeleine Slade (1892–1982), who adopted an ascetic Hindu lifestyle and went by the name of Mirabehn. But both Vivekananda and Gandhi—the latter in particular—were concerned about the familial and social disruption that such conversion might

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cause and encouraged their followers to study their native religions deeply and thoroughly before making such a radical change. When asked directly, “Do you disbelieve in all conversion?,” Gandhi replied, “I disbelieve in the conversion of one person by another. My effort should never be to undermine another’s faith, but to make him a better follower of his own faith. This implies belief in the truth of all religions and, therefore, respect for them.”7 Conversion in the sense of a profound spiritual experience that transforms one’s life in positive ways is as much part of the teaching of Hinduism as it is of Christianity, though this is more often seen as the uncovering of a deeper spiritual reality that was always already there rather than as a change in one’s nature. The conversion to which Hindus typically object, and that is the referent of the word conversion when used by thinkers such as Gandhi, Vivekananda, and Dayananda Saraswati, is the effort by one person to convert—to change the spiritual path of—another person. This is the conversion that is seen as an act of violence. To put the matter in other terms, it is not an individual’s choice to convert that is at issue for most Hindus but the act of proselytizing, of actively trying to make others choose a certain way in regard to the spiritual life. To be sure, historically, Hindus have not always professed an aversion to proselytizing. As D. N. Jha has shown, a number of ancient precedents exist of members of saṃpradāyas (specific Hindu traditions) seeking to convert the members of other Hindu traditions, as well as Jains and Buddhists, to their own saṃpradāya.8 In the modern period, though, an aversion to proselytizing has come to define Hinduism for most Hindus. In this context, movements to promote Hindu proselytization, such as the recent ghar wapsi campaigns promoted by Hindu nationalist organizations such as the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have proven controversial. Interestingly, though, even for its supporters the very name of the ghar wapsi movement suggests, on some level, a discomfort with the concept of conversion. Ghar wapsi, in Hindi, literally refers to a homecoming. It is an initiative which is directed at Indian Christians and Muslims whose ancestors were Hindu. The implication is that it is not so much that individual persons are being “converted” from one religion to another but that entire communities are, rather, “reverting” to their ancestral faith: that, in effect, a historical injustice is being corrected. My intent here is not to endorse this interpretation of the ghar wapsi phenomenon, which is deeply complex and conflictual and beyond the

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scope of this essay, but to show that even Hindus who engage in what is basically a campaign of religious conversion are uncomfortable seeing it in those terms. This illustrates the depth of modern Hindu discomfort with the idea of conversion. In a recent work bearing the provocative title, Hinduism as a Missionary Religion, Arvind Sharma has argued that Hinduism is a missionary religion—in the sense of having a sense of mission to all of humanity—but not a proselytizing one.9 The idea is Hindus have a mission to promote a certain way of viewing diversity among people of all religions, but this does not entail that people of all religions must identify themselves as Hindu. In this sense, Pope Francis can easily be seen as a fellow traveler of Hindus who are dedicated to promoting greater mutual acceptance among the followers of the world’s religions. Rather than proselytizing, one more typically finds—certainly in modern Hindu discourse—an emphasis on either religious pluralism or inclusivism: ideas, also present in contemporary Christian discourse, that religions are basically equal in their capacity to bear truth and lead to salvation, or that, even if one views one’s own religion as the most true or as the surest path to salvation—or else one would abandon it for another— one nevertheless views other religions as true and salvifically efficacious in some sense. Gandhi’s teaching of equality of religions is close to the ideal of pluralism. Vivekananda’s teaching that “humanity travels not from error to truth … but from lower truth to higher truth” is a concise statement of inclusivism.10 On the Christian side, the pluralistic hypothesis of John Hick and the deep religious pluralism of process theologians are examples of religious pluralism, and the theology of Karl Rahner that informs the Second Vatican Council’s document Nostra Aetate is an example of inclusivism. In terms of Pope Francis, it is of course the second perspective, the inclusivism of Nostra Aetate, that forms the theological context of his overtures to the world’s religions, defining, as it does, formal church teaching in this regard.

Pope Francis and the World’s Religions: One Hindu’s Perspective A question that looms large in any Hindu assessment of the still relatively young pontificate of Pope Francis is the extent to which his approach to interfaith relations marks a break with the past in regard to the question of proselytizing.

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The question of proselytizing, though, is distinct from the question of inclusivism. I do not think it is fair or rational to expect Pope Francis to make a major theological break with Nostra Aetate in terms of its broad understanding of the relationship of the Catholic Church to the rest of the world’s religions. The inclusivism of this document has been criticized by many as a halfway house on the way to a genuine pluralism. My view, though, is that it is quite natural for a religious person of any tradition to take a stance of inclusivism in regard, at least, to the question of truth. We of course view the teaching of our own religion, whatever it may be, as true and as offering us something that other religions do not, or else we would not continue to adhere to that religion. This question is at the heart of my own choice, over the course of a journey of roughly 12 years, to change my religious identity from that of a Roman Catholic Christian to that of a Hindu in the tradition of Sri Ramakrishna. Such an identification, I felt, was and remains a more honest indicator of my actual beliefs than an ongoing struggle to self-identify as a Christian. When the decision was finally made, it created a sense of liberation which I often liken to finally finding a pair of shoes that fits well, after long-wearing ill-fitting shoes that pinch and create blisters on one’s feet. That is not to say that the old pair of shoes did not serve me well or that I am ungrateful for having had them, as opposed to going, to extend the metaphor, spiritually barefoot during the early years of my life and religious formation. My feelings toward the Catholic Church are warm, and not hostile, and have in fact become warmer with time and distance. To return to the main point, though: to identify with a religious tradition is to say, at least implicitly, that this particular tradition speaks to one in a way in which no other tradition does, much though one may yet appreciate and be enriched by others. I sometimes liken this to one’s relationship with one’s spouse. For me, my spouse is the most wonderful person in the world. This does not mean I think everyone else’s spouse is a terrible person or that I cannot be friends with them. But my spouse is my spouse. If one extends the same courtesy to others that one expects for oneself in regard to freedom of religion, it means one has no right to expect others to share one’s religious commitments. What one can expect, rather, is that others will be similarly inclusivist toward oneself. In other words, I have no objection to Karl Rahner regarding me as an anonymous Christian, so long as Rahner is willing to allow that I will similarly regard him as an anonymous Hindu, and there will be others who will regard us both as anonymous Muslims, anonymous Buddhists, and so on.

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What Hindus, I believe, have a right to expect from Pope Francis, then, is not that he will renounce his belief that he is the living representative of Christ on earth and that he presides over a church in which is to be found the fullness of truth reflected only partially in other traditions. It is, however, reasonable to expect him to rethink the concept of proselytizing with which Christians have long identified their mission to the world, in favor of something more akin to Gandhi’s vision of Christians sharing the gospel by living it. If others find it to have an intrinsic appeal and feel drawn to it, just as I felt the intrinsic appeal, for me, of a Hindu tradition, then that is all well and good. The violence of proselytizing, though, at least from the point of view of this Catholic-turned-Hindu needs to be rejected not only as destructive to human community and well-being but as, for that very reason, un-Christlike and not in harmony with the best and highest teaching of the church. My assessment of Pope Francis in this regard is that he does indeed give us reason to hope that his papacy will indeed mark a break with the past. This is, again, a cautious hope, not due to any conspiratorial thoughts about a secret agenda underlying Catholic efforts toward interfaith dialogue and cooperation but because the history that Pope Francis has inherited is heavy with the legacies of colonialism and aggressive proselytization. There is a Hindu term, saṃskāra, which refers to deeply rooted habits that form one’s personality and which require transformation if one is going to make spiritual progress. Pope Francis has given the world reason to believe that he is serious about uprooting the collective saṃskāra of proselytization from his institution. But such change is difficult and will certainly involve serious struggle and commitment on his part and on the part of those Catholics who share his vision. The current pope’s immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, while he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, authored Dominus Iesus, a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that reaffirmed “the church’s evangelizing mission.”11 His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, while visiting India in 1999, called specifically for the evangelization of India: the very call that evoked Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s statement, “Conversion is an Act of Violence,” cited earlier. Calls for proselytization from the top of the Catholic hierarchy are thus not a thing of the distant past. Pope Francis has, however, given reason to hope that this trend might be reversed. Much is communicated by the name that a new pope chooses. Pope John Paul II indicated, by his choice, an intent to continue the work barely begun in the brief papacy of Pope John Paul I, whose name, in turn,

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indicated a desire to build on the work of both of his immediate predecessors, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI.  Pope Benedict XVI’s choice indicated, appropriately, a return to a more traditionalist and conservative approach. Pope Francis, the first pope with this name, indicated, by taking the name of St. Francis of Assisi, that his papacy would be marked by solidarity both with the poor and with the environment. His encyclical letter, Laudato Si’, did not disappoint in this regard and is inspiring evidence that the church takes the ecological crisis seriously and is willing to point to the collective sins involved in bringing it about and perpetuating it.12 His public statements on such controversial issues as homosexuality and abortion similarly suggest that, while no major shifts in basic church doctrine on these issues are likely to be forthcoming, a less judgmental, more loving and compassionate approach to the real human beings whose lives are bound up with these issues is mandated from the highest human authority in the church. The same has been true in the area of interfaith dialogue. To be sure, most of the statements by Pope Francis in this regard have been directed primarily toward other Christian denominations and other Abrahamic traditions. Certainly, Christian unity and reconciliation among Jews, Christians, and Muslims are urgent issues and ones to which the pope quite understandably must give his attention. These intra-Christian and intra-Abrahamic conversations, though, do not, of course, include Hindus. They do, however, suggest the direction the pope’s engagement with non-Abrahamic traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, might take. This direction, like his statements on the environment and other pressing topics, again, suggests that there is reason to hope for more positive and constructive relations among diverse religious communities. A Hindu community leader in the United States, Padma Kuppa, has shared her reflections on Pope Francis and the current direction of the Catholic Church in regard to Hindus. I find her reactions are fairly representative of the “middle group” of Hindus I mentioned earlier, and they echo my own as well. Kuppa writes: I recently discovered Pope Francis’ recent “Ten Secrets for Happiness.” But it was not his tenth tip—to “Work for peace”—that caught my attention as much as #9: “Don’t proselytize; respect the belief of others. We can inspire others through witness so that one grows together in communicating. But the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyzes: ‘I am talking with you in order to persuade you.’ No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her own identity. The church grows by attraction, not proselytizing.”13

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Here, we have a specific and very clear rejection by Pope Francis of proselytizing. As his language indicates, he still favors, quite understandably, the growth of his church. But his statement that this growth occurs “by attraction, not proselytizing” echoes not so much the language of either of his predecessors but that of Gandhi: I have a definite feeling that if you want us to feel the aroma of Christianity, you must copy the rose. The rose irresistibly draws people to itself, and the scent remains with them. Even so, the aroma of Christianity is subtler even than that of the rose and should, therefore, be imparted in an even quieter and more imperceptible manner, if possible.14

Kuppa, too, notes the similarities between the approach of Pope Francis to this issue and that of Gandhi. She is furthermore encouraged that the pope is not alone in this regard but that other Christian leaders, both globally and locally, are beginning to see the proselytization issue in much the same way: In 2009, Rev. Gwynne Guibord of the Episcopal Church, was presented with the HAF [Hindu American Foundation] Mahatma Gandhi Award for the Advancement of Religious Pluralism and read from a letter written by the Right Reverend J. Jon Bruno, Bishop of their Diocese. This letter issued a formal apology “for centuries-old acts of religious discrimination, including attempts to convert them.” The pope’s recommendation is also in line with what many of my Christian friends here in Michigan practice, such as Rev. Charlotte Sommers of Northminster Presbyterian Church in Troy. Her church hosted the first inclusive National Day of Prayer event in Troy and is home to Troy’s very own Interfaith Labyrinth. Sommers chooses not to actively seek converts, instead living in a Christ-like way—and was recognized by Harvard’s Pluralism Project for her commitment to pluralism.15

Conclusion This Hindu response to Pope Francis, then, is one of cautious hope: recognizing that his statements on proselytizing are sincere and, indeed, require courage, given that the institution he heads has for so long taken a very different stance in this regard. Change is difficult, and, much as Arvind Sharma would likely say, it is the mission of Hindus to support Pope Francis as an agent for positive change in his church and, by extension, in the world: to make the world a place that is more pluralistic, more

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inclusive, and more accepting. As Swami Vivekananda says, it is hard to change the world, which is “like a dog’s curly tail, and people have been striving to straighten it out for hundreds of years.”16 Our efforts may or may not bear fruit in our lifetime, or the fruit that we hope they will bear. But the very effort to make positive change in the world is a transformative process for ourselves, whatever external fruit our actions bear. The hope that Pope Francis has inspired is a precious one and must be nurtured by all of us, both within and beyond the Catholic church, if we are indeed to progress as a species toward a better world.

Notes 1. Philippians 2:10–11. 2. Rabindranath Tagore, trans., One Hundred Poems of Kabir, ed. Evelin Underhill (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2005), 72. 3. Matthew 28:19. 4. Swami Dayananda Saraswati, “Conversion is an Act of Violence,” http:// www.swamij.com/conversion-violence.htm (Accessed 24 January 2018). 5. Mohandas K.  Gandhi, Gandhi on Christianity, ed. Daniel Ellsberg (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), 115. 6. Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Volume One (Mayavati: Advaita Ashrama, 1979), 24. 7. Gandhi, Christianity, 44. 8. D. N. Jha, Rethinking Hindu Identity (London, Oakville: Equinox, 2009), 27–47. 9. Arvind Sharma, Hinduism as a Missionary Religion (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011). 10. Vivekananda, Volume Four, 147. 11. Dominus Iesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/ documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html (Accessed 25 January 2018). 12. Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, http://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf (Accessed 25 January 2018). 13. Padma Kuppa, “The Pope on Proselytism: A Way to Work for Peace,” https://www.hafsite.org/blog/pope-on-proselytism/ (Accessed 25 January 2018). 14. Gandhi, Christianity, 45. 15. Kuppa, “The Pope.” 16. Swami Vivekananda, Volume One, 79.

CHAPTER 10

Do We Have a Religious Need for Each Other? Pope Francis and  Interreligious Dialogue Anantanand Rambachan

In October 2017, I participated in the Religions for Peace annual meeting.1 The participants included leaders from the world’s religions, philanthropists, government representatives, and foundations committed to interreligious cooperation for the common good. Held in Rome, the general theme of the meeting was “Advancing a Moral Alliance Among the World’s Religions for an Integral Ecology.” The theme was obviously inspired by Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home), calling for dialogue and cooperation in addressing the urgent problems of environmental degradation and global warming. During this meeting, our group had a special audience with Pope Francis. In his remarks to us, the pope emphasized the need for interreligious cooperation “to oppose violent conflicts, to advance sustainable development, and to protect the earth.”2 He spoke of the special obliga-

A. Rambachan (*) St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_10

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tion of the world’s religions, with their spiritual and moral resources, to be peace builders and he condemned those who justify and engage in acts of violence in the name of religion. Religions, said Pope Francis, “are bound by their very nature to promote peace through justice, fraternity, disarmament, and care for creation.”3 The theme of interreligious dialogue and cooperation in the pursuit of peace, justice, and sustainable development is one that resonates consistently in the speeches and writings of Pope Francis. Such cooperation, the pope emphasizes, must be grounded in relationships of friendship and mutual respect between persons of different traditions. In diverse communities, interreligious cooperation is a necessity for the service of the common good. Echoing the Swiss-Catholic theologian Hans Küng’s now famous words, “There will be no peace among the nations, without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions,” Pope Francis commends dialogue as indispensable for peace through understanding, concord, and harmony. He likens it to “a net of peace that protects the world and especially protects the weakest members.”4

The Nature of Interreligious Dialogue Close examination of Pope Francis’s statements on interreligious dialogue reveals several often-stated features and characteristics. I will first highlight what I regard as the most significant among these before a more substantial discussion in the body of my essay. First, interreligious dialogue does not mean renouncing one’s own identity or compromising on faith and “Christian morality.” In the words of the pope: “true openness involves remaining steadfast in one’s deepest conviction … clear and joyful in one’s identity.”5 “We cannot,” says Pope Francis, “engage in real dialogue unless we are conscious of our own identity. We can’t dialogue, we can’t start dialoguing from nothing, from zero, from a foggy sense of who we are.”6 Without a solid identity, contends the pope, dialogue “is of no use or even harmful.” The pope’s emphasis on fidelity to one’s commitment is connected often with strong words of warning about syncretism. He speaks often of a “facile” or “superficial” syncretism and of the “deceptive light of relativism.”7 He characterizes relativism as an illusion. Second, interreligious dialogue and evangelization are not mutually exclusive but, rather, mutually nurturing: “We do not impose anything, we use no underhand strategies to attract the faithful, but rather evange-

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lize with the joy and the simplicity in which we believe and which we experience.”8 The same point is made by the pope in pointing to an essential connection between dialogue and proclamation. We must, ­ according to Pope Francis, avoid a “diplomatic openness,” which affirms everything in other religions. Such an attitude is, in fact, a “way of deceiving others and denying them the good which we have been given to share generously with others. Evangelization and interreligious dialogue, far from being opposed, mutually support and nourish one another.”9 Third, interreligious dialogue requires that we cultivate the ability to enter the other’s heart, “to put ourselves in their shoes,” and to understand and grasp their deepest concerns. It is an exercise in love and empathetic understanding: “When we love someone, or when we feel loved by them, we can better understand what they are trying to communicate.”10 I find his words on this requirement of dialogue powerful and challenging: “We are challenged to listen not only to the words which others speak but to the unspoken communication of their experiences, their hopes and aspirations, their struggles and their deepest concerns. Such empathy must be the fruit of our spiritual insight and personal experience, which lead us to see others as brothers and sisters and to ‘hear’ in and beyond their words and actions what their hearts wish to communicate.”11 Fourth, interreligious dialogue does not aim to overcome diversity. The pope is opposed to all efforts aimed at “rigid uniformity.” The unity that he espouses is one that is built “on the basis of our diversity of languages, cultures, and religions” and commends “a diversity accepted and reconciled.” Diversity ought not to be perceived as a threat but as a resource and opportunity for growth.12 In dialogue, says Pope Francis, “we learn to accept others and their different ways of living, thinking, and speaking. We can then join with one another in taking up the duty of serving justice and peace, which should become the basic principle of all our exchanges.”13 Fifth, interreligious dialogue finds its most important purpose and fulfillment in interreligious cooperation for peace; in overcoming poverty, hunger, violence, and moral decay; in addressing our environmental crisis; and in the pursuit of justice.

Common Ground for Interreligious Dialogue The insistent call of Pope Francis for interreligious cooperation, centered on the overcoming of injustice, violence, and poverty, and in effectively responding to our environmental crisis, is grounded in a recognition that the world’s religions do offer resources for addressing these challenges.

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Such a call would not be meaningful in the absence of this ­acknowledgment. No tradition can claim exclusivity in the commitment to the overcoming of suffering. Pope Francis would find much to agree with in the words of the Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), delivered at the World’s Parliament of Religions meeting in Chicago in 1893. They share an optimism about the ethical resources of the world’s religions. Seventy-two years before the proclamation of Nostra Aetate by Pope Paul VI (28 October 1965), exhorting Catholics to “recognize, preserve, and promote the good things, spiritual and moral,” found in other religions, Swami Vivekananda, in his address to the Parliament’s final session (27 September 1893), reminded his multi-religious audience “that holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character.”14 Both Pope Francis and Swami Vivekananda powerfully condemn all violence legitimized by appeals to religion. In his first address to the Parliament (11 September 1893), Swami Vivekananda, like Pope Francis 120 years later, lamented violence in the name of religion that “drenched it [earth] often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair.”15 Vivekananda called for an end to persecution “with the sword or with the pen” in the name of religion and to fanaticism and “uncharitable feelings” among followers of different traditions.16 Swami Vivekananda and Pope Francis share a commitment to the poor and to the overcoming of poverty. They understand this commitment to be fundamental to living out the meaning of a religious life. In 1897, after his return to India, Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission with the motto atmano mokshartham jagat hitaya cha (for one’s own salvation and for the welfare of the world). In Swami Vivekananda’s vision, religious life was a necessity, although he was deeply concerned about the fact that we too often get lost in what is trivial and nonessential. In its highest expression, religion liberates us from self-centeredness and greed; it makes possible the discovery of a profound inner fulfillment. For Vivekananda, however, these accomplishments of the religious life must find expression in a commitment to serve the needy. Liberation from ignorance and greed awakens compassion for the service of the poor and oppressed and dedication to the work of overcoming human suffering. The religious life frees us for a high and noble purpose. The first two words of the motto, authored by Vivekananda, atmano mokshartham (for one’s freedom), emphasize the necessity of the religious life for individual

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freedom and well-being. The next two words, jagat hitaya (for the well-­ being of the world), are his passionate call for us to see the religious life as finding its true expression in the privilege of service. For Swami Vivekananda, both dimensions are essential and complimentary. The self-­ centered, religious life is a contradiction. The balance that Swami Vivekananda envisioned springs from his core conviction and experience that God—the goal of our human religious quest—exists equally in all beings. One will not find God by turning away from one’s neighbors who are in need and by ignoring their cries. Our understanding of God is not true unless it finds expression in active lives of loving care for others. More than 50 years before liberation theology developed into a major movement in the world, Swami Vivekananda was already expressing what would become one of its defining doctrines. This is the “preferential option for the poor,” the famous phrase coined in 1967 by the Peruvian theologian, Gustavo Gutierrez.17 For Swami Vivekananda, the service of the poor and the overcoming of poverty are among our primary human obligations. Like Gutierrez, he also coined a famous phrase, daridra narayana (God in the poor), to call attention to the special claims of the poor on our resources and energies. “I do not believe,” said Vivekananda, “in a God or religion which cannot wipe the widow’s tears or bring a piece of bread to the orphan’s mouth.”18 A similar commitment was articulated by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium when he emphasized the obligation of every community “to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully a part of society. This demands that we be docile and attentive to the cry of the poor and to come to their aid” (EG, 187). A vision of the religious life, together with a dialogue among the world’s religions that have as one of their central purposes the overcoming of poverty, commended by Swami Vivekananda and Pope Francis, is a profound common ground between the traditions of Christianity and Hinduism. Swami Vivekananda felt that, in his time, there was an exaggerated Christian emphasis on conversion that caused a neglect of responsibilities to the poor: In India, during the terrible famines, thousands died from hunger, yet you Christians did nothing. You erect churches all through India, but the crying evil in the East is not religion—they have religion enough—but it is bread that the suffering millions of burning India cry out for with parched throats. They ask us for bread, but we give them stones.19

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He was as scathing in his criticism of his fellow Hindus for their indifference and exploitation of the poor. In a letter to his disciple, Alasinga Perumal (20 August 1893), Vivekananda lamented: “No religion on earth preaches the dignity of humanity in such a lofty strain as Hinduism, and no religion on earth treads upon the necks of the poor and the low in such a fashion as Hinduism.”20 Both identify indifference in the face of poverty as a primary human challenge. Pope Francis spoke of indifference as “the great sickness of our time. … It is a virus that paralyzes, rendering us lethargic and insensitive, a disease that eats away at the very heart of religious fervor, giving rise to a new and deeply sad paganism: the paganism of indifference.”21 Indifference is one of the reasons for our inattentiveness to those who live in poverty on the margins of society. Swami Vivekananda, speaking one day to his fellow monks about the plight of the poor in India, similarly lamented the problem of indifference: Alas! nobody thinks of the poor of this land. They are the backbone of the country, who by their labour are producing food—these poor people, the sweepers and labourers, who if they stop work for one day will create a panic in the town. But there is none to sympathise with them, none to console them in their misery. Just see, for want of sympathy from the Hindus, thousands of Pariahs in Madras are turning Christians. Don’t think this is simply due to the pinch of hunger; it is because they do not get any sympathy from us. We are day and night calling out to them, “Don’t touch us! Don't touch us!” Is there any compassion or kindliness of heart in the country?22

For both Swami Vivekananda and Pope Francis, in their different ways, the inspiration for the work of overcoming poverty and indifference is the call, in both traditions, to see the divine present in all human beings. Iś̄ a Upaniṣad begins with the famous call to see everything in the world of movement as pervaded by Iś̄ a (God). There is no life outside of God and there is nothing that exists which is not sustained by God. In the perspective of the Bhagavadgı̄tā 13:27, one truly sees only when one sees the supreme God (parameśvaram) existing equally in all beings.23 Every human encounter is also an encounter with God. After feeding a group of poor laborers at his monastery in Kolkata, Swami Vivekananda remarked, “You are Narayanas, God manifest; today I have offered food to Narayana.” At the Rameswaram Temple in Southern India (1897), Swami Vivekananda offered a parable to his listeners:

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A rich man had a garden and two gardeners. One of these gardeners was very lazy and did not work; but when the owner came to the garden, the lazy man would get up and fold his arms and say, “How beautiful is the face of my master,” and dance before him. The other gardener would not talk much, but would work hard, and produce all sorts of fruits and vegetables which he would carry on his head to his master who lived a long way off. Of these two gardeners, which would be the more beloved of his master? Shiva is that master, and this world is His garden, and there are two sorts of gardeners here; the one who is lazy, hypocritical, and does nothing, only talking about Shiva's beautiful eyes and nose and other features; and the other, who is taking care of Shiva’s children, all those that are poor and weak, all animals, and all His creation. Which of these would be the more beloved of Shiva? Certainly, he that serves His children. He who wants to serve the father must serve the children first. He who wants to serve Shiva must serve His children—must serve all creatures in this world first. It is said in the Shastra that those who serve the servants of God are His greatest servants.24

Vivekananda’s parable may have been inspired by one of Pope Francis’s favorite Christian texts, Matthew 25: 31–36, in which Jesus speaks of God as present in the poor and needy and teaches that care for the poor is care given to God: “Truly I tell you whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Pope Francis’s call for interreligious dialogue concerned primarily with the pursuit of peace and justice and sustainable ecology is one, I believe, Hindus will welcome. The possibilities for cooperation between the two traditions await realization. Swami Vivekananda was not the only prominent Hindu leader and teacher to emphasize our religious obligations to the poor. Mahatma Gandhi exemplified a similar commitment. Gandhi’s friendship with the Reverend Charles Freer Andrews (1871–1940), one of the great interreligious friendships of our times, flourished through a shared commitment to the poor. Their distinct identities as a Hindu and a Christian brought them to the service of the poor as a fundamental expression of their faith. Compassion bound them to the poor and to each other. As Andrews eloquently stated it: “Springing from a common concern for the poor and the downtrodden and the common faith in the ultimate power and reality of love, it (our friendship) had stood the test of much vehement disagreement over particular methods and policies and the long separation had only drawn closer the bonds of confidence and trust.”25

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Tensions in Interreligious Dialogue: Dialogue and Evangelization Pope Francis’s statements on interreligious dialogue also highlight historic tensions that are of special concern to the Hindu community. Reading through the pope’s statements, one cannot miss the fact that the Hindu tradition receives sparse mention in these documents. In Evangelii Gaudium, for example, Judaism and Islam are discussed in significant detail, but the Hindu tradition is ignored. There is a brief reference to Hindus in the context of the pope’s visit to a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka but no significant dialogical engagement, so far, with Hindu traditions.26 This seems to be in continuity with Nostra Aetate (1965), the seminal Catholic statement, “On the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,” which devotes two lines to the Hindu tradition (and to Buddhism). Nostra Aetate, as the historians tell us, intended only to treat the Church’s relationship with Judaism and the broadening of the discussion to include other religions came later.27 In Evangelii Gaudium, for example, Pope Francis is careful to clarify that that Church does not regard Judaism as a “foreign” religion and it does not “include Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf.1Thes. 1.9).”28 Since the charge of idolatry is one often made against the Hindu tradition, is it still the object of this call cited by Pope Francis? Which traditions are the object of this call? Fifty years after Nostra Aetate, however, Hindus may rightly expect a more equitable regard for the world’s religious traditions. Looking beyond this disparity in the messages of the pope, there is also the significant tension between the pope’s emphasis on both interreligious dialogue and evangelization and proclamation. I noted this, earlier, as a significant feature of the pope’s approach to interreligious dialogue. Lamenting the internal divisions within the Christian Church, Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium, speaks unambiguously about evangelization: If we concentrate on the convictions we share, and if we keep in mind the principle of the hierarchy of truths, we will be able to progress decidedly towards common expression of proclamation, service and witness. The immense numbers of people who have not received the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot leave us indifferent. Consequently, commitment to a unity which helps them to accept Jesus Christ can no longer be a matter of mere diplomacy or forced compliance, but rather an indispensable path to evangelization.29

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The tension between interreligious dialogue and the commitment to evangelization extends also to Pope Francis’s statements on religious diversity. In Evangelii Gaudium (250), he speaks of learning “to accept others and their different ways of living, thinking, and speaking.” Later, in the same document, he returns to emphasizing the inseparability of interreligious dialogue and evangelization. In an interreligious meeting at the Ground Zero Memorial, New York (25 September 2015), the pope made a strong and welcome plea for diversity: In opposing every attempt to create a rigid uniformity, we can and must build unity on the basis of our diversity of languages, cultures and religions, and lift our voices against everything which would stand in the way of such unity. Together we are called to say “no” to every attempt to impose uniformity and “yes” to a diversity accepted and reconciled.30

He invites us to see diversity not as a threat “but rather a resource, an opportunity to grow together.”31 How as a Hindu, however, do I receive these words and how do I understand the pope’s meaning in relation to his charge of evangelization, one year earlier in 2014, to the Bishops of Asia? When we look out at the great Asian continent, with its vast expanses of land, its ancient cultures and traditions, we are aware that, in God’s plan, your Christian communities are indeed a pusillus grex, a small flock which nonetheless is charged to bring the light of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. A true mustard seed!32

How does one affirm a value for religious diversity and interreligious dialogue in the context of an overall goal of evangelization? Where is the priority? How can one be committed to diversity as a religious good if the aim is evangelization? The evident tension between evangelization, interreligious dialogue, and diversity may not be problematic from the perspective of the Catholic Church, but it is certainly challenging for a Hindu dialogue partner who remains uncertain about the value of her tradition in the eyes of her dialogue partner. This tension between interreligious dialogue and evangelization is a consequence, in part, of the claim to religious self-sufficiency. Elsewhere, I identified this problem in a series of questions:

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What is the religious value of having a world in which there are Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, and practitioners of indigenous religions? How is our world diminished in the absence of any one of these? Do we have a religious need for each other? As a Hindu, what is my theological value to you? Does it matter to you, religiously, that there are Hindus in the world? Would it make any difference to you if there were no Hindus? Such questions are not easy ones to answer, but they are certainly among the most important ones that we can ask today in the context of our encounter with people of other religions. Each tradition will have to pursue these questions in its own distinctive ways.33

As a Hindu, I do have special theological commitments, but any claim to absolute theological self-sufficiency is challenged by the unmistakable caution within my tradition that, in relation to the Ultimate, all claims to full comprehension or description are mistaken and inadequate. Truth is always more than we can define, describe, or understand with our finite minds and languages. As the Taittirı̄ya Upaniṣad (2.4) puts it, brahman (the limitless) is “that from which mind and speech return, having failed to reach.” Similarly, Kena Upanishad (4–5) describes the infinite as inexpressible in speech and incomprehensible by the mind. Such texts do not rule out the value and necessity of language or the possibility of significant knowledge. What is ruled out is the claim to fullness of knowledge and the absolutizing of symbols, linguistic or otherwise. No representation in image or words can ever be complete. The implication is that we can only profess our traditions with humility and be open always to the possibility of learning from and being enriched by the ways people of other traditions know and describe the infinite one. This fundamental, Hindu orientation deeply informed Mahatma Gandhi, a great exemplar and advocate for interreligious dialogue and cooperation. He distinguished between Truth/God as absolute and our limited human comprehension of it by using the lower case “truth” to signify the latter. We are always seekers and ought to be deeply conscious of our imperfections: “And if we are imperfect ourselves, religion as conceived by us must also be imperfect. … Religion of our conception, being thus imperfect, is always subject to a process of evolution.”34 Gandhi reminded his Christian partners in dialogue about the necessity of receiving as well as giving: “You cannot give without taking. If you have come to give rich treasures of experiences, open your hearts out to receive the treasures of this land, and you will not be disappointed, neither will you have misread the message of the Bible.”35

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Inclusivism and Interreligious Dialogue The tension that I am highlighting in Pope Francis’s statements on interreligious dialogue is rooted also in an inclusive theology of religions. This is evident in many of his teachings but especially in Evangelii Gaudium, where he speaks of a hierarchy of truths: “Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live ‘justified by the grace of God,’ and thus be ‘associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ.’”36 Elsewhere, Pope Francis, while admitting that “God moves everyone to seek Him and to discover Him through creation,” seems to privilege the Christian and Jewish traditions: In our case, that of Judaism and Christianity, we have a personal revelation. God Himself encounters us; He reveals Himself to us, He shows us the way and He accompanies us; He tells us His name, He guides us through the prophets. Christians believe, ultimately that he manifested Himself to us and gave Himself to us through Jesus Christ.37

What we seem to have in these words of Pope Francis is the familiar Christian inclusivistic distinction between creation or general revelation, available in a religion like Hinduism, and the special revelation of God available in Christianity. While the former conveys valid knowledge about God, the latter alone is salvific.38 In calling attention to Pope Francis’s inclusive theology of religions, my intention is not to condemn it. It exemplifies his commitment to Jesus Christ as God incarnate and universal savior. It is also important for us to admit that versions of inclusive theologies of religion are present in all the world’s religions. Swami Vivekananda, who I cited at the beginning of this essay, advocates for one version and traces three stages in the development of all religions. In the first stage, God is understood as an extra-cosmic being, both omnipotent and omniscient. There is little human intimacy with God at this stage; the emphasis is on divine transcendence. The second stage emphasizes panentheism; God is both immanent and transcendent. God is present not only in the heavens but also in our world and, most importantly, in the human being. In the final stage of religious evolution, the human being discovers unity and identity with the all-­pervasive, non-dual truth of the universe. This Advaita (nondualism) is the climax of the human religious quest and the end to which the world’s religions are

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moving. All religions, according to Vivekananda, reflect these three phases since the evolution to a higher stage does not imply discarding of any earlier phases. A more recent example of Hindu inclusivism is Swami Bhaktivedanta (1896–1977), founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Although acknowledging truths in other religions, Bhaktivedanta asserted that devotion to Krishna constituted the surest way to liberation.39 Both Swami Vivekananda and Swami Bhaktivedanta are examples of famous Hindu teachers who traveled outside of India to share their respective traditions with non-Hindus. Hindu traditions are not unfamiliar with the religious motive of sharing one’s conviction, debating and persuading others about its validity. The motivation for such sharing is the conviction that these teachings are universally relevant and conducive to human well-being. To claim otherwise is to not be faithful to important strands of Hinduism. In assessing the connection between inclusivism, proselytization, and interreligious dialogue, we must be cognizant of the diversity of inclusivist theologies of religion and the ways in which these inform relationships to other religions. Though Swami Vivekananda exemplifies a version of the inclusivist approach, the Hindu tradition to which he belongs—unlike Christianity—is authoritatively decentralized and has no organized or systematic large-scale efforts to proselytize. Hindus become uneasy and suspicious of grand plans, programs, and resources aimed at conversion and of the development of missionary strategies targeting religious communities. The sharing of religious teaching in the Hindu tradition occurred in response to a request for such teaching made by a student to a teacher. It was always felt that this teaching spoke meaningfully to the person who had examined life’s experience and discovered that finite or created ends such as power, fame, or pleasure are ultimately unfulfilling. A religious need, in other words, must be established and not presumed. Religious teachings were never disseminated as part of empire building or colonial projects, as happened generally in India in the case of Christianity. This is the context in which words of Pope Francis about the inseparability of interreligious dialogue and evangelization are heard. When these two words are consistently paired in this manner, it is the word “evangelization” that resounds in the Hindu ear, and, because of long historical experience, Hindus are suspicious that interreligious dialogue is a new instrument for evangelization. Despite the work of individual Christian theologians, institutional Christian theology in relation to the Hindu tradition remains

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mission-oriented. “Evangelization,” “proclamation,” and “mission” are words that image Christianity in the Hindu mind, and the need to use these side by side with dialogue does not help. It is as though the Christian feels that any discourse about interreligious dialogue that does not equally underscore evangelization betrays what it means to be Christian. Must interreligious dialogue always be paired with evangelization?

A New Mode of Sharing? In the statements and writings of Pope Francis, there are various hints and suggestions of a different approach to sharing Christian teaching with people of other traditions. A significant section of the pope’s remarks to the Bishops of Asia (2014) focuses on dialogue. Pope Francis spoke eloquently and profoundly on the demands of authentic dialogue: In this sense, dialogue demands of us a truly contemplative spirit of openness and receptivity to the other. I cannot engage in dialogue if I am closed to others. Openness? Even more: acceptance! Come to my house, enter my heart. My heart welcomes you. It wants to hear you. This capacity for empathy enables a true human dialogue in which words, ideas and questions arise from an experience of fraternity and shared humanity. If we want to get to the theological basis of this, we have to go to the Father: he created us all; all of us are children of one Father. This capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter—we have to progress toward this culture of encounter— in which heart speaks to heart. We are enriched by the wisdom of the other and become open to travelling together the path to greater understanding, friendship and solidarity.40

He anticipated a question from the gathering of bishops that he himself articulates: “But, brother Pope, this is what we are doing, but perhaps we are converting no one or very few people.” It is a revealing concern since it emerges from the anxiety that interreligious dialogue not resulting in conversion is without fruit. The pope’s response is revealing: But you are doing it anyway: with your identity, you are hearing the other. What was the first commandment of God our Father to our father Abraham? “Walk in my presence and be blameless.” And so, with my identity and my empathy, my openness, I walk with the other. I don’t try to make him come

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over to me, I don’t proselytize. Pope Benedict told us clearly: “The Church does not grow by proselytizing, but by attracting.” In the meantime, let us walk in the Father’s presence, let us be blameless; let us practice this first commandment. That is where encounter, dialogue, will take place. With identity, with openness. It is a path to greater knowledge, friendship, and solidarity.41

In these words of Pope Francis, I hear him trying to dispel from the minds of his bishops a traditional obsession about converting others to Christianity and understanding this as the primary Christian obligation. On the contrary, says Pope Francis, the primary Christian obligation is to live a God-centered life and to seek righteousness. One serves and witnesses for one’s faith not by winning over others to one’s side but by living in fidelity to its core vision. Pope Francis’s words to the bishops reminded me of Gandhi’s most famous example whenever he spoke to Christians about conversion and the sharing of their faith: A rose does not need to preach. It simply spreads its fragrance. The fragrance is its own sermon. If it had human understanding and if it could engage a number of preachers, the preachers would not be able to sell more roses than the fragrance itself could do. The fragrance of religious and spiritual life is much finer and subtler than that of the rose.42

Christians often pressed Gandhi about the necessity of preaching as a medium for transmitting Christian teachings. Gandhi did not relent and urged his Christian friends to step out of the way and allow God to work as God chooses. “Faith,” said Gandhi, “does not admit of telling. It has to be lived and then it becomes self-propagating.”43 I am not suggesting here that Gandhi and Pope Francis concur on all matters related to the sharing of their respective faiths. Gandhi, coming from a tradition in which religious identity is not defined by formal membership, did not approve of conversion. He believed that people can learn from and be enriched and transformed by other traditions without any formal process of conversion. Pope Francis believes in conversion. After speaking of the sharing of faith through the example of one’s life, he comments on the vastness of the Asian continent and the small size of the Christian community, reminding them that they are “charged to bring the light of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.”44 The tension that I highlighted earlier is still evident here.

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Do We Bring and Receive? Nostra Aetate, the Vatican’s seminal document on relationships with non-­ Christian religions, commends dialogue and collaboration with followers of other religions. Through dialogue, “carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the sociocultural values found among these men.”45 Earlier I cited Gandhi’s call to Christians to be ready to also receive from the Hindu tradition. Others, in more recent times, have called for “receive” to be added to “recognize, preserve, and promote,” in Nostra Aetate.46 In Gandhi’s view the hesitation to receive arises from “a lack of real humility that instinctively recognizes human limitations and the limitless powers of God.”47 Do the statements of Pope Francis acknowledge the need to receive and learn from other traditions? There are hints to this effect in some of his statements. “We are enriched,” said Pope Francis to the Bishops of Asia, “by the wisdom of the other and become open to traveling together the path to greater understanding, friendship and solidarity.”48 In the same address, he cautioned against monologues and spoke of the need for communication with “openness of heart and mind to accepting individuals and cultures.”49 Of course, cultures in Asia are not easily separable from religious traditions. In meeting with religious leaders in Albania in 2014, Pope Francis spoke of religious persons as pilgrims and of the need for each other: Deep down, we are all pilgrims on this earth, and on this pilgrim journey, as we yearn for truth and eternity, we do not live autonomous and self-sufficient lives; the same applies to religious, cultural and national communities. We need each other, and are entrusted to each other’s care. Each religious tradition, from within, must be able to take account of others.50

It is possible to read the pope’s acknowledgment of enrichment from other traditions and his criticism of self-sufficiency as going beyond Nostra Aetate, but one certainly wishes that such statements about the religious need for the other, as distinguished from the political or social need, were stronger and less ambiguous. While one has to search carefully in the pope’s statements for words suggestive of receiving from others, it is impossible to miss his emphasis on the necessity for a secure Christian identity as a precondition for interreligious dialogue: “It is always worth

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remembering, however,” said Pope Francis to the interreligious gathering in Sarajevo (2015), “that for dialogue to be authentic and effective, it presupposes a solid identity: without an established identity, dialogue is of no use or even harmful. I say this with the young in mind, but it applies to everyone.”51 In an address to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (2013), Pope Francis returned to this point: “Dialogue does not mean renouncing one’s own identity in approaching others, nor does it mean accepting compromises on faith and Christian morality. On the contrary, ‘true openness involves remaining steadfast in one's deepest convictions, clear and joyful in one's own identity,’ and therefore convinced that the encounter with persons different to ourselves may offer an opportunity for growth in brotherhood, enrichment and witness.”52 Pope Francis often links his call for firmness of identity with a denunciation of what he labels as the danger of a “facile syncretism.”53 At a meeting convened by the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (2015), he cautioned about syncretism: “We must take care not to fall prey to a syncretism that is conciliatory but ultimately empty and a harbinger of a totalitarianism without values.”54 I certainly concur with Pope Francis in his emphasis that participation in interreligious dialogue must not require that religious identities be left at the door. It seems to me, however, that this firm emphasis on the importance of a secure identity needs always to be complemented by an equal call to be willing to receive from the religious other. It is in the willingness to receive that we exemplify the virtue of humility. Given the mission-­ oriented history of the Christian tradition in relation to Hindus, this balance in commitment and openness to receiving is especially important. Syncretism, one of the great fears of the Christian tradition in its engagement with other religions, does not cause similar anxieties among the ­traditions of Asia. We must be ready to acknowledge the syncretism that is a feature of the history of all our traditions. If we acknowledge God as a reality which we can never claim to fully know, we must be open to receiving from others. True receiving is never passive; that which we receive, if we acknowledge its worth, must be meaningfully integrated with our deepest convictions. Such integration requires careful discernment. Interreligious dialogue, which, because of the fear of syncretism, excludes interreligious learning, becomes superficial diplomacy. In a context of historical theological self-sufficiency, the constant waving of the flag of syncretism functions as a prohibition and not an invitation to mutual giving and receiving.

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Conclusion Hindus will welcome Pope Francis’s call for interreligious dialogue and cooperation centered on the pursuit of peace and justice and the overcoming of suffering. They will agree that such a dialogue calls us also with urgency to reverence for our common home, the earth, and to united efforts to halt its degradation and to promote ecological responsibility in our nations, communities, and corporations. This dialogue will only grow deeper through humility that acknowledges the limits of our knowledge in relation to God and which truly opens our hearts and minds to receive from and be enriched by the gifts of each other.

Notes 1. Religions for Peace, https://rfp.org (Accessed 3 May 2018). 2. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/october/ documents/papa-francesco_20171018_delegati-religionsforpeace.pdf. 3. Ibid. 4. Address of Pope Francis to Participants in the International Meeting for Peace Sponsored by the Community of Sant’Egidio (30 September 2013), http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130930_incontro-pace-s-egidio.html. 5. See Pope Francis’s address to the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (28 November 2013), citing his own Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/november/documents/papa-francesco_20131128_pc-dialogo-interreligioso.html. 6. Meeting with the Bishops of Asia; Address of Pope Francis at the Shrine of Haemi (17 August 2014). https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2014/august/documents/papa-francesco_20140817_coreavescovi-asia.html. 7. Ibid. 8. See Pope Francis’s address to the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (28 November 2013), https://w2.vatican.va/ content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/august/documents/papa-francesco_20140817_corea-vescovi-asia.html. 9. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops, Clergy, Consecrated Persons, and the Lay Faithful on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_ esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html, 251.

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10. https://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf, 140. 11. Meeting with the Bishops of Asia (13–18 August 2014), https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/august/documents/ papa-francesco_20140817_corea-vescovi-asia.html. 12. See Address of the Holy Father, Ground Zero Memorial, New York City (25 September 2015), https://m.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2015/september/documents/papa-francesco_20150925_usaground-zero.html. 13. Evangelii Gaudium, 250. 14. https://www.ramakrishna.org/chcgfull.htm (Accessed 8 January 2018). 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, Classic Series (London: SCM Press, 2010). 18. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_ Vivekananda/Volume_5/Epistles_-_First_Series/XXI_Blessed_and_ Beloved. 19. Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works, 8 vols. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1964–1971). See “Religion not the Crying Need of India,” vol. 1, no. 20. 20. Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works 5, 15. 21. Address of the Holy Father Assisi (20 September 2016). http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/september/documents/ papa-francesco_20160920_assisi-preghiera-pace.html. 22. Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works 7, 246. 23. See Upaniṣads, trans. Patrick Olivelle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); See Shrı̄ Bhagavadgı̄tā, trans. Winthrop Sargeant (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). 24. Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works 3, 142. 25. K. L. Seshagiri Rao, Mahatma Gandhi and C. F. Andrews (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1969), 17. See also, Anantanand Rambachan, “Love Speaking to Love: Friendship Across Religious Traditions,” in Alon Goshen-­Gottstein, Friendship Across Religions: Theological Perspectives on Interreligious Friendship (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015), 97–116. 26. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/january/ documents/papa-francesco_20150115_srilanka-filippine-incontro-giornalisti.html. 27. See John Borelli, “Nostra Aetate: Origin, History and Vatican II Context,” in The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multireligious Conversation on Nostra Aetate, eds. Charles L. Cohen et al. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017).

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28. Evangelii Gaudium, 247. 29. Ibid., 246. 30. https://m.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/september/documents/papa-francesco_20150925_usa-ground-zero.html. 31. https://m.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/june/documents/papa-francesco_20150606_sarajevo-incontro-ecumenico.html. 32. Meeting with the Bishops of Asia, op. cit. 33. See Anantanand Rambachan, “Interreligious Dialogue: The Political and Theological,” https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anantanand-rambachan/interreligious-dialogue-the-political-and-theological_b_7103124. html. For a similar argument in relation to Nostra Aetate, see John J.  Thatamanil, “Learning From (and Not Just About) Our Religious Neighbors,” in eds. Cohen et  al., The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multireligious Conversation on Nostra Aetate (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017), 289–301. 34. Mahatma Gandhi, All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections (New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 2001), 61. 35. M.  K. Gandhi, The Message of Jesus Christ (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1963), 36. 36. Evangelii Gaudium, 254. 37. See Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Sorka, On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family and the Church in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Image, 2013), 19. 38. See Paul Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), chap. 2. 39. For a good discussion of Indian theologies of religion, see Harold G. Coward ed., Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987). 40. Meeting with the Bishops of Asia, op. cit. https://w2.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/speeches/2014/august/documents/papa-francesco_ 20140817_corea-vescovi-asia.html. 41. Ibid. 42. Gandhi, Message of Jesus, 69. 43. https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/discovery.html. 44. Meeting with the Bishops of Asia, op. cit. https://w2.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/speeches/2014/august/documents/papa-francesco_20140817_corea-vescovi-asia.html. 45. Nostra Aetate, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_ council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html, 2. 46. Thatamanil, “Learning From,” 298. 47. Gandhi, Message of Jesus, 56. 48. Meeting with the Bishops of Asia, op. cit. 49. Ibid.

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50. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/september/documents/papa-francesco_20140921_albania-leaders-altre-religioni.html. 51. https://m.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/june/documents/papa-francesco_20150606_sarajevo-incontro-ecumenico.html. 52. http://catholicnews.sg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article &id=9503:the-future-of-interreligious-dialogue-lies-in-respectful-co-existence-in-diversity&catid=196:vis-vatican-information-service&Itemid= 530&lang=en. 53. See, for example, Evangelii Gaudium, 251. 54. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/january/ documents/papa-francesco_20150124_pisai.html (Accessed 3 May 2018).

CHAPTER 11

A Sikh in Dialogue with Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium Dharam Singh

As it is, two of the Semitic religions—Christianity and Islam—have been revelatory and missionary religions and have gone for aggressive proselytizing at different intervals in history. In many instances, this aggressive proselytizing was the result of political powers exploiting religion and religious leadership to perpetuate, expand, and justify their oppressive and unjust rule, especially in colonized countries. Among the religions of Indian origin, Jainism and Buddhism, both of which belong to the pre-­ Vedic sramanic tradition, have also been missionary faiths, but they do not go for aggressive proselytizing. Of the remaining two religions of Indian origin, Hinduism and Sikhism, Hinduism has no identifiable beginning but an all-absorbing nature. It has absorbed into itself several different, and sometimes even mutually contradictory, schools of thought, encompassing atheistic, pantheistic, deistic, monistic, and mystical strands. It explains the conflict between the truths of one viewpoint with that of the others as a partial perspective of the Divine. Apparently, Hinduism seems tolerant and open to other religions as it accepts other traditions as addi-

D. Singh (*) Punjabi University, Patiala, India © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_11

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tional visions of the same divine reality but only if the other tradition is willing to agree to its subsidiary status under the broader umbrella of Hinduism. Sikhism, India’s other main religion of Indian origin, was born in the Punjab, the region where even today most Sikhs live. The history of Christian missionary activity in the Punjab commences with the British annexation of the Punjab in 1849, although an American Presbyterian Mission had been already located at Ludhiana, close to the Sikh frontier. With the abrogation of Sikh rule in 1849, the Ludhiana mission spread its activities to Lahore, the capital of Punjab ruled by Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780–1839), and set up branches at various other towns of the Punjab, including Amritsar. In 1853, Duleep Singh (1838–1893), the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, came under British tutelage at the tender age of eight. His conversion to the Christian faith was hailed as “the first instance of the accession of an Indian prince to the communion of the Church.”1 Several other missions entered the area soon after and they were able to achieve many conversions, mostly from the lowest strata of society. The Singh Sabha Movement, a renaissance movement in Sikhism, initiated in 1873  in response to such activities by various Christian, Muslim, and Hindu organizations, made commendable efforts at rejuvenating Sikhism by setting right some of the aberrations that had crept in. It so influenced the entire community and reoriented its outlook and spirit that the stimulus it provided shaped the Sikhs’ attitudes and aspirations for more than a hundred years since.2 Any missionary religion, including Christianity, must proclaim itself better and more efficacious than the religion of the other for the latter to be converted to it. There was a time when certain groups and individuals talked of “the evangelization of the (entire) world in our generation.”3 Obviously, this mind-set was more “a reflection of over-confident people at the high noon of empire than an accurate reflection of the teachings of the founder of their faith.”4 Since proselytizing implies devaluing the faith of the other, such an attitude is sure to create distrust and disharmony, conflict and clash among different religious communities. A cursory look at past history reveals how this attitude has caused much suffering to humankind. Referring to the causal link between claims of religious superiority and religious violence, Paul Knitter, a pluralist theologian, says:

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If peace-filled religious people, therefore, proclaim defensively that the militants (either the “terrorists” or the “imperialists”) are misusing and exploiting their religion, they must ask themselves why it is so easy for extremist leaders or politicians to exploit their religion. They must ask themselves whether claims of superiority—claims to have “the only Savior,” or “the last revelation,” or “the highest enlightenment”—are among the primary reasons why their religion is so easily used as a divine seal of approval for violence.5

Revolutionary advancement in the fields of transport, communication, and information technology during the past century or so has not only transformed the world into a small global village by making people from different religious backgrounds live as next-door neighbors, it has also brought about a significant change in the thinking of many theologians, scholars, religious leaders, and others in regard to personal attitudes toward those of other faiths. The easy availability of authentic literature on almost all religions of the world has also helped in reshaping this attitude. A realization is spreading that in present-day society marked by religious plurality, there is no region or country where a religious community enjoys dominant majority as well as absolute political power. Hence, attitudes of religious superiority need to be abandoned for the sake of interreligious peace and harmony—and even for human survival. As a result, a significant section from among the exclusivist theologians has now veered round to a more tolerant and pluralist view, at least at the academic level. They have realized that belief in the superiority of one’s own religion, vis-à-vis that of the other, is only a myth. No religion or religious community is superior or inferior to the other, and no religion can claim to be the norm for other religions. As it is, humankind in the modern-day world is destined to live in a religiously plural world and this fact of plurality must be accepted if we want to live in peace and survive. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a renowned Christian historian of religion, claims that “the religious life of mankind from now on, if it is to be lived at all, will be lived in a context of religious pluralism. … This is true for all of us.”6 The European enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries resulted in the Western realization that “Christendom is part of a much larger human world, with great civilizations having existed outside it, above all in China and India as well as in the Islamic world.”7 Also with this came the realization that “Christianity is one world religion amongst

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others.”8 This has gradually produced a feeling that “people of other faiths are not on average noticeably better human beings than Christians, nor on the other hand are they on average noticeably worse human beings.”9 No doubt, these developments have had their universal impact, but the effect has not been to the same degree in each region and on each faith-­ community. However, a shift from the earlier Christocentric approach to the new theocentric approach has been obvious, though some remain dissatisfied with this because it still excludes non-theistic religions. The 2013 Apostolic Exhortation of the Holy Father Francis to the bishops, clergy, consecrated persons, and the lay faithful, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) also refers to the need of “dialogue with other believers who are not part of the Catholic Church” (EG, 238), and we know it well that a constructive and transformative dialogue is possible only if we accept all religions as equally valid paths leading to God/Truth. The main thrust of Evangelii Gaudium seems to be a desire to bring about peace and mutual trust between different faith-communities and to “devise a means for building consensus and agreement while seeking the goal of a just, responsive, and inclusive society” (EG, 239). It emphasizes the need for everyone to accept the other in his otherness but without putting one’s own faith in parenthesis. No doubt each religion is unique insofar as it has a distinct experience of God/Truth, but instead of harping on these differences we need to celebrate the similarities. Evangelii Gaudium makes a very relevant reference to the Christian attitude toward Judaism which is quite interesting. It says there may be many differences in religious beliefs and practices, but there are equally many similarities especially in “ethical convictions and a common concern for justice and the development of peoples” (EG, 249). Participation in and knowledge of the religion of the other only enriches the understanding of one’s own religion and demolishes the wall between we (as the saved ones) and others (as the damned ones—to the ghetto in this world and hell in the next) that grows from religious exclusivism. The points especially emphasized by the Holy Father include the following: all religions being rooted in the same Source, respect for religious freedom, the need for everyone to be true to his or her religion, and to have dialogue with people of other faiths in order to bring about lasting peace in society. He makes a reference to Judaism and Christianity and Islam having the same roots. They have, it is said, an essential unity behind all differences in their religious beliefs and practices.

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Pope Francis views respect for religious freedom as very important and a fundamental human right. According to him, each person should be free “to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s belief in public (EG, 255).” A meaningful and mutually transformative dialogue is possible only if we cultivate belief in a healthy pluralism which accepts all faiths as equally valid paths toward God-realization/self-­ realization. No meaningful and transformative dialogue is possible if one of the participants takes a higher pedestal. Also, this dialogue should involve mutual listening, as only then will the participants become purified, enriched, and transformed. However, the acceptance of other faiths must not be passive: “What is not helpful is a diplomatic openness which says ‘yes’ to everything in order to avoid problems, for this would be a way of deceiving others and denying them the good which we have been given to share generously with others” (EG, 251). Although the Apostolic Exhortation by the Holy Father is highly welcome, there are a couple of references in it which can possibly be understood or interpreted otherwise.10 The need to accept and appreciate the plurality of religions and to encourage a constructive and meaningful dialogue between them as stressed by Pope Francis must, however, be welcomed by everybody. In fact, this kind of attitude is relevant for all other religious traditions as well. As a student of Sikh studies, I feel inspired to respond to it by discussing briefly the Sikh point of view on these and related issues.

The Sikh Point of View Sikhism happens to be the youngest of the major world religions. It originated with Guru Nanak (1469–1539) who was followed by nine successive gurus or spiritual preceptors. All the ten gurus of the faith are taken as one in spirit though different in body. Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708), the tenth and last guru of the Sikh faith, bestowed the office of guru on the Word as contained in the scripture which Sikhs today revere as the Guru Granth Sahib. The gurus are believed to be spirit incarnate in the Word which has since become the focus of the Sikhs’ reverence. This is unlike the Christian tradition which holds that the Word becomes incarnate in the person of Jesus who thus becomes the focus of the devotees’ reverence. The Guru Granth Sahib is installed in all the Sikh shrines where Sikhs visit daily to pay their obeisance and listen to the divine eulogies being sung there, but they do not worship it as an idol on the altar. Every

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Sikh is obliged to read/recite select hymns from the scripture daily, understand their true import, reflect on the meaning of the said hymn, and then live that message in his/her worldly life. In other words, we can say that the life of a Sikh is guided by the Guru Granth Sahib or, more precisely, by the Word as contained therein. As history attests, all religions of the world were born in a religiously plural society. None of the religions we know of today were born in a void. Evangelii Gaudium rightly accepts the fact of Judaism existing when Christianity originated and both Judaism and Christianity existing in the background when Islam originated. Sikhism was born on Indian soil and developed amidst the Indian culture. Hinduism and Islam were two dominant religions prevailing at that time, with Jainism and Buddhism numerically quite insignificant. Sikhism received some impact from the contemporary religious and cultural life of the land and made its own impact in return. It accepted something, in terms of its terminology and some of its philosophical assumptions, from the earlier prevailing traditions and remains obliged to these theologies for this. However, the question of indebtedness loses all relevance when we find that, first, it was not a blind acceptance of the older theologies, in full or in part, but a critical reflection on them coupled with the genius of its ten gurus. And second, the departure from the prevailing theologies was so significant and vital that the Sikh religion acquired a separate and distinct individuality with a worldview of its own. Still, we can say that there is some sort of unity behind all the differences in their beliefs and practices. Sikhism is a revelatory faith and it strongly believes in the oneness of God, creator of the entire manifest phenomena and who makes himself manifest qua Spirit in creation. Plurality in the Godhead and the idea of divine incarnation in human or any other form are as strongly rejected as the idea of this world being mere maya (illusion) and thus an obstacle on the way to human spiritual progress. It accepts both the Creator-Lord and the creation being true. The former is eternal and everlasting, whereas the latter is only relatively true. The ultimate objective of human life is self-­ realization or God-realization which one can attain while still living an active but righteous life in this world performing all familial and societal obligations. Thus, the human body and this world are taken as means and not hindrances on the path to self-realization. The idea of the relative reality of the world also implies that humans must strive not only for individual spiritual uplift but also for the overall betterment of the world. Sikhism

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stands for the overall development of human beings—spiritual as well as social/secular. This idea of keeping the parallel streams of esoteric and exoteric aspects of life close to each other is beautifully contained in the Sikh concept of miri-piri, a term that connotes close relationship between the temporal and the spiritual and stands for a basic principle that has deeply influenced Sikh religious and political thought. This whole-life attitude, an attitude of life-affirmation and world-affirmation, is against the attitude of withdrawal from the world, followed and recommended by almost all earlier religions of Indian origin. In this sense, the Sikh stand was quite revolutionary and clear-cut. Thus, equality, mutual love, philanthropy, social justice, freedom of conscience, and so on are not just theoretical assumptions for Sikhism, rather, Sikhism actively struggles against the powers that suppress these fundamental human rights. Any reference to the role of religion for bringing about peace and harmony in society implies keeping other-worldly and this-worldly aspects of religion close to each other, a view that is also said to be the objective of Pope Francis. Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith, envisioned the new faith to be distinct from the prevailing religions—a fact asserted from the very beginning of his pronouncements. This, however, did not mean rancor or intolerance toward the other prevailing traditions, though it makes constructive critique of how some of them were then practiced. It would be appropriate to refer here to an incident from the life of Guru Nanak.11 During one of his preaching odysseys, Guru Nanak was greeted by various holy persons belonging to different religious traditions as he reached Multan (now in Pakistan). They met him with a bowl filled to the brim with milk, thereby indicating that the place was already full of many religious traditions and there was no place for a new one. It is said that the guru placed a jasmine petal on the milk to signify that his tradition would co-exist with others and it does not want to replace any. Such co-existence among all religions and religious communities is the need of the day. Later, when Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth guru of the Sikh faith, compiled the scripture now acknowledged and revered as the Guru Granth Sahib, he included in it verses of various holy men coming from the Hindu as well as Muslim (Sufi) traditions, in addition to those of the gurus. The task of collecting these verses, which were ideologically close to those of the gurus, began with the founder of the faith. They reached Guru Arjan at the time of his succession to the office of the guru. These holy persons came from the two dominant religions and culture-forms which prevailed

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in India at that time. They were not only from different religious backgrounds but also from different castes and regions. Some of them belonged to the so-called lower castes, considered untouchable in the Hindu social order. For example, Kabir was a weaver, Ravidas a shoemaker, Namdev a calico-printer, and Dhanna a peasant. Kabir and Ravidas came from Kashi (Varanasi) in Uttar Pradesh in the north of India, Namdev from Maharashtra in the south, Jaideva from Bengal in the east, Dhanna from Rajasthan in the western part of India, and so on. Together with the Sikh gurus, these holy persons represented the human spiritual wisdom of about five centuries. Chronologically, Sheikh Farid (1173–1265), a Sufi saint, is the earliest and Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675), the ninth guru of the Sikh faith, the last among contributors to the Sikh scripture. All the hymns in the scripture—be they of the gurus or of any other holy person—are held in equal respect and together constitute the Word deemed guru in the Sikh faith. This structure of the scripture makes a strong statement in favor of religious co-existence, as it obviously states that revelation cannot be the monopoly of any particular creed, caste, region, or era. No religion or scripture can claim to be the last voice of God or the norm for other religions. Sikhism seems to agree with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel when he says that “God’s voice speaks in many languages, communicating itself in a diversity of intuitions. The word of God never comes to an end. No word is God’s last word.”12 There are several instances in the Sikh canon where we find an emphasis on the acceptance of the diversity of religions, their scriptures, and their different ways of worship. A scriptural hymn makes an explicit statement saying that “the Vedas (Indian scriptural literature) and the Katebs (the Semitic scriptures) be not called false: in fact, false are the persons who do not reflect on them” (Guru Granth Sahib, 1350). There are also several instances from the Sikh tradition where we find the Sikh gurus advising their followers to give regard to the prophets and seers from all traditions and to respect their religious ways. Sikhs are advised not to look down upon those who have a different form of worship. Such an attitude in the late medieval times was much ahead of the times and can very easily be taken as a precursor to the modern-day pluralistic view. For example, Guru Arjan was once visited by some devout Sikhs who—as the story goes—told the guru they felt confused by the diverse incarnations in which God was worshipped. The guru advised them: “All forms and attributes are God’s, yet He transcends them. You should, therefore, worship only the Absolute

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One. At the same time, you should not nurture any feelings of rancor towards those who have a different way of worship.”13 Sikhism is not a missionary faith and does not seek people from other faiths to enter its fold. It is appreciative of other faiths and accepts the plurality of religions. However, realizing that theological tolerance—for the sake of tolerance alone—usually results in indifference, Sikh acceptance of other faiths has been critical. Although all religions are not the same, one can perceive yet a sort of unity behind all their differences, and Sikhism expects all of them to be equal participants in the struggle for eco-human welfare. This is almost identical with the statement in Evangelii Gaudium that “we must have sincere trust in our fellow pilgrims, putting aside all suspicion or mistrust, and turn our gaze to what we are all seeking: the radiant peace of God’s face” (EG, 244). The Sikh gurus might have realized that if all religions are made relative, it could undermine the concern to distinguish good from bad, the spiritually wholesome and profound from the spiritually poor and moribund. One need not become neutral to all values in order to become a pluralist. Sikhism’s critical spirit is quite explicit on at least two vital points. Some scriptural hymns are highly critical of the sanctions and safeguards in any tradition favoring the hierarchical division of humankind; the idea of inequality by birth among people is not acceptable to Sikhism. (Hinduism, on the other hand, is said to provide divine sanction for the division of humankind into different varnas or castes.) Sikh theology rejects the doctrine of inherent inequality among humans and ineligibility within the so-called lower-caste citizens for achieving spiritual objectives. Sikhism also rejects the idea of world-negation and life-­negation and exhorts men and women to work not only for individual spiritual uplift but also for the moral progression of society as a whole. Sikhism emphasizes the unity of God who is not only responsible for the entire created order but also makes Himself manifest in the created order. The idea of divine presence, qua Spirit, is present in all places and in all beings, as Sikh scripture affirms: “If God resides only in the mosque, whom does the rest of the world belong to?” (GGS, 1349). God has created the human body of five perishable elements, but this body comes to life only when God supplies the sixth element, meaning the life-force or divine particle called soul within it. All beings are made of the same perishable elements and the same divine spark shines forth in each one of them:

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From the same air (breath) and the same clay (elements) is each body made of; The same (divine) Light shines forth in all. Each has the same divine spark within But still each is distinct, and No one is confounded with the other in any way. (GGS, 96)

The Sikh concept of equality is all-inclusive, making no distinction between human beings based on caste, creed, color, or race. “The same Lord is present in the Hindus as well as in Muslims,” says the scripture (GGS, 1158). Guru Gobind Singh’s verses, which occur in his “Akal Ustati,” a composition given to the eulogy of the Real One, reiterate the same idea: Some are vairagis with shaven heads and others sannayasis; Some others have become yogis. Some are celibates and some others have become Jain ascetics. Some are Hindus and some are Muslims (by faith); Some (among the Muslims) are Shi’ahs, While some others are Imams and others are part of the Sunnis. Recognize the entire human race as one. (85th stanza)

This idea of equality was rather revolutionary at the time of the gurus, especially in caste-ridden Indian society. More than this, the Sikh thought of divine presence in all beings also implies that each one is made in the image of God and must not be hurt or discriminated against in any way. Hurting persons is like hurting God within them. There are numerous references in the Sikh scripture emphasizing this value. Since the main thrust of the scriptural hymns has been eulogy of the divine, there are explicit references to imbibe love with God. But one can easily infer the implicit meaning that love for God is best expressed through love for fellow human beings. A verse in the Akal Ustati states this in quite clear terms: “I tell you the truth—listen ye all: Only they realize God who love [their fellow beings]” (GGS, 29). In line with this teaching, Sikhism teaches us to respect other religions, notwithstanding our disagreements and differentiations regarding outward symbols, rituals, and other such things. The Sikh scripture advises everybody to be true to his or her faith. A Muslim should be a true Muslim and a Hindu should be a true Hindu.

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An attempt to convert someone to one’s own faith implies demeaning the faith of the other. Such thinking is sure to result in mutual distrust and even conflict. Sikhism stands for the equal validity of all faiths and freedom of faith for all. It rejects the idea of proselytizing and rejects any attempt at conversion, whether overt or covert, because doing so assumes the other’s faith is inferior or not valid. On the other hand, Sikhism advises everybody to imbibe the required spiritual and ethical/moral values and thus be true to the faith he or she believes in. One ought to be respectful to other religions without putting one’s own religion or religious conviction into parenthesis, because learning about each other’s faith not only adds to our understanding of our own faith but also purifies and enriches us in a variety of other ways. This can unite people with different ideologies into a broader unity which, according to Sikhism, is the objective of religion. Bhai Gurdas, a Sikh theologian, clearly states that the objective of religion is not to divide humankind but to unite it, “not to act like a pair of scissors and tear asunder the social fabric but to act like a needle and sew it together.”14 This is close to Evangelii Gaudium which calls all beings “fellow pilgrims … journeying alongside one another” (EG, 244). The Sikh idea of inclusiveness is supported by Pope Francis when he says “we do not need plans drawn up by a few for the few, or enlightened or outspoken minority which claims to speak for everyone. It is about agreeing to live together, a social and cultural pact” (EG, 239). Lest this acceptance of religious plurality should remain an abstract idea, the Sikh gurus wanted different faiths and faith-communities to interact with one another. Dialogue with other faiths is not only recommended but an example is also set to hold such a dialogue and thereby try to arrive at the truth. As it says in Evangelii Gaudium, dialogue helps us “learn to accept others in their different ways of living, thinking, and speaking” (EG, 250). After Guru Nanak received his revelation, he set out on preaching odysseys to share this revelatory message with humankind in general. These journeys took him far and wide to Assam and Bangladesh in the east, to Baghdad (Iraq) and Mecca in the west, to Sri Lanka in the south, and deep into the Himalayas in the north. During his travels, he met holy persons at various holy places of different religious orders and he engaged in dialogue with them. References to his meetings with various Pandits and Pandhas, Siddhas and Yogis, Shaikhs and Maulwis are recorded in Janamsakhi (life-­ story) accounts of the guru. He listened to the viewpoints of these holy persons and shared his own revelatory message which it is said had a transformative effect on them.

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There are references in the Sikh scriptures that also emphasize the need to listen first and then to share your own views to reach the truth. In one such hymn, it is emphatically stated that “man throughout his worldly existence must seek to converse with others by first listening to others’ viewpoint and then putting forward his own viewpoint” (GGS, 661). This idea of first listening to the other implies an open mind and capacity to listen to and have tolerance toward the other’s point of view, which are required to have a fruitful and meaningful dialogue. The Sikh scripture categorically rejects polemics and says that the real “search for truth begins only when polemic is set aside” (GGS, 1255). “Polemics and argumentation are an evil and become the cause of destruction” (GGS, 142). A longer composition, titled Siddha Gosti (literally, a discourse with Siddhas) by Guru Nanak and included in the Guru Granth Sahib, perhaps provides the best example of interfaith dialogue. This composition is a sort of spiritual dialogue between Guru Nanak and the Siddhas and concerns the Sikh philosophy of life vis-à-vis the philosophy of yoga. The Siddhas put many searching questions to Guru Nanak who answers with courtesy and confidence. Dialogue is conducted without hurting the feelings of any of the participants and is aimed at realizing the truth while retaining serenity and sobriety always. This is the basis as well as the ideal of interfaith dialogue in Sikhism. Another important issue raised in Evangelii Gaudium is the need to view respect for religious freedom as a fundamental human right. This includes “the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public” (EG, 255). Once again, the Sikh scriptural advice for everyone is to remain true to his or her faith and to imbibe all the spiritual and ethical values expected of him or her. Freedom of conscience or freedom for everyone to choose and follow a religion of his or her own choice has always remained at the heart of Sikh faith. Guru Nanak never asked his lifelong companion, Mardana, who accompanied the guru on his preaching odysseys and was a Muslim by faith, to formally convert. When Mardana was on his deathbed, the guru asked him how his body should be disposed of after his death. Mardana’s reply clearly revealed that he had been completely transformed by the guru’s teaching. He replied, “By the Guru’s instruction I have overcome pride of the body; what remained of me after my death should be disposed of as the Guru wished.”15 Common people of all traditions were influenced by the teachings of Guru Nanak. The Islamic scholar Mushir-ul-Haq claims that “among all the non-Muslim religious personalities born in India, Guru

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Nanak was perhaps the only one whom the Muslims regarded as one of them.”16 One of the Sikh mottos according to scriptural hymn is “neither to frighten anyone nor give in to the fear of anybody” (GGS, 1427). Following this, while the Sikhs did not make any efforts at achieving converts to their faith, they also strongly resisted any attempts when someone else tried to enforce conversion. The first example of this in Sikh history is that of Guru Arjan who gave his life in the face of the intolerant religious policy of Emperor Jahangir. The emperor complained of Sikh society becoming “a state within the state” (as testified in his autobiographical Tuzk-i-Jahangiri), when he learned that Guru Arjan, the fifth guru of the Sikh faith, attracted a huge following among both Muslims and Hindus. He did not want a non-­ Muslim holy person to earn such a reputation. Following an intolerant religious policy, the emperor demanded the guru be brought into the fold of Islam, so the guru was given the choice between Islam and death. Since Sikhism holds the value of freedom of faith in very high regard, the guru preferred death to giving up his faith. In this way, Guru Arjan Dev became the first martyr to lay down his life for the sake of religious freedom—a fundamental human right. Another important example of Sikhism’s support for the freedom of religion is that of Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth guru of the Sikh faith, who sacrificed his life in protest of Emperor Aurangzeb who denied freedom of faith to Hindus. The emperor had nothing personal against the guru, but the guru stood clearly for ideals in stark opposition to his own. The Kashmiri Brahmins sought the guru’s help when they were being forcibly converted to Islam under the orders of Emperor Aurangzeb’s satrap, Iftikhar Khan. When the guru agreed to take up the challenge, he was arrested and taken captive to Delhi. His refusal to renounce his own faith resulted in his public execution at Chandni Chowk, Delhi, on 11 November 1675. It was a peculiar situation of self-prompted and meaningful suffering for the sake of others but to uphold a cherished ideal. Further, it is important to be clear that the guru’s move was certainly not against the Muslims. Had the contemporary political situation in India been the reverse, he would surely have made the same sacrifice for the sake of religious freedom for Muslims. In conclusion, we see several points in common between Pope Francis’s Evangelii Gaudium and the Sikh religion. Both want to see the world free from prevailing mistrust and disharmony, oppression, and violence. Both

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believe religion can play a significant role in this respect. Both claim we must see others as our brothers and sisters, as children of the same universal Father. Both believe we must learn to respect each faith as unique in itself and as a valid means to the realization of God/Truth. Dialogue is recommended for learning the differences that exist between religions. Reviling another’s religion or desecrating another community’s place of worship implies reviling Divine Presence itself, because the Creator-Lord is present in each being and at every place in this world. Both claim we must accept and respect others with their otherness and learn to affirm our own identity without threatening the identity of others. Both believe in God’s love for all beings, and that the latter need to express this love through love and compassion for the entire creation.

Notes 1. J. Johnston Walsh, A Memorial of the Futtehgurh Mission and Her Martyred Missionaries (Philadelphia: Joseph M. Wilson, and London: James Nisbet and Co, 1859), 113. Duleep Singh was removed from Punjab in February 1850, and relocated to Fatehgarh, in the modern-day Uttar Pradesh of India. There he was quietly baptized as a Christian at a private ceremony in March 1853. In April 1854, he was exiled to England. 2. Harbans Singh, ed., The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, vol. 4 (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1998), 205. 3. This slogan was popularized by John R. Mott, The Evangelization of the World in This Generation (New York. Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1900). 4. Martin Forward, Inter-Religious Dialogue: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001), 29. 5. Paul F.  Knitter, ed., The Myth of Religious Superiority: A Multifaith Exploration (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005), ix. 6. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Faith of Other Men (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 11. 7. John Hick, The Rainbow of Faiths (London: SCM Press, 1995), 12. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 13. 10. For example, the statements in this context such as “evangelization and interreligious dialogue, far from being opposed, mutually support and nourish one another” can possibly be misunderstood, as the term evangelization implies preaching the Gospel as well as winning over a person to Christianity. It is perfectly understandable in the former sense. 11. Bhai Gurdas, Varan, 1.29.

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12. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays in Applied Religion (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition, 1966), 182. 13. This incident is found in almost all of the old Sikh chronicles, including Bhai Mani Singh’s Sikhan di Bhagatmala and Santokh Singh’s Sri Gurpratap Suraj Granth. See also The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, vol. 2, 104. 14. Bhai Gurdas, Varan, 33.4. 15. https://www.allaboutsikhs.com/early-gursikhs/early-gursikhs-bhai-mardana-ji. 16. Mushir-ul-Haq, “Muslim Attitude towards Guru Nanak,” in Perspectives on Guru Nanak, ed. Harbans Singh (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1975), 295.

CHAPTER 12

Let’s Get Off Our Cell Phones and Hear a Sikh Maxim from Pope Francis Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a pioneer in the study of comparative religion, prepared us for an exciting world in which “we all” are talking together about “us.”1 Rejecting the monological discourse with its strategies of subverting and converting others that had been prevalent, academics like Smith encourage interreligious dialogue between people of faith. Smith in fact proposed going beyond “dialogue” to “colloquy … partly for its multilateral connotations but chiefly to suggest a side-by-side confronting of the world’s problems (intellectual and other) rather than a face-to-face confronting of each other.”2 Today, in our technologically advanced global society, we are indeed side by side—men and women across religions, cultures, ethnicities—in the same offices, planes, trains, restaurants, and so on. But sadly, each of us is on our cell phones busily texting, emailing, tweeting away. Where’s the dialogue? Where’s the colloquy? Where’s the working together to resolve all the urgent problems facing us today? Enslaved to mobile technology, our lives have faded into that dull mode of existence poignantly captured by N.-G. K. Singh (*) Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_12

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T.  S. Eliot in his Four Quartets: “distracted from distraction by distraction.”3 Researchers are studying the impact of our modern epidemic. In her books, Reclaiming Conversation (2015) and Alone Together (2010), Sherry Turkle, Professor of Science and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, investigates the lack of empathy, the diminishing of attention, and the alienation we suffer by hiding behind texts and emails in our private and public life. Religious conflicts are seething all over; violence is escalating in all regions of the world. In this digitally ripe but empathetically arid climate, Pope Francis’s appeals for interreligious dialogue—in which we actually hear each other, we make eye contact—are urgent. The fundamental disconnect between people in this hyper-­ connected world of ours could lead to “a piecemeal World War III” that Pope Francis warns us may have already begun “with the current spate of crimes, massacres, and destruction.”4 As a Sikh academic at an American liberal arts institution, I am deeply drawn to Pope Francis. His personality, his existential mode of being, and his interreligious approach fill me with optimism that this visionary Catholic leader can bring about a major shift in our dangerously divided world. His position carries tremendous political and diplomatic power, and importantly, he is profoundly conscious of his pontifical role as a builder of bridges: “My wish is that the dialogue between us should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be welcomed and embraced.”5 So many of us can identify with the Holy Father; born in Argentina, this first non-European pope in nearly 1300  years shares the history of colonialism and struggle for democracy with masses across the continents. This pope understands what it is to be oppressed and exploited psychologically, socially, economically, and politically. He is the ideal figure to take up this role as the builder of bridges. Actually, the more I hear Pope Francis speak, the more affinity I feel for him, and the more I think about him, the more I see him resemble Guru Nanak (1469–1539), the founder of the Sikh faith. These two figures are centuries apart; they come from two totally different parts of the world and they belong to two different religious and cultural traditions, and yet, each helps me understand the other better. Arvind Sharma’s discussion of “synonymous” and “homonymous” phenomena in his Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination

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applies quite well to our own case: “synonymous phenomena” appear different but possess similar significance in contrast with “homonymous ­phenomena” that may appear similar but are in fact quite different.6 When we see Guru Nanak and Pope Francis as “synonymous phenomena,” we do achieve a stronger profile of each figure. Guru Nanak lived in North India during a period of intense religious strife; he witnessed the traumatic invasion in 1526 of India by Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur and the transition from the Lodi Sultanate to the establishment of the Mughal Empire. Feeling the pain of the weak and the degraded, Guru Nanak tried to formulate new possibilities. In the Punjab, torn by religion, caste, class, and ethnic divisions, he sang simple vernacular melodies of shared humanity. He chose sublime poetry as the means to convey his theological and ethical worldview, and his boundless imagination and subtle aesthetic sensitivity vividly emerge in each verse of his vast oeuvre (974 hymns recorded in Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, GGS for short). For me, Guru Nanak’s triple formula—sunia (hear), mania (welcome), and mani kita bhau (evoke love in the mind/heart)—is the bedrock of his message. It appears in the Japji, the inaugural hymn of the GGS, and resounds throughout the 1430-paged sacred volume. Interestingly, this Sikh maxim becomes even more meaningful if we try to hear it from the lips of our twenty-first-century pontiff. In Pope Francis’s direct, powerful addresses to audiences across the globe, Guru Nanak’s universal poetic ideal acquires immediacy and relevancy. Hearing the Sikh guru and the Catholic pope side by side becomes an exciting interfaith exercise in itself. Together, they open up significant new ways of recognizing the past and of being in the present. In the scholarly parlance of comparative religionists, they yield a rich “reciprocal illumination.”

Culture of Encounter In their own and in different ways, both Guru Nanak and the pope underscore a culture of encounter, an encounter with religious persons rather than a focus on the doctrines, institutions, and practices that have been systematized into books sitting on library shelves. Smith provocatively denounced all essentializing isms, be it Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, or Sikhism, and pointed instead to the complexities of the ever-accumulating dynamic embodied by Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs, and so on. And rightly so, dialogue does not take place between religions, religious persons engage in dialogue. With persons we

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start out on a common ground. Both Guru Nanak and Pope Francis bring home the point that we are siblings with the same creator-parent, a ­“sameness” also framed in a striking way by the Dalai Lama: “Indeed, the more I see of the world, the clearer it becomes that no matter what our situation, whether we are rich or poor, educated or not, of one race, gender, religion or another, we all desire to be happy and to avoid suffering.”7 When we affirm our fundamental human commonality, we begin to forge strong relationships of mutuality and support with people who may have different belief systems and ritual practices. Wilfred Cantwell Smith founded the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in 1951 with the mandate that half the faculty and graduate students be Muslim. The daily four o’clock teas were to stimulate discussions among students, staff, and faculty alike. Under Smith’s directorship, the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University similarly became a vibrant hub for students and scholars from all over the world. The lectures, meetings, informal dinners, and conversations in its residential setting inspired academics from near and far. His former student and mentee, Diana Eck, leads the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. My own father, Professor Harbans Singh, spent a year as visiting professor at the Center for the Study of World Religions. On his return, he chaired India’s first department for the academic study of religions at the Punjabi University, Patiala. It was established in 1969 in celebration of Guru Nanak’s fifth birth centennial. The building in which it is housed is architecturally modeled on a ship with sails—each sail representing a different faith. Within each unit there are cubicles for scholars, offices, a library, and sacred space intrinsic to the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs. In the center of the interior is a large seminar room; a pool with cascading fountains surrounds the structure, and atop the building is a flame symbolizing shared destination. I recall my father hosting many lectures and seminars and inviting distinguished scholars (including Smith) to promote understanding and peace among people of different religions and nationalities. He remained an active member of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, and he also joined the International Consultation in Search of Non-Violent Alternatives in Derry, Northern Ireland. Later, in memory of my mother, he instituted a lecture series to promote interreligious conversations which continues to bring scholars such as Donald Dawe, Margaret Chatterjee, Catherine Asher, and Alan Race.

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Encounter entails actual journey—leaving the comforts of home and going into an unfamiliar zone, and in a way, the geographical travel marks an interior journey. Guru Nanak and Pope Francis are known for their wide travels, and instead of a place or religious site, the destination in both cases is indeed persons.8 There is not much factual documentation on Guru Nanak, but in spite of its lack, his biography is abundantly imprinted in the collective memory of the Sikhs, and it centers on the guru’s extensive travels within and beyond India, with his Muslim companion Mardana. There is in him a constant urge to know and get closer to others. The popular narrative accounts called the Janamskahis (birth stories), the works of Bhai Gurdas, and visual materials unanimously portray a pluralistic Nanak meeting and conversing with people of different faiths. He is seen in Hardwar; he is seen in Mecca; he is seen in the upper ranges of the Himalayas. In the language of colors, Sikh paintings depict Guru Nanak with disparate motifs of the tilak and the seli: he often has a vertical red tilak mark on his forehead, just as he has a woolen cord, seli, slung across his left shoulder coming down to his right waist. The tilak is saturated with the holiness of the Vaishnava Hindus and the seli with the devotion of the Muslim Sufis. Each has enormous unity of meaning for its specific community and they come together on the Sikh guru’s body to project his inclusive personality. The motifs from two different traditions do not reproduce a composite or hybrid model; rather, they convincingly convey to the viewer a figure beyond the either-or religious categories prevalent in medieval India. The various accounts portray Guru Nanak discoursing with Sufis, Hindu saints, Brahmans (upper-class Hindus), qadis (Muslim judges), yogis (practitioners of rigorous physical postures), Digambara Jains (“sky-­ clad” Jain ascetics), Nāthas (master yogis believed to have attained immortality), and siddhas (the “accomplished” with supernatural powers). He visits temples, mosques, viharas, and khanaqahs; he attends a multitude of fairs and festivals celebrated by people from different religious traditions. While Mardana played on the rebec (a bow-stringed instrument), Guru Nanak sang songs of intense love addressing the ultimate One in spoken Punjabi. His encounters transcended the stereotypical Hindu and Muslim divisions of his day. Wherever he went, the direct and simple style of Guru Nanak’s teaching drew people from different religious and social backgrounds. Those who accepted him as their guru and followed his teachings came to be known as Sikhs, a Punjabi word which means “disciple”

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or “seeker” (Sanskrit shishya; Pali sekha). The very origins of the Sikh religion lie in Guru Nanak’s encounter with people of different faiths. Closer to our times, the 80-year-old pontiff has been making numerous foreign trips to meet people of different faiths living in different parts of the world and spreading his message of peace. During his papacy he has visited Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Albania, Turkey, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Central African Republic, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. Pope Francis goes to synagogues, mosques, and temples. He comes face to face with people; he sees and is seen by people. He has not yet been to a Sikh Gurudwara, and I hope he will sometime soon! His meeting with an expectant Sikh anesthesiologist in NYC did circulate widely: at an interfaith event in the September 11 Memorial Museum, Dr. Gunisha Kaur requested the pope to bless her child. In her words, “When Pope Francis walked in, I felt the divinity of his presence. It seems as if time stood still.”9 In whatever foreign setting Pope Francis and Guru Nanak put their feet, the atmosphere we learn becomes charged with something sublime; people across faiths feel a deep sense of peace and harmony.

Cultivation of Humility That we begin our encounter with others in a state of humility is vital for both Guru Nanak and Pope Francis. Unfortunately, in our egocentric society, this human disposition is in dire scarcity. Guru Nanak was born into a modest family. He cherished humility as the highest virtue and through his person and message tried to shake the complacent hierarchies of caste and class and religion. In his own words, “Sweet humility O Nanak is the core of virtues and good deeds” (Guru Granth Sahib: 470; hereafter GGS). He traced haumai (literally, I myself) as the root cause of human problems. Haumai is the selfish investment of oneself with pride and arrogance. By constantly centering on “I,” “me,” and “mine,” the self is circumscribed as a particular person, wrenched from his/her universal matrix. Dubida (duality) comes into play as the selfish ego asserts itself in opposition to others. Such an existence is measured through competition, malice, ill will toward others, and a craving for power. A typical Nanakian trope captures his acute desire to be humble: “May I be the dust of the feet of the saints.” Pope Francis is the perfect embodiment of the Sikh guru’s ideal of humility. On his first appearance on the balcony of St. Peter’s, Pope Francis bowed his head for the blessing of the people of Rome. Guru Nanak’s

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scriptural metaphors and symbols are practically validated and enriched by  him. Pope Francis refused to live in the spacious beautiful ­Renaissance-­decorated Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square; instead, he opted for a three-room flat, the so-called Domus Sanctae Marthae, located behind a gas station. He shuns all the lavish privileges of high office—he drives a small car, carries his own bags, and pays his own bills.10 In his own words: “Allow me to say it loud and clear: the more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly. … You will end up hurting yourself and those around you if you don’t connect your power with humility and tenderness.”11 Loudly and clearly, Pope Francis stresses the virtue of humility. Analogous to the cotton tree that hurts the birds in Guru Nanak’s passage, he cautions the proud against hurting “others around” them.12 That the Holy Father moves to a seat in the back row to pray with his congregation illustrates his impulse to be with them and not tower over them. How can we engage with anybody in pride and arrogance? The Sikh sacred text comes out alive in the life and gestures of this extraordinary, twenty-first-­ century, Catholic leader.

Listening to Each Other Encounter entails listening to each other. Listening is central to Guru Nanak’s praxis, and in fact, we can say that he launched the Religion of the Ear. The guru called himself dhadi (a songster), an employee of his patron, ikk oan kar (the One Transcendent Being). His successors echoed his philosophical and artistic voice. Most of the Guru Granth Sahib is arranged in 31 raga chapters which include classical Indian musical measures as well as folk musical patterns and regional Bhakti and Sufi forms with their sonorous rhythms and melodies. Since it goes beyond verbal systems, music has a communal value, so it was used as a medium for bringing together people who spoke different languages. Sikh congregations were created and are being sustained with devotees singing and listening to the scriptural hymns together, and in that oral/aural aesthetic experience, the distinction between self and other blurs, so fostering a spirit of communitas. Hearing is the sense that most directly connects the conscious and the unconscious realms. According to the Guru Granth Sahib, when listening to the melodious Name of the Divine, we fathom the oceans of virtue. Stanzas 8–11 of the Japji explain the vital role of listening. Through listen-

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ing one gains the faculties of all the gods: one gains knowledge of all the continents; one acquires the import of all the ancient texts; one learns all the techniques of meditation; one masters the experience of all the sages of Hinduism and Islam (and by implication all religions). And through listening, all suffering and anxiety are annulled. So forceful and tactile is this sensibility that “by hearing, hands can fetch and clasp the unplumbed reality—sunieh hath hovai asgah” (Japji stanza 11)! The refrain in these stanzas acknowledges listening as the technique to evoke supreme bliss. As the sound makes its way into our deep unconscious, narrow, self-centered glitches are removed and our reactions tend to become naturally outgoing and inclusive. We innately choose to live ethically and harmoniously with one another. Guru Nanak’s moral may be a bit too metaphysical for our ears, but Pope Francis translates it into a clear tangible plea: Take time, quality time. This means being ready to listen patiently and attentively to everything the other person wants to say. It requires the self-­ discipline of not speaking until the time is right. Instead of offering an opinion or advice, we need to be sure that we have heard everything the other person has to say. This means cultivating an interior silence that makes it possible to listen to the other person without mental or emotional distractions. Do not be rushed, put aside all of your own needs and worries, and make space.13

Hearing is a complex process that involves being patient and paying attention; it involves cultivating self-discipline and an interior silence. In stunning simplicity, the pope offers us a fourfold manual on how best to hear the other. As soon as I hear his instruction, Guru Nanak’s thoughts on each of these four “exercises” begin to echo in my mind. Verse after verse, the guru offers a nuanced understanding of dhiraj (patience), dhyan (attention), sanjam (discipline), and antargati (interiority). For instance, his model human is a goldsmith who works in his smithy with dhiraj (patience). Some translators of the GGS render dhiraj as “resignation,”14 which I think misses out on the active and deliberate engagement with others in this temporal world of ours. By being patient we arrest all restlessness; we create an active and positive state devoid of the feelings of hostility, anger, resentment, and anxiety. Patience is also a Buddhist ideal and it recalls sabr (perseverance), as embodied by the Prophets Job and Jacob; it is cherished as an important milestone on the Sufi Path.15 Through

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Pope Francis, such familiar timeless values acquire a most timely resonance: we are motivated to utilize them in our everyday lives as we meet neighbors unfamiliar to us. We are inspired to practice our respective spiritual ideals to become better citizens in our rapidly globalizing neighborhoods. Not only do Guru Nanak and Pope Francis raise our awareness about the importance of “hearing” but also of “speaking.” Both are sensitive to language and respect the cherished words of others. During his travels, Guru Nanak tried to speak in the language of the people he met. Among Hindus he addressed the Divine One in terms they were used to such as Hari or Ram; among Sufis he addressed the Divine as in their lexicon—as Allah or Khuda or Rahim. Likewise, we hear Pope Francis in the Central Mosque of Koudoukou in Bangui addressing Christians and Muslims “as brothers and sisters,” identifying “God is peace” with the Islamic “God salam,” and ending with the Muslim greeting “Salam alaikum!” (30 November 2015). Such overtures by Pope Francis lead to unspoken communication that brings about interreligious bonds. They create an affinity by which people of different faiths begin to feel comfortable to share with one another their hopes, struggles, and deepest concerns, ultimately what their “hearts wish to communicate,” in language taken from Pope Francis during his Meeting with the Bishops of Asia, Shrine of Haemi, on 17 August 2014. In our texting culture, where numerals are fast replacing words, our lips and tongues need to replicate the speech pattern of Guru Nanak and Pope Francis. Guru Nanak was also very critical of highbrows who presumed to know the mystery of creation and boasted about their knowledge. In fact, he denounced any authoritarian claim by anyone from any school of thought, whether Hindu or Muslim. He reprimands the talkative show-offs, “the babbler who presumes to know the answer is written down as the fool of fools” (Japji 26); those who talk big are “idiots inscribing letters in the air” (GGS 151). Rather than spew out pedantic answers, the Sikh guru wanted us to question ourselves: “what words do we utter from our mouths that would evoke love—muhon ki bolan boliai jis sun dhare pyar?” (Japji 4). As though in response, Pope Francis advises, “words should be carefully chosen so as not to offend … making a point should never involve venting anger and inflicting hurt. A patronizing tone only serves to hurt, ridicule, accuse, and offend others” (Amoris Laetitia 140). The Sikh guru and Pope Francis seem to be having a perfect dialogue between them! How well they advance and enrich each other’s views.

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Given our cell phone obsession, our communication skills seem to be going from bad to worse; as a result we are not even hearing what Guru Nanak or Pope Francis has to say. The literary critic, Hans-Georg Gadamer, once diagnosed our basic malady in a way that is applicable to our contemporary condition: “It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition.”16 Each of us hears the other from our own horizon; we have our assumptions, our knowledge, our prejudices—our “fore-meanings,” as Gadamer put it. For Gadamer, however, “prejudice” does not have a negative connotation. He regards it simply as prejudgment, which is the reality of our historical inheritance. “Prejudice against prejudice” only “denies tradition its power,” he says.17 Since each of us belongs to a tradition, our understanding is shaped by our personal proclivities, by the immediate families we grow up in, and by the long and complex doctrines, practices, and codes emanating from our faith traditions. Gadamer also helps us to resolve the problem: we need to hermeneutically train our consciousness. His cure involves being sensitive to “alterity,” a sensitivity that is neither neutrality for the content nor the extinction of the listener’s self.18 He prescribes a double dose of “tension”—tension between the listener and the speaker, tension between the past and the present. As listeners, then, we must examine our biases and recognize the otherness of the person(s) we encounter and meet. We must also acknowledge the norms we have inherited from our specific tradition so that we can hear the speaker from our present situation. This double tension would break the spell of our “fore-meanings” and clear out our auditory canals. Thus, we would hear the difference and newness of people we encounter, as Guru Nanak and Pope Francis would urge us to do. And we would hear each of them better too.

Welcoming the Other The Verb “to Welcome” Spoken by Pope Francis, the verb to welcome resonates deeply with me. In his wish, cited earlier from Pope Appeals for More Interreligious Dialogue,19 that everyone “see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be welcomed and embraced,” his imperative to greet others is fused with ineffable joy, intimacy, and hope for new possibilities. Over the years, I have been unsure about how best to translate the word mania in Guru Nanak’s worldview. Sunia (hearing) in his threefold maxim is fol-

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lowed by mania (welcoming), and this sequence is maintained in Guru Nanak’s Japji hymn as the four stanzas on welcoming follow the four on hearing. Like many other Sikh scriptural terms, mania (from man, mind or heart) is a multivalent term, endowed with endless semantic potential. It connotes trust, faith, receiving, keeping in mind, remembering, accepting, following, and welcoming. Guru Nanak himself admits: “No words can say what’s to welcome/Attempts to explain are later regretted/No paper, pen, or scribe can describe it/Nor any philosophizing help to realize it (Japji 12).”20 Despite its utter ineffability, the guru devotes four passages to mania (Japji 12–15). In previous works, I have translated this term sometimes as “remembering,”21 at other times as “having faith,”22 never quite striking the right equivalent. The Holy Father helped me to realize the multidimensionality of this central Sikh precept. Indeed, it is by “welcoming” that our mind and intellect awaken. We become cognizant of knowledge beyond what we see and hear, and the more knowledge we gain, the more our mental attitude changes, the more open we grow, the more confidence we gain, and the more virtuous we become in our existential dealings. “By welcoming we walk on a clear path/By welcoming we advance in honor and glory/By welcoming we do not stray down lanes and byways/By welcoming we are bonded with righteousness” (Japji 14). We heard echoes of these Nanakian guidelines in Pope Francis’s appeal to listen attentively and patiently so that we create an interior space and thus make room for the other. And so, in the openness created by hearing, we usher in the worldview, doctrines, beliefs, texts, institutions, and forms of worship that are not ours. The activity of welcoming has enormous intellectual, psychological, and social impact and elicits further analysis. In the following interlinking segments we will try to unpack it. To Be Who We Are To welcome is to be who we truly are. How can we welcome any other if we are not our authentic self? In times of uncertainty and fear we become unsure of ourselves and act in ways that alienate us from ourselves and others. This could well characterize Guru Nanak’s milieu. The pressure to please the Mughal rulers and their officials disturbed many of the indigenous people. Instead of becoming more diverse and accepting of the varied expressions of religious experience, some became more orthodox and fanatic. Others like the upper-caste Brahmans and elite Hindus, who

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sought positions in the Mughal court, were caught between the faith of the “foreigners” and their own, between their public persona and their personal lives. Guru Nanak searches out that tension: They levy taxes on cows and on Brahmans, and yet they expect Plastering kitchens with cow-dung will release them.23 They wear loin-cloth, holy dot, and carry a rosary While they eat the offerings made by foreigners.24 At home they perform Hindu worship, In public they read Muslim scriptures, They behave like brother Turks.25 Get rid of such hypocrisy. (GGS 471)

Guru Nanak disliked sycophants and hypocrites. He clashed with those who made a big fuss over ritual practices and dietary restrictions to put others down. He tellingly asks, “What is meat? What is mustard leaf? In which of these does vice reside?” (GGS 1289). Similarly, the Holy Father offers a valuable diagnosis of why we humans act that way. He suggests that it is insecurity that makes us tense, and to give the appearance of security we hide behind easy answers, ready formulas, rules, and regulations.26 The Sikh guru constantly appeals to Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, Yogis, and Siddhas—in fact, whomever he met—to be who they genuinely were. His belief in the moral truth of every tradition is beautifully expressed in Pope Francis’s definition of religion as “a compass that orients us to the good and steers us away from evil.”27 Guru Nanak respected every religious person when they fully practiced their religion; for example, he says: It is tough to be called a Muslim We can only be so called if we are one We first cherish the sweet faith of the Prophet And scrape off all rusty layers of pride A Muslim must follow the religion of the Prophet Dispel doubts about life and death Trust the will of Rabb, hold the creator supreme And dispel the egoistic I and me A person who has loving kindness for all living beings Is called a Muslim, says Nanak. (GGS 141)

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Guru Nanak blamed individuals who usurped basic human values and exploited fellow beings in the name of religion. To live authentically by matching our beliefs with our praxis was his message to the diverse communities of his day. It is refreshing to hear Pope Francis render the crux of Guru Nanak’s advice in a very modern, technological idiom as he addresses young people, “We cannot ‘photo shop’ others, the world, or ourselves. Color filtering and high definition only function well in video; we can never apply them to our friends.”28 However attractive such pictures may be, he says, they are “completely fake,” because hearts “can’t be photo shopped.” Authentic love and genuine happiness reside in the heart. From my reading of these two figures, both Pope Francis and the Sikh guru believe in religion as a moral guide and a fundamental human right, and they want people to freely practice it—to be who they are without having to emulate another, without having to put down another. They speak against exclusivist claims that one’s own tradition is valid at the cost of all others. All religions are equally valid so long as there is an existential correlation between their ethical ideals and their daily practices. Hearing their thesis boosts our spirit; it puts us in a mood to welcome people who may look different, speak differently, dress differently, and pursue different practices and doctrines. To Think Through Our Conflicts I also feel both these thinkers want us to sort out our problems before initiating a meaningful exchange. How can we embrace one another if we are deeply conflicted? Guru Nanak and Pope Francis impel us to look into ourselves and discern the roots of our maladies, our sibling rivalries, and our jealousies. Very often religion is abused for the sake of economic, political, and social gain. We transfer our psychological conflicts on to external differences and religious difference is an easy target. So instead of facing our issues, we easily misplace and dislocate our propensities and our psychological sicknesses as “religious” conflicts. Guru Nanak offers an incisive analysis of Babur’s aggressive conquest of India, “jaru vandi devai bhai—it’s wealth that divides brother from brother” (GGS 417). A descendent of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan and also of the Turkic conqueror Timur the Great, Babur had territorial and financial aspirations;

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failing in his westward operations, he invaded India. Babur had no intention of pitting one religion against another; in fact the rulers of North India at that time were the Muslim Lodis.29 Clearly, his was not a religious conflict; a “Muslim” was not invading “Hindu” India. It was purely Babur’s greed for the wealth of India which divided the Muslim Babur brother from his Muslim Lodi brothers. All around us today, individual desires and demands are getting fabricated into dangerous rhetoric for arousing exclusivism and communalism. The Hindu-Muslim conflict confronting Guru Nanak’s society is carried over into modern times—between Israelis and Palestinians, Sikhs and Hindus, Catholics and Protestants, Sunnis and Shi’as. But what we are really doing is avoiding facing up to the root causes of conflict: human lust, anger, greed, attachment, and pride. In our hazardous Islamophobic atmosphere, Pope Francis enlightens us: “Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”30 Like Guru Nanak, Pope Francis urges us not to confuse extremism with Islam and not to discriminate against the entire Muslim community. We need to inquire into the root causes of our discontent: What are the sources of our phobias? Is it Islam or the lingering consequences of Western colonial history? Is it disguised greed for oil or territorial expansion or status, power, racial superiority, or a tactic to win votes and elections? Is it an exploitive devise to get public consent for disastrous wars? We must also keep in mind that “to welcome” in our world of religious difference and proximity does not simply mean “to tolerate,” which Diana Eck warns us is “too thin a foundation.”31 For toleration “does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.”32 As we have noted, the “welcoming” mandated by Guru Nanak and Pope Francis is much more than toleration, and as the mode for engagement with diversity, it is best expressed by Pope Francis: “we think as they do, see the world through their eyes … acknowledge the other person’s truth, the value of his or her deepest concerns.”33 In welcoming, we break loose from our constricted and hemmed-in selves as we try to enter the horizons of others.

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If we were to parse out Pope Francis’s advice, we would approach or encounter the other and their religious texts, practices, myths, and rituals, as they would regard them, and in turn we would learn to see ourselves from their perspectives. In real conversations, we take our eyes off our phones and computers and look into our interlocutor’s eyes and faces. But Pope Francis wants us to go further, to see through their eyes. Again, he is not trying to assert our sameness or deny differences. Seeing the world through the eyes of our religiously diverse fellow human beings leads to a sincere appreciation for them, with all their differences and uniquenesses, and simultaneously, we acquire a more self-critical view of our own values. Overall, we acquire an enhanced understanding of others and of ourselves, which in turn points the way to a genuine global pluralism that has the potential for becoming a great resource for cultural, social, economic, and spiritual development for us today. To Enjoy Diversity There is a joy in welcoming the other. President Obama reminded us of our rich “patchwork heritage” and Guru Nanak in medieval India celebrated the “countless species, languages, rulers and kings, single-minded thinkers, and devotees” (Japji: 35). In his fivefold mystical journey, the guru discovered that real knowledge stems from our encounter with innumerable varieties of species, thinkers, languages, political systems, spiritualties, along with millions of inhabited planets, countless mountains, countless moons, suns, and constellations, with innumerable gods and goddesses. Knowledge of our ever-widening horizons gives way to an all-­ embracing mystical unity. Selfish manipulations and egocentric obsessions vanish, creating an all-accepting and joyous attitude. Our imagination stretches, emotions expand, and spirituality intensifies. With all barriers removed our personal horizons joyously flow into the diverse worlds of other people and return doubly enhanced. Five and a half centuries later, Guru Nanak’s is no longer simply a “mystical” vision but a social responsibility and obligation. In his address at the tragic site of the Ground Zero Memorial, Pope Francis gives us confidence that we have the capacity and resources—languages, cultures, and religions—to build up a rich and diverse world: “We can and must build unity on the basis of the diversity of languages, cultures, and religions, and lift our voices against everything which would stand in the way

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of such unity. Together we are called to say ‘no’ to every attempt to impose uniformity, and ‘yes’ to diversity accepted and reconciled.”34 But again he recommends that we shatter each and every structure that aims for uniformity to create a sense of “unity in diversity.” As the Holy Father explicitly states: “Pluralism is a process of creating a society by acknowledging, rather than hiding, our deepest differences and particularities. It does not entail privatizing religion in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s consciousness or to relegate them to the encoded precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques. This would be a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism.”35 The subtext here is self-confidence. Steadfast in our convictions and identity, we relish our way of being and living, and in our curiosity to know and learn about the other, we humbly enter their horizon, and we respect them for who they are. We do not impose our values on them; we respect their identity, beliefs, and values. In our vibrant diversity we people take on the form of the pope’s multifaceted geometric ideal of a “polyhedron”—united together with each person fully relishing his/her own religious and cultural identity. In a polyhedron society we retain a dynamic pluralism: we worship in our own sacred spaces with wonder; with warmth, we welcome others into our physical and emotional sanctuaries; with reverence, we congregate with others in their holy spaces; and with pleasure, we read their scriptures. Now, some of us may feel threatened to engage others or even enter a sacred place that is not ours. How rarely we visit one another’s places— mosques, temples, synagogues, and churches! We remain so close and yet so far apart. I would like to share my own childhood example as testament that we do not in fact compromise anything by worshipping in the holy places of others. During my childhood in India, I attended a convent school where we daily recited the Lord’s Prayer “Our Father” in the morning assembly and took courses in moral science. I loved going into the convent where we sang psalms and collected images of Christ and of Our Lady of Fatima, for whom my school was named. At home, of course, the center of life was the Guru Granth Sahib. And yet life was not schizophrenic, for the two worlds with their different languages, different histories, and different styles of worship co-existed colorfully. Together they became an essential part of my psyche. The question of identity never surfaced; just as I knew my name, I knew I was a Sikh. But that did not stop me from participating excitedly in the religious space of my Catholic teachers. I can still feel the

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fervor with which I would sing “The Lord is my shepherd, nothing shall I fear.” My childhood experiences in the Catholic Church reinforced my Sikh identity. The Holy Father makes me realize what I have felt subliminally, “opening ourselves to others does not lead to impoverishment but rather to enrichment, because it enables us to be more human: to recognize ourselves as participants in a greater collective.”36 To Read Each Other’s Scriptures Guru Nanak and Pope Francis impress on us how religion expresses multiple dimensions of human experience. Today, I think it is especially important for us to read scriptures across religious traditions, which both Pope Francis and Guru Nanak ask us to do. According to Pope Francis, “the religious classics can prove meaningful in every age; they have an enduring power to open new horizons, to stimulate thought, to expand the mind, and the heart.”37 Guru Nanak treasures the sacred texts of his contemporaries and frequently evokes the Hindu Veda and the Islamic Qateb. Whereas the Veda for him symbolizes the entire Indic tradition—not just the Veda itself but also the Puranas, the Shastras, and the Smritis—the Qateb represents its Islamic counterpart, the holy Qur’an, and also the Torah, the Zabur, and the Injil. Sikh scripture is full of respect for the diversity and parity of scriptures: “some read the Vedas, some the Qateb” (GGS 885). Indeed, scriptures are the quintessence of every religion. They express the deepest moral and philosophical values of the respective faith. Reading itself is complex, comprising visual, perceptual, syntactic, and semantic processes. Therefore, reading scripture, especially another’s, becomes a daunting affair. Often those within the tradition hold such reverence for their holy book that they fear any intimacy with it. Priests, along with scholars and exegetes, officiate as readers, and this only increases the insecurity of those outside of privileged expert circles. The result clearly leaves everybody alienated and impoverished. In their own yet different ways, the Vedas, the Hebrew Bible, the Tao Te Ching, the New Testament, the Dhammapada, the holy Qur’an, the Shō bō genzō , and the Guru Granth Sahib provide us with kaleidoscopic glimpses into the beyond and simultaneously make us feel much more at home on our planet earth. Grounded in Guru Nanak’s vision, Sikh scripture serves as an interfaith archive. It includes not only the verses of the Sikh gurus but also of Hindu and Muslim saints. In 1604, Guru Nanak’s successor, Guru Arjan, con-

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sciously compiled different worldviews, images, and symbols in the Sikh canon. This was not any syncretic undertaking which is rightly disapproved by the pope as a “totalitarian gesture.” Each author in the GGS is clearly identified and their particularities are fully maintained and respected. The goal was to affirm differences, to familiarize readers with the diversity, and to promote pluralism in an essential way. Islamic motifs and vocabulary intrinsic to West Asia co-exist richly in the Guru Granth Sahib with those from the indigenous Indian subcontinent, and so we recover the confluence of Eastern and Western perspectives. Since the various Sikh gurus and Hindu saints and Muslim Sufis bring their own traditions, the Guru Granth Sahib becomes a rich confluence of Hebraic and Indic worldviews. Effacing fearful divisions and insecurities, the text broadens our mind with a plurality of concepts, ideologies, and literary styles. It enlightens the readers with the vision of Hebraic God Allah and Indic Krishna. It familiarizes us with the eschatology of the last Day of Judgment and of Reincarnation. We are introduced to the Messenger of Death; we are introduced to Lord Yama. We see the burial customs; we see cremation. We learn about the Five Pillars of Islam; we learn about the precepts of dharma, karma, puja, and tiratha. We become familiar with the holy Qur’an; we become familiar with the sacred Vedas, the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana. But the enduring power of scriptures is usurped by chauvinistic interpreters, exegetes, translators. The GGS denounces exclusivist and “myopic”38 readers and scriptural authorities: “Do not call the Vedas or the Qateb false; false is the person who does not reflect on them” (GGS 1350). Guru Nanak further laments: “What can the poor Vedas (Hindu sacred texts) and Kateb (Muslim sacred texts) do when nobody recognizes the singular One?” (GGS 1153). The problem of “inter” and “intra” religious conflicts does not lie in the sacred scriptures of others but in we humans who neither bicārai (reflect) on them nor būjhehi (recognize) the singular ikk ekā (author), and so we fail terribly to see through the eyes of others. Readings from other religious texts not only give us an awareness of what is important to them but also expand our imagination. We end up achieving a better sense of ourselves, of our neighbors, and of the globe we inhabit. By listening to Guru Nanak and Pope Francis, and welcoming their multiperspectival approach that values pluralism, we acquire a better understanding of human life. Their reciprocal illumination inspires us to enrich and enliven the mosaic of religious diversity.

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The Heartbeat of Love To nurture love is the ultimate goal for Guru Nanak and Pope Francis. We note that the climax of Guru Nanak’s maxim is a heart/mind beating with love (sunia, mania, mani kita bhau): “Countless are the ways of meditation and countless the avenues of love” (Japji, GGS), he says, and indeed the reality of love is central across religions. In the Gospels, Jesus says: “The greatest commandment of all is this—love your God with all your soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12. 30–31). In the holy Qur’an, Allah expresses love for humanity through the analogy of the jugular vein. “We are closer to him than his jugular vein” (50, 16). In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna reveals a new way of reaching the Divine as he conjoins bhakti (love) with the traditional paths of jnana (knowledge) and karma (action). Yet, in spite of it, all across the globe humans are trapped in hate and conflict. In order to resolve our conflicts and live harmoniously on our planet, we desperately need this motivating factor, “Without love we are but dust and ash” (GGS 62). Akin to this Sikh scriptural verse, Pope Francis has said: “Love gives impetus and fruitfulness to life and to the journey of faith: without love, both life and faith remain sterile.”39 The emotions of bhau (fear) and bhaau (love) are integral to Guru Nanak’s spirituality, and they forcefully replay in Pope Francis’s addresses. These two antithetical emotions lead us in different directions. While fear pulls us back from life, love opens us to everything in life with acceptance and excitement, for love bursts forth from thirst for the absolute One. Guru Nanak’s resonant refrain of love is perfectly voiced by Pope Francis as “primordial openness to the transcendent which lies deep within the human heart.”40 Unfortunately, in our quickly shrinking digitalized globe, our humanity is closing up as fear seems to overcome love. Looking around us, it seems that prejudices and stereotypes are becoming fiercer; the fear of immigrants is making us paranoid; public policies are getting harsher; governments are discriminating against religious groups; anti-Semitic attacks, Islamist assaults on churches, and agitation against Muslims are on the rise; hate crimes have increased. We are, as Diana Eck warns us, becoming “afraid of ourselves.”41 Our arteries have to be cleared of toxic fear before nourishing love can circulate in our body. Pope Francis cherishes love as “God’s dream for man [sic]” and Guru Nanak cherishes it as the very heartbeat common to all beings in

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this world.42 For me, Pope Francis’s conception that we are “created precisely in order to love and to be loved” is the leitmotif I hear and read throughout Sikh scripture, presented in bhakhia bhau apar (the language of infinite love).43 But while there is no alpha or omega point in Guru Nanak’s extension of love toward all the neighbors on our planet, Pope Francis does qualify that love, for the neighbor “must first be steeped in love of Christ and drawn from prayer and frequent reception of the sacraments.”44 Undoubtedly, the love treasured by both is not a selfish obsession by any means. A positive energy, love is passion that reaches out as compassion from one body to another and to everything around. Love begins with hearing each other in humility— beholding each other’s faces, seeing through each other’s eyes—it welcomes the other into ourselves, and it takes us beyond the semantic categories of Sikh or Christian, Hindu or Muslim, black or white, Brahmin or Shudra, male or female, rich or poor, and host or immigrant to a point of ultimate unicity. Empowered by our togetherness, we will work hard for the well-being of our collective community and for the future of our planet. With Guru Nanak and Pope Francis side by side, we not only animate our past but also design new arabesques for mutual understanding and love. Together, they create a body of knowledge in which we are able to participate; together, they create a rich and emotional reservoir that we can draw on in order to render this world a better place for all of us. With love circulating in us, we can even pick up our cell phone, for we will put it to good use—deleting all repressive isms such as racism, classism, sexism, and religious fanaticism. Let us see the following three citations as a summary of all that shared spirituality intends: The future is, most of all, in the hands of those people who recognize the other as a “you” and themselves as part of an “us.” We all need each other.45 (His Holiness Pope Francis) Nānak tā kao milai vadiāı ̄ āpu pachāṇai sarab jı̄ā O Nanak, they are the praiseworthy who see themselves in all fellow beings. (Guru Nanak, GGS 940) To fulfill the promise of being one people, necessary to abolish any government that becomes destructive of these ends, necessary to dissolve the political bans that keep us from speaking to each other, necessary to avow our interdependence, to look straight into each other’s eyes the way we behold the moon, and declare to one another: I see you. I see you. I see you.46 (Richard Blanco, the fifth inaugural US poet)

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Notes 1. W. C. Smith, “Objectivity and the Humane Sciences: A New Proposal,” in Modern Culture from a Comparative Perspective, ed. John Burbidge (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997), 144. 2. W. C. Smith, Towards a World Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), 193. 3. T.  S. Elliott, “Burnt Norton” in Four Quartets, http://www.paikassociates.com/pdf/fourquartets.pdf, III, 5. 4. British Broadcasting Company (3 September 2014). 5. Elisabetta Povoledo, “Pope Appeals for More Interreligious Dialogue,” New York Times (22 March 2013). http://www.nytimes.com/2013/ 03/23/world/europe/pope-francis-urges-more-interreligious-dialogue. html. 6. Arvind Sharma, Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005), 25. 7. Dalai Lama, Ethics for a New Millennium, (New York City: Riverhead Books, 2001), 4. 8. John Barbour, “The Ethics of Intercultural Travel: Thomas Merton’s Asian Pilgrimage and Orientalism,” Biography 28, no. 1 (University of Hawaii Press, Winter 2005): 15–26. 9. Sonia Chopra, “‘Deeply Emotional Moment’ as Pope Blesses Expectant Sikh Mother,” The Quint, 28 September 2015. 10. Paul Vallely, Pope Francis: Untying the Knots (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2015), 120. 11. Pope Francis, “Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone,” TED2017, Vatican City, 25 April 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/ pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone. 12. Guru Nanak often makes some biting critiques against arrogant men and women: puffed up people are but the tall and ample silk cotton tree shooting up into the skies like an arrow; birds in hope of fruit fly over only to be disappointed by its bland fruit and repugnant flowers. 13. Amoris Laetitia, 137. 14. For the earliest and most influential translator of the Japji, see M.  A. Macauliffe in The Sikh Religion, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1909), 217. 15. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina), 124–125. 16. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York City: Crossroads, 1982), 270.

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17. Ibid., 270. 18. Ibid., 269. 19. See Note 5. 20. Keeping the infinite one in mind is Guru Nanak’s essential prescription. It is frequently repeated in the Japji and all through the GGS. 21. Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus (New York City: HarperCollins, 1995), 51. 22. Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, Of Sacred and Secular Desire: An Anthology of Lyrical Writings from the Punjab (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 38. 23. Cow dung is used for plastering a kitchen floor to purify it. 24. “Outsiders” (mleccha in the original) who did not belong to the Brahmanical varṇa (class) order. In this context it refers to Mughal rulers and their officers. 25. Alluding to the establishment of the new Mughal regime. 26. Apostolic Journey to Korea, Meeting with the Bishops of Asia, 17 August 2014. 27. https://pr ess.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/ pubblico/2016/10/02/161002d.html. 28. “Greeting to young people before the Angelus,” Lima, Peru, 21 January 2018. 29. The Lodi dynasty (or Lodhi) was an Afghan dynasty that ruled the Delhi Sultanate from 1451 to 1526. It was founded by Bahlul Khan Lodi when he replaced the Sayyid dynasty and was the last dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. 30. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 189, https://w2.vatican.va/ content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_ esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html. 31. Diana Eck, “What is Pluralism?” The Pluralism Project, Harvard University (2006) http://pluralism.org/what-is-pluralism/. 32. Ibid. 33. Amoris Laetitia, 138. 34. Pope Francis, Ground Zero Memorial, 25 September 2015, http://w2. vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/september/documents/papa-francesco_20150925_usa-ground-zero.html. 35. Evangelii Gaudium, 255, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_exhor tations/documents/papa-francesco_esor tazioneap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html. 36. Aliyev Mosque, 2.10.2016, https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/10/02/161002d.html. 37. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 256, https://w2.vatican.va/ content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_ esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#II.%E2%80%82The_ inclusion_of_the_poor_in_society.

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38. “Myopic” is another of Pope Francis’s terms that I picked up to translate the pervasive Nanakian term andhe (the ignorant blind). 39. The pope’s words at the Angelus prayer, 29 October 2017, https://press. vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/10/29/ 171029b.html. 40. Address of the Holy Father Pope Francis, Audience with Representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of the Different Religions, 20 March 2013, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/ 2013/march/documents/papa-francesco_20130320_delegati-fraterni. html. 41. Diana Eck, A New Religious America (San Francisco: Harper, 2001). Chapter 6 is entitled “Afraid of Ourselves.” 42. For more details, see my chapter “Sikh Mysticism and Sensuous Reproductions” in Ineffability: An Exercise in Comparative Philosophy of Religion, eds. Tim Knepper and Leah Kalmanson (Berlin: Springer International Publishing, 2017), 113–134. 43. Guru Nanak, Japji. 44. Vatican City, 25 September 2017. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/ news/love-of-neighbor-must-begin-with-love-of-god-pope-francis-says16943?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Fe ed%253A+catholicnewsagency%252Fdailynews+%2528CNA+Daily+News %2529&utm_term=daily+news. 45. Pope Francis, TED 2017. 46. Richard Blanco, “One Today: A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration, January 21, 2013” (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013) http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/today-richard-blanco-poemread-barack-obama-inauguration/story?id=18274653.

CHAPTER 13

Toward Dialogue with Pope Francis: A Japanese Buddhist Perspective Dennis Hirota

All sentient beings, without exception, have been our parents and brothers and sisters in the course of countless lives in the many states of existence. On attaining Buddhahood after this present life, we must save all [who are in suffering].1 —Shinran Shō nin, Tannishō , §5 Dialogue between us should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be welcomed and embraced!2 —Pope Francis

The Nature of Dialogue Pope Francis has been influential in his efforts to focus attention on the realities of poverty and injustice around the world and also in his calls for dialogue among peoples of differing religious traditions and viewpoints. His care for human suffering and his advocacy of dialogue are, of course,

D. Hirota (*) Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_13

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by no means disparate concerns. On one level, dialogue directed toward building cooperation is clearly instrumental in achieving peace and resolving the grave concerns confronting humankind. Issues of war, inequality, and the environment are global crises that touch on all humanity, so that dialogue among peoples is imperative. But there is a deeper level at which Francis’s concerns are linked, one that stems from his thinking regarding the religious dimensions of language, especially in its mode of dialogue. When Francis declares, “All wars, all struggles, all problems that are not resolved, with which we face, are due to a lack of dialogue,”3 he is pointing beyond ordinary notions of mutual understanding as exchange of ideas or dialogue as effort in joint policy-making or strategic planning. Such activities remain within the realm of secular interests and the calculation of costs and benefits that mark our normal lives in society. Thus he asserts further, “In this work (i.e., peace building), the role of religion is fundamental. It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God.”4 The role of religion in Francis’s conception of dialogue involves transcending one’s ordinary horizons of awareness of the world and of oneself and others. Thus he notes, regarding the need “to foster a culture of encounter throughout the world,”5 that “egoism must be pruned.”6 Further: In the world also, in societies, there is little peace because dialogue is lacking, it is hard to come out of the narrow horizon of one’s interests to open to a true and sincere encounter. Peace needs a tenacious, patient, strong, intelligent dialogue where nothing is lost. Dialogue can defeat war.7

Dialogue can defeat war and nurture peace because if, in its genuine pursuit, “we go in search of other people, other cultures, other ways of thinking, other religions, we come out of ourselves.”8 We become able to move beyond the bounds of our ordinary self-interest and egocentric or nationalist perspectives. Authentic dialogue is inherently religious, in that it is a mode of transcending the common sense of purely practical concerns: Before all else we need to keep alive in our world the thirst for the absolute, and to counter the dominance of a one-dimensional vision of the human person, a vision which reduces human beings to what they produce and to what they consume: this is one of the most insidious temptations of our time.9

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We see here that Francis poses dialogue as that which can stand, as a dimension of religious aspiration, in opposition to the domination of the self-centeredness, the need to erect barriers and pit ourselves against others, and the calculative thinking that largely drive human activities and ambitions in the societies in which we live. Violence as the Antithesis of Dialogue Ideals of compassion and care for the suffering of others are a cornerstone of world religious traditions; thus, while Francis admonishes that “it is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God,” he goes on to assert that “it is not possible to establish true links with God, while ignoring other people.”10 Here, perhaps, we touch on the crux of interreligious dialogue and its challenges. Dialogue itself, as a seeking out of “other people, other cultures, other ways of thinking,”11 is not merely a contemporary desideratum but must itself be an inherently religious endeavor. We are called to “come out of ourselves,”12 to “leave behind the self-interest” and “conquer deadly reasoning,”13 and “to counter the dominance of a one-dimensional vision of the human person.”14 For Francis, it is violence in its various forms that, above all, contrasts with dialogue and stands in unrelenting opposition. Violence substitutes willful confrontation for open encounter. In terms of its religious significance, violence is not simply physical destructiveness but a stance of adamant egocentricity. Thus, in Francis’s words, the world is at risk of falling prey “to that violence contained in every project of civilization that is based on ‘no’ to God.”15 Violence is, in essence, the denial of transcendence and the clinging to self; it is the “attempt to eliminate God and the divine from the horizon of humanity.”16 We see here that dialogue is not merely an addendum to religious life but the mode of comportment of human life that manifests the essence of religion, the “primordial openness to transcendence which lies deep within the human heart.”17 Japanese Buddhism and Dialogue Pope Francis’s call for dialogue among religions is especially cogent and timely with regard to Japanese Buddhist traditions. There are two basic reasons for this. First, Francis enumerates three broad areas of dialogue in need of attention at present: “dialogue with states, dialogue with society— including dialogue with cultures and the sciences—and dialogue with

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other believers.”18 Japanese Buddhist traditions must undertake conversations in all three areas if they are to be able to develop their teachings and articulate their message in ways that are apposite and compelling in contemporary life. For various historical and social reasons, Japanese Buddhist institutions have tended toward insularity and conservatism, particularly since the Tokugawa period from the beginning of the seventeenth century. During the premodern era, state control of religious institutions restricted interaction among the different Buddhist schools, so that not only conflict but even dialogue among the various strains of Buddhist tradition was discouraged. Doctrinal orthodoxy within each tradition came to be mandated by the state and internally enforced. Further, parishioners were assigned to local temples of the various schools by local authorities, so that communal and ritual practices came to exceed personal reflection in determining religious commitments. For Japanese Buddhism to remain a vital dimension of peoples’ lives today, it must engage our broadest concerns with the welfare and flourishing of all—issues that Francis draws attention to so effectively. The second, more significant, reason to welcome and seek to respond to Francis’s call lies in the specifically religious significance of dialogue. Here, there is already considerable commonality, both in care for human suffering in the world and in the understanding of language and dialogue, between Francis’s views and attitudes found in Japanese Buddhism, particularly Japanese Pure Land Buddhist tradition. Thus, Francis’s call for dialogue can awaken Japanese Buddhists to the wellsprings on which to draw within their own tradition in seeking to nurture mutual understanding and respect in relation with other traditions. Moreover, it can open up a path by which to engage urgent issues faced within our societies and by humankind as a whole. In the following, I seek to respond to Francis by exploring the groundwork and resources for dialogue found in the religious thinker and leader Shinran (1173–1263), from whom stems one of the largest, historically most influential forms of Japanese Buddhism, the Pure Land Shin Buddhist tradition (Jō do shinshū). D. T. Suzuki has said of this tradition, “In Shin we find a major contribution the Japanese can make to the outside world and to all other Buddhist schools,”19 but what might Shinran say to Francis to clarify a Buddhist perspective and to advance the religious dimension of dialogue from which they speak? What are the implications of Shinran’s views with regard to the urgent problems that Francis engages, and how can they contribute to advancing toward resolution? There are close reso-

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nances between the two religious leaders in the messages they give ­regarding the overcoming of violence and divisiveness, but there may also be constructive differences. Elements of Dialogue in Shin Buddhism I begin with an observation of Luis Frois (1532–1597), one of the earliest Christian missionaries in Japan, regarding Japanese Buddhism and the state of interreligious dialogue at the time of earliest contact. Of his discussions with Buddhist interlocutors, he states: It would take too long to recount the disputes, arguments, and questions of the heathens here [in Japan]. Anybody fond of arguing has plenty of material here, although the form of their arguments and their way of proceeding in them are very different from what we learn in our studies. As many of them, especially the bonzes, are most eloquent in their speech, anybody who did not know about the basic principles on which their religions are founded, might often well think that both we and they are preaching the same thing. … [I]f you accepted their terms and propositions at face value without any further discussion, you would think that they are talking about the one, supreme, true God, Saviour of the world. But in their reasoning and conclusions, all this is a delusion.20

Frois was a diligent and astute student of Japanese culture and author of detailed works depicting the social practices of Japan of his period. Like Pope Francis, he was a member of the Society of Jesus. I cite him here at length not to point out his critical intent but to note that, despite it, he indicates a potentially useful structural element of Francis’s proposals for interreligious dialogue and understanding today. There are two general aspects of the dialogue between Japanese Buddhists and Catholic missionaries highlighted by Frois. On the one hand, there is the depth of disparity, with the Buddhists and Christians differing in the most fundamental principles that their doctrines embody and also in their very mode of reasoning. At the same time, there are on the other hand remarkable resemblances in teachings, which are so congruent that one might “well think that both we and they are preaching the same thing.”21 The form of Buddhism that Frois has in mind here is most probably Shin Buddhism, and corroboration for both aspects of his assessment is

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not difficult to find. Regarding resemblances in doctrine, many Christians have, like Frois, expressed astonishment at the strong resonances in teachings on encountering Shin. One of the most doctrinally incisive comments may be Karl Barth’s long note in Church Dogmatics, in which he lists as points of close resemblance: [The] structure as a religion of grace … the Reformation doctrines of original sin, of vicarious satisfaction, of justification by faith alone, of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and of thanksgiving. All of this the pagans [i.e., Japanese Pure Land Buddhists, especially Shinran], to all appearances, can teach, and in their own way even live and express ecclesially.22

Regarding fundamental difference in the “basic principles on which their religions are founded,” Robert Bellah states: [Japan] never, to this day, has become an axial civilization. … Japan has absorbed several major axial traditions: Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity … yet, I would argue, it is non-axial, because it has used, with great brilliance and success, axial culture to defend its archaic presuppositions.23

Attention to such dimensions of convergence and disparity plays a practical role in Francis’s approach to interreligious dialogue, which recognizes common ideals among religious traditions regarding life in the world and care for others, while also acknowledging differences in matters of doctrine. There is little doubt that substantial concurrence exists between Christianity and Shin Buddhism regarding the aspiration to alleviate suffering. Pure Land Buddhism in particular accentuates and develops the Mahayana Buddhist notion that enlightened wisdom is inseparable from all-encompassing compassion. The figure of Amida Buddha is conceived as the embodiment of wisdom-compassion at work to lead beings to awakening. Amida is active in the world in the form of his/her Primal Vow or aspiration to save all living things, symbolized by the field of enlightened action conceived as the Buddha’s Pure Land that stands in contrast to the afflicted life of ignorant self-attachment. Amida’s name, the nembutsu, is said to reverberate through the cosmos, awakening beings to the working of wisdom-compassion. Elements of what Barth calls the “structure as a religion of grace,” shared with Christianity, are evident.24

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At the same time, there are radical variances between Christianity and Shin in “the basic principles on which their religions are founded” and in “the form of their arguments.”25 To probe what Shinran might say to Francis, I will focus here on the nature and significance of points of difference. As Francis states clearly, “To dialogue does not mean giving up one’s own identity when one goes against the other … true openness implies maintaining oneself firm in one’s deepest convictions.”26 What is to be avoided is an unthinking righteousness or attachment to verbal formulations reduced to the level of secular speech. Thus, Francis has also “called for increased dialogue among the world’s religious communities and opposed fundamentalism in any faith.”27 Likewise, Shinran also strongly admonishes against fundamentalist belief and the hermeneutical presuppositions that underlie it. Thus, he quotes the words of the Indian master Nāgārjuna, “Rely on the meaning, not on the words. Rely on wisdom, not on the [delusional] working of the mind.”28

Shinran’s Stance in Dialogue Although it is not possible here to explore Bellah’s sweeping assertion quoted earlier that Japanese religion is non-axial, it does signal a framework within which to consider broad issues that might arise in a dialogue between Shinran and Francis. To be sure, there is major agreement of vision between Shin Buddhism and Christianity regarding all-embracing compassion or divine love, the salvific action of the transcendent, and the necessity of trust. Nevertheless, Bellah’s observation suggests that a conversation between them might be characterized as occurring across a breach of non-axial and axial religion. Although the concrete significance and historical validity of the term “axial religion” have been widely discussed and remain open to question, the concept may aid us in clarifying significant points of divergence between Shin Buddhist and Christian perspectives that will inform conversation between them. Axial religion is often construed as characterized by the establishment of a transcendent standpoint that enables individuals to extricate themselves from communal mind-sets and to assume a critical stance in relation to their society and culture and toward the cosmos itself and ordinary human existence within it. The axial stands in contrast to a self-awareness characterized by an embeddedness within one’s communal context, so that notions of personal identity involve familial and social interrelationships and interdependencies rather than consciousness of autonomous

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individuality, volitional independence, and personal responsibility not only for one’s decisions and conduct but for one’s very value judgments and moral norms. Bellah considers Shinran a prominent exception to his general assertion that Japanese religion is non-axial. Regarding dialogue, therefore, we can expect that in a conversation between Shin Buddhists and Christians, both interlocutors would seek to move toward what Francis calls “true and sincere encounter” that ruptures “the dominance of a one-dimensional vision.”29 At the same time, the contrast between non-axial and axial highlights some of the central themes for considering points of variance between Shin Buddhism and Christianity, notably the conception of the self, the nature of religious engagement, and the significance of ethical or moral norms in religious life. In seeking to envisage a conversation between Shinran and Francis and the groundwork upon which Shinran might speak, a point of entry is provided by Francis’s identification of violence as that posture that stands in very opposition to dialogue and in his insight into the “violence contained in every project of civilization that is based on ‘no’ to God.”30 Shinran would concur with this religious insight and he would emphasize that violence is much more than an impeding behavior that can be overcome by a simple change of attitude. Further, his elucidation of the roots and nature of violence as deeply entwined with the human condition casts light on the role he attributes to dialogue as the means by which the transcendent can enter into people’s lives. The Intransigence of Violence in Human Existence From Shinran’s Buddhist perspective, violence is not a particular category of acts overtly characterized by traits like brutality or belligerence. Rather, the quality of violence is the willful assertion of ego-self to dominate what is perceived as other. Either latent or in varying degrees, it pervades all action that arises from discriminative thought and self-attachment, what he terms “the poisons of our wisdom and foolishness” (CWS I: 107). The hallmark of Shinran’s thought is his fundamental stance on self-reflection. As he writes in his confessional “Hymns of Lament and Reflection”: Although I take refuge in the true Pure Land way, It is hard to have a true and sincere mind. This self is false and insincere; I completely lack a pure mind.

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Each of us, in outward bearing, Makes a show of being wise, good, and dedicated; But so great are our greed, anger, perversity, and deceit, That we are filled with all forms of malice and cunning. (CWS I: 421)

As expressed here, the root cause of violence lies essentially in ignorance: the false grasp of self as substantial and the effort to prevail over or distinguish oneself from others. By contrast, the “medicine that eradicates all [such] poisons” is solely the enlightened wisdom-compassion of Buddha, which is non-discriminating (CWS I: 107). Thus for Shinran, violence is a condition of human existence itself, driven by eons of karmic influence from the past that give rise to the bonnō (afflicting passions) of self-aggrandizement and hostility in the present. As he states in a letter, “Our desires are countless, and anger, wrath, jealousy, and envy are overwhelming, arising without pause; to the very last moment of life they do not cease, or disappear, or exhaust themselves” (CWS I: 488). He employs, as the metaphors for our ordinary condition, drunkenness and madness. For Buddhists, mental acts are the primal form of violence. Because violence as the subtle impulses of coercion or malice is pervasive even in ordinary human interactions, endeavor to rectify our conduct in itself can never be effective in eradicating it in its deepest sense of discriminative thought and perception. The genuine resolution of issues of violence must ultimately lie in the arising of insight into the nature of the ego-self and can never be achieved through further assertion and affirmation of self-will. For Shinran, the Pure Land Buddhist path rooted in the reality of compassion can be characterized as “the attainment of wisdom-­ Buddhahood by the person who is evil” (akunin jō butsu).31 It is the person who has been brought to apprehension of the afflicting passions and self-attachment that conditions her entire existence who is in accord with Amida’s Vow, for it is precisely such awareness that enables freedom from the instrumental hakarai (calculative thinking) that forestalls religious aspiration, freedom that characterizes genuine encounter with the teaching. Such insight opens up a mitigating distance and degree of perspective in emotional life amid the compulsive bonds of ignorance that motivate one’s thoughts and acts, even in religious engagement. As with other Buddhists, therefore, Shinran’s concept of evil is not essentially one of violation of sacred dictates. Rather, evil characterizes any act that surfaces from the afflicting passions of ego-attachment and deep-

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ens one’s entanglement in samsaric existence. Such acts arise from deep karmic energies out of one’s past and obstruct any advance toward awakening. They harbor seeds of violence directed toward self-magnification and division from others. By contrast, good in its Buddhist sense indicates acts possessed of power to move oneself and others toward awakening and release from the false reification of self. The Chimera of Autonomy and Modern Discourse Shinran’s vision of religious existence turns on a thoroughgoing relinquishment or falling away of what he terms “calculative thinking,” any instrumental intent in one’s engagement with the teaching. It is the occurrence of this relinquishment of self-affirmation—not creedal assent or prescribed acts of praxis—that is, for him, the core significance of the negation of self-power in the Pure Land path and the central characteristic of what he terms the realization of shinjin (entrustment-mindedness) or awareness of the working of wisdom-compassion. The motive force that Shinran identifies as “calculative thinking” is the emotional energy in a person’s compulsion to preserve the ego-self by either assimilation or marginalization of what is other. Even in relation to moral judgments, this impulse is suspect, for it easily evolves into the psychological seed of self-righteous coercion. Although one’s attachments to one’s own capacities in the form of “calculative thinking” may be dissolved in the encounter with “the Buddha’s non-discriminating, unobstructed, and nonexclusive guidance of all sentient beings” (CWS I: 486), such an encounter simultaneously serves to illumine and awaken one to the ignorance that characterizes one’s existence as human. Thus, Shinran’s view of violence as thoughts and actions impelled by afflicting passion and ineradicable ignorance may be construed as running precisely counter to the presuppositions of the modern liberal discourse of moral principles and imperatives. His is an effort to deconstruct intuitive notions of the ego-self as the transcendent center of agency, volition, and judgments of good and evil in their Buddhist sense. It thus seeks to nullify key assumptions that configure notions of universally prescriptive codes of action in society. Most significantly, Shinran’s views are at odds with modern humanistic confidence in the autonomous individual and her powers of disinterested moral discernment and action. He states of himself:

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I know nothing of what acts may be good or bad [in relation to religious attainment]. For if I could know thoroughly, as is known in the mind of Amida, that an act was good, then I would know the meaning of “good.” … But for a foolish being full of blind passions, in this fleeting world—this burning house—all matters without exception are lies and gibberish, totally without truth and sincerity. The nembutsu alone is true and real. (CWS I: 679)

We see here in the thorough denial of the self’s transcendent stance the core of what might be called the non-axial in Shinran. He rejects the perspicuity of the self in terms of its own moral judgments, while illuminating personal self-understanding as situated within karmic, communal, and cultural horizons. Effort to abide by moral norms is inevitably dependent on one’s already inhabiting and presupposing a particular social, historical world that has fostered and reinforces one’s interpretations of self. Despite his utter disavowal of knowledge of genuine good or evil that will lead to awakening or to further samsaric existence, Shinran is not resigned to a despondent rejection of the possibility of benign action in the world. Rather, he offers an alternative paradigm for perceiving ethical life based on his religious self-awareness. We cannot plumb the myriad causes and conditions that give rise to our actions. Through his teaching, Shinran seeks the arising of a transformation in the assumptions of his parishioners by drawing them to the apprehension of the Vow as embodying a radically non-discriminative compassion beyond our calculus of good and evil. His underlying concern is to pierce the consciousness of ego-self in its absolutization of its own moral judgments.

A Dialogical Model of Ethical Awareness The question arises: Given the profound divergence of Shinran’s religious anthropology from the individualism presupposed in much Western thinking, how could dialogue with Francis proceed, let alone find common ground? To elucidate the significance of what is most distinctive in Shinran’s thought and what it may contribute in a conversation with Francis, two key insights in the philosopher Charles Taylor’s analysis of moral/ethical life in Western liberal society may be useful. First, although Western social thinkers may wish to rely on a single universally binding principle to determine broadly applicable ethical judgments, where need for adjudication between disparate perspectives arises,

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various forms of complexity come into play. There is likely to be a plurality of goods in conflict; as an example, Taylor mentions “reparations payments to historical victims.”32 To propose a paradigm in seeking settlement in such cases, he states: Dilemmas have to be understood in a kind of two-dimensional space. The horizontal space gives you the dimension in which to have to find the point of resolution, the fair “award,” between two parties. The vertical space opens the possibility that by rising higher, you’ll accede to a new horizontal space where the resolution will be less painful or damaging for both parties.33

According to Taylor, we have to decide whether to judge between claims A and B strictly within the framework of our present circumstances, the horizontal field of ethical judgment we presently occupy, or whether to “try to induce people to rise to another level” by, for example, considering “the effects of full reparations on the future coexistence of the descendants of exploiters and exploited.”34 It appears that some traditional societies have tended to lend more weight than the modern West to concerns of future reconciliation than to retribution based on interpretations of the past. But what is it that enables a shift along the vertical vector out of the present construal of fact? Taylor states: “Christian faith … always places our actions in two dimensions, one of right action, and also an eschatological dimension … a dimension of reconciliation and trust.”35 The eschatological dimension makes possible, for example, the category of forgiveness in the quest for reconciliation. Further, “God operates in that vertical dimension, as well as being with us horizontally in the person of Christ.”36 Taylor’s Christian model of two axes helps us grasp the ethical significance of Shinran’s thought and, at the same time, highlights the distinctiveness of his thoroughgoing stance. Shinran confesses his utter ignorance of authentic good and evil in the Buddhist sense, delineating a strict perimeter around the horizontal space of our intelligible world. He indicates that, contrary to our normal outlook, our particular calculus of good and evil can hold no ultimate significance. It is precisely the arising to awareness of this horizon that constitutes what Shinran calls, affirmatively, “realizing entrustment-mindedness” and, negatively, “becoming free of calculative thinking.”37 Of Shinran’s stance, the philosopher Nishida Kitarō notes:

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Shin Buddhism is religion that has … taken the foolish person and the evil person for its true occasion. Christianity … is likewise an other-power religion centered upon love, but within it the concept of righteousness is still strong and there is a certain disposition to condemn evil. Shin, however, differs from this in being religion of absolute love, absolute Other Power. Like the father who welcomes home his prodigal son in the parable, so, however foolish a person, however evil, Amida welcomes him or her into the Pure Land, saying, “It is for you alone that I have broken my body and ground my bones to dust”: this is the fundamental significance of Shin Buddhism.38

The second aspect of Taylor’s analysis, helpful for our consideration, is his discussion of shifts in Christian thought. He sees the tension between a “horizontal” dimension of social life and a “vertical” eschatology as having undergone historical changes in the West that have resulted in “a kind of ‘code fetishism,’ or nomolatry,” in modern times.39 He traces this back to “a turn in Latin Christendom: The attempt was always to make people over as more perfect practicing Christians, through articulating codes and inculcating disciplines. Until the Christian life became more and more identified with these codes and disciplines.”40 Concomitantly, “Christianity was shorn of much of its ‘transcendent’ content” as the vertical dimension gradually collapsed into the horizontal.41 Finally, Taylor notes that modern “disbelief in God arises in close symbiosis with … belief in a moral order of rights-bearing individuals, who are destined (by God or Nature) to act for mutual benefit.”42 Whether or not the transition Taylor outlines is historically accurate, it provides a model against which the significance of Shinran’s thinking may be grasped, for the latter is a move in precisely the opposite direction. Shinran criticizes tendencies toward seeking to become or to make others into “more perfect practicing Buddhists” through moral action or ritual diligence. He denies to virtuous conduct, adherence to precepts, or religious discipline any efficacy for advancement along the eschatological axis. Instead of defining a particular code of conduct by which to model or assess one’s religious advance or life in society, the vertical space illumines the self in its finitude. It becomes an encompassing and pervasive dimension that reveals our common judgments of good and evil action as radically contextualized and historically conditioned, while at the same time granting apprehension of the perspectives of others on moral issues. In this way, the vertical dimension is distinct from the coordinates of ethical

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conduct in conventional life and functions to temper the rigor of moral judgment. We see articulated in Shinran’s works a doubled structure of awareness, in which there are simultaneously operative both his ordinary, self-­centered mode of thought and perception and the “non-discriminating, unobstructed, and nonexclusive” functioning of enlightened wisdom-­ compassion that permeates his own consciousness (CWS I: 486). Such thinking emerges together with the falling away of the fraught need to affirm and magnify the ego-self. This blunting of the domination of self-­ attachment and the simultaneity of the two dimensions of awareness enable the depth of decentering self-reflection in his writings. On the one hand, Shinran expresses an awareness of having come to stand within the working of Amida’s Vow. As he states in a letter, “The heart and mind of the person of entrustment already and always resides in the Pure Land” (CWS I: 528). This is the fundamental stance of both his ongoing life and his writings. All of his most vital concerns—whether looking to the past, present, or future—lie interfused with compassionate action in this world of the samsaric existence of living beings, not in an impending afterlife. On the other hand, although his “heart and mind are rooted in the Buddha-ground” (CWS I: 303), this attainment illumines his incessant self-clinging that inhabits his actions, moving him to shame and repentance. The Transforming Emergence of the Vertical: Defusing the Violence of Ignorance We have seen that Shinran not only asserts a paradigm of dual dimensions similar to Taylor’s intersection of horizontal and vertical spaces but further identifies calculative thinking based on categorical moral judgments as the primary impetus binding one within the horizontal domain of conventional life. He goes on to articulate doctrinally how circumscription within the ego-attachments of the horizontal is broken in the Pure Land path and locates this event at the center of his teaching as the realization of entrustment-­mindedness. I believe that Francis’s advocacy of dialogue as the neutralizing counterforce to violence is at present the most authoritative global call to the “vertical space” of compassion.43 Here, it is dialogue itself and not some transposition of one’s logic onto the alien that must be aspired toward, recognition of the deficiencies and dangers of cultural hegemony over others and not a judicial pronouncement from principle.

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Shinran—persecuted, defrocked, and exiled to the countryside in his early 30s—occupied highly constricted historical and social circumstances. Nevertheless, he speaks within his context of the dimension of wisdom-­ compassion—which may be conceived as the well-disposing or on-hakarai (mending) power constituting the vertical axis—manifesting itself in the existence of the practitioner. In terms of the self, there arises the awareness of being “filled with all forms of malice and cunning,” and at the same time: “Even when we are evil, if we revere the power of the Vow [the Buddha’s on-hakarai] all the more deeply, gentleheartedness and forbearance will surely arise in us naturally, through its spontaneous working (jinen)” (CWS I: 676). Shinran writes in a letter, “Signs of long years of saying the nembutsu and aspiring for birth can be seen in the change in the heart that had been bad and in the deep warmth for friends and fellow-­ practicers” (CWS I: 551). Further, compassionate action on the part of the practitioner lies in becoming the means by which encounter with the vertical space may be realized. It is not deliberately seeking to implant doctrinal beliefs in the lives of others. Hence, Shinran repeatedly admonishes his followers against pride in proselytizing, reminding them that genuine communication of the path occurs solely through the Vow’s working, not any human contrivance. He himself disavowed having any disciples. On the communal level, in response to efforts by the political and temple authorities to suppress the nembutsu movement, Shinran articulates an attitude neither confrontational nor accommodating but rather grounded in the doubled structure of his awareness. Seeking to circumvent any incitement of ego-centered emotion that might generate needless conflict, he states that one should be prepared to encounter people who “act out of malice toward people of the nembutsu.” Nevertheless, “Without bearing any ill will … keep in mind the thought that, saying the nembutsu, you are to help them” (CWS I: 566). The egalitarian thrust of the Pure Land path is to dissolve barriers and neutralize enmity rather than establishing division between self and other. Thus, he writes further, “The people who are trying to obstruct the nembutsu are the manor lords, bailiffs, and landowners. … Practicers of the nembutsu should act with compassion for those who commit such obstruction … and earnestly say the nembutsu, thereby helping those who seek to hinder them” (CWS I: 563–564). Regarding the environing world of sentient beings, Shinran reflects the distinctively Japanese perspective of the Buddhist rejection of anthropocentrism, “Tathagata (the dimension of wisdom-compassion or true

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r­ eality) pervades the countless worlds; it fills the hearts and minds of the ocean of all beings. Thus, plants, trees, and land all attain Buddhahood” (CWS I: 461). The breaking of confinement to the horizontal opens into a dynamic that works, in the words of a Pure Land master, “in order that the process be made continuous, without end and without interruption, by which those who have been born [into the Pure Land] first guide those who come later, and those who are born later join those who were born before … so that the boundless ocean of birth-and-death be exhausted” (quoted by Shinran, CWS I: 291). Shinran concisely expresses the complex character of his own religious existence by stating, when stripped of priesthood and banished from the capital: “I am now neither a monk nor one in worldly life” (CWS I: 289). He continued to wear Buddhist robes and conveyed the teaching to people of the countryside, even while living in ordinary circumstances. Further, in a revolutionary break with Buddhist tradition that continues to distinguish Japanese traditions from those of continental Asia, Shinran abandoned monastic precepts and openly married. From the perspective of clerical discipline, this might be viewed as moral weakness and lack of resolve. Shinran’s concern, however, lies not in achieving one’s will, but rather in existence in the world transfixed by the emergence of what is real. His awareness is reflected in a revelatory message, received in retreat at the point of his conversion, from the bodhisattva Kannon: Buddhist practitioner! Should you, impelled by your inborn past, come to violate the precept against sexual contact, I will become incarnate as a virtuous woman and bear the violation. Throughout your lifetime, I will actively adorn [your path of practice], And at the end of life guide you to the Buddha-field of awakening.44

The Nembutsu as Prayer for Peace I have sought to suggest that although Shinran, as Buddhist and as a person of medieval Japan, elucidates a religious path that differs in fundamental ways from that of Pope Francis, the dialogue that Francis calls for and exemplifies may be joined by Shin Buddhists in a manner that highlights its crucial message for humankind at present: the need to “conquer deadly reasoning”—what Shinran calls calculative thinking—and to transcend the

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easily aroused yet vehement impulses to what Francis speaks of as “the dominance of a one-dimensional vision of the human person.”45 Shinran offers a highly developed and thoroughgoing instance of a religious paradigm along the lines of Taylor’s model of horizontal and vertical dimensions, one resonant with Francis’s concerns, but distinctive in its pervasive awareness of the conditioned nature of the self. The potential for the political manipulation of notions of embeddedness reflects what Bellah perceives as the danger of the non-axial. But in relation to the vertical dimension, Taylor remarks of our present, “The premodern sense that any code can hold only in a larger order that transcends the code … has almost totally faded from our world.”46 There tends to remain only a horizontal space in which powerful religious, ethnic, and nationalist allegiances intensify into categorical violence—against whole categories of others—both within societies and between countries. Thus, a living, historical example of religious thought like Shinran’s offers a significant alternative perspective. It is only when the self can be displaced from its centrality into a broader space that claims of the other can be acknowledged and self-­ righteousness disarmed. We may move toward dialogue as a conversation in the disclosure, to borrow the expression of psychoanalyst Robert Stolorow, of a “kinship-in-finitude.”47 Shinran reminds us that, although we may presuppose the objectivity of our judgment and the autonomy of agency, in fact our thinking is constrained in innumerable ways—culturally, socially, and historically. Above all, our immersion in samsaric existence means for Shinran that our own karmically conditioned actions out of an unknowable past work to bind us further to samsara. In his somber reflection, “If the karmic cause so prompts us, we will commit any kind of act” (CWS I: 671). At the same time, saying the nembutsu is both evocation and foliation of the doubled reality or awareness we have considered. Thus: “To say Namu-amida-­ butsu [Amida’s name]is to repent all the karmic evil one has committed since the beginningless past … to give this virtue to all sentient beings … to adorn the Pure Land” (CWS I: 504). Further, practitioners should “hold the nembutsu in their hearts and say it to respond in gratitude to [the Buddha’s] benevolence, with the wish, ‘May there be peace in the world, and may the Buddha’s teaching spread!’” (CWS I: 560).

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Notes 1. See Dennis Hirota et al., trans. and ed., The Collected Works of Shinran, vol 1 (Kyoto: Honpa Hongwanji, 1997), 664. Hereafter, “CWS.” Translations have been modified. For Tannishō , see also Dennis Hirota, trans., Tannishō : A Primer (Kyoto: Ryukoku University, 1983). 2. Pope Francis’s Remarks to Holy See Diplomatic Corps, March 2013. 3. To a group of Japanese students, 21 August 2013. 4. Pope Francis’s Remarks to Holy See Diplomatic Corps, March 2013. 5. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/print/2013/05/no-thepope-didn’t-just-say-allatheists-go-to-heaven/. 6. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-calls-faithfulto-deeperencounters-with-others/. 7. International Meeting for Peace organized by Sant’Egidio Community, from September 29–October 1, on the topic “The Courage of Hope: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue.” 8. To a group of Japanese students, 21 August 2013. 9. Vatican Information Service, no. 67, 20 March 2013. 10. Pope Francis’s Remarks to the Holy See Diplomatic Corps, March 2013. 11. To a group of Japanese students, 21 August 2013. 12. Ibid. 13. Pope Francis, War Is Always A Defeat For Humanity, 7 September 2013. 14. Vatican Information Service, no. 67. 15. International Meeting for Peace, “The Courage of Hope.” 16. Vatican Information Service, no. 67. 17. Pope Francis audience with representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of the Different Religions, 20 March 2013. 18. Evangelii Gaudium, Apostolic Exhortation of the Holy Father Francis. 19. D. T. Suzuki, Shin Buddhism (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 13–14. 20. Luis Frois, Historia Eclesiastica, f. 2, in They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640, Michael Cooper, trans. and ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 373–374. 21. Ibid. 22. Karl Barth, On Religion: The Revelation of God as the Sublimation of Religion, trans. Garrett Green (London: T & T Clark, 2006), 105–106. 23. Robert Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 654–655. 24. Barth, On Religion, 105. 25. Frois, Historia. 26. Pope’s Address to Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Vatican City, 28 November 2013. 27. http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-meets-jewish-leaders.

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28. Quoted by Shinran in his major writing, A Collection of Passages on the True Teaching, Practice, and Realization of the Pure Land Way, CWS I: 241. 29. Vatican Information Service, no. 67, 20 March 2013. 30. International Meeting for Peace, “The Courage of Hope.” 31. Tannishō , §3, Dennis Hirota, trans., Tannishō : A Primer, 24. Also CWS I: 663. 32. Charles Taylor, “Perils of Moralism” in Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 349. 33. Ibid., 350. 34. Ibid., 349. 35. Ibid., 350. 36. Ibid. 37. See Dennis Hirota, Asura’s Harp: Engagement with Language as Buddhist Path (Heidelberg, Universitätsverlag, 2006), and my article “Shinran’s View of Language: A Buddhist Hermeneutics of Faith” in The Eastern Buddhist 26, no. 1 (1993): 50–93 and in The Eastern Buddhist 26, no. 2 (1993): 91–130. 38. Nishida Kitarō , “Gutoku Shinran,” The Eastern Buddhist, New Series 28, no. 2, trans. Dennis Hirota (1995): 243–244. 39. Taylor, “Perils of Moralism,” 351. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., 352. 42. Ibid. 43. Cf. Taylor, “Perils of Moralism,” 350. 44. Recorded in Shinran Denne, Illustrated Biography of Shinran, 1294, §3. 45. VIS, no. 67, 20 March 2013. 46. Taylor, “Perils of Moralism,” 352. 47. Robert D.  Stolorow, World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-­ Cartesian Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 2011), 63ff.

CHAPTER 14

What Do We Share? A Secular-Humanist Response Shoshana Ronen

How to respond to the thought and activity of a worldly religious leader from a secular-humanistic perspective?1 Is it feasible to combine two opposite existential worldviews; do they not exclude each other? We have two components in the secular-humanistic perspective and I would like to look at them separately. Regarding humanism, I will use the common understanding of the concept. This is the view that freedom, dignity, self-­ realization, and the well-being of every human have crucial value. This approach does not exclude the possibility that a humanist can also be a religious person.2 I prefer a flexible and inclusive description of humanism, such as “a view of the world which we can live by and with which we can make sense of our lives.”3 Taking into account the sanguinary history of humankind, I intend to avoid any deification and glorification of humanity. On the contrary, I would like to add to the concept of humanism two essential elements: human modesty in front of the cosmos and great responsibility toward other people and the world with its creatures.

S. Ronen (*) University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_14

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I fully agree with Julia Kristeva’s words during the meeting in Assisi (October 2011), when Pope Benedict XVI invited non-believers to also participate in Assisi day: In the humanism of the twenty-first century … Man with a capital M does not exist. After the Shoah and the Gulags, humanism has a duty to remind men and women that if, on the one hand, we retain ourselves to be the only legislators, it is uniquely through the continuing questioning of our personal, historical, and social situation that we can decide for society and history. … In order that the desires of men and women be rekindled Humanism teaches us to take care of them. The loving care for each other, the care of the earth, the young, the sick, the handicapped, the elderly dependents constitute inner experiences that create new proximities and surprising solidarity.4

In this chapter I would like to show that such understanding of humanism has a great deal in common with the views of Pope Francis. I present the perspective of a secular humanist, namely, a person who has no place for the concept of God in her worldview. Therefore, I do not take into consideration the many religious, pious, and theological texts and speeches of Pope Francis but limit myself to the issues that concern us both, and they are many. Peter Weber claims that Pope Francis’s “revolution is probably best described as humanist—and that makes it a much bigger challenge to Catholics in the West, both conservative and liberal.”5 Weber names the pope’s approach as “Christian humanism,” namely, caring “about human beings more than ecclesiastical considerations.”6 Weber gives some examples, such as the pope’s ecological encyclical, marriage’s annulation, and his attitude toward refugees, to show that for Pope Francis the human condition is definitely above religious concern.7 I would like to suggest that what Pope Francis is doing is not promoting a hierarchy of concerns, first human and only then Catholic, but he clearly declares in his words and deeds that the human concern is a religious Catholic-Evangelical concern. As to the question of whether it is a reinterpretation or the genuine authentic interpretation of Catholicism, I will leave this for Catholic theologians. Pope Francis’s Christian humanism is expressed powerfully in his encyclical, Laudato Si’.8 His main concern is for the common good of all humanity and not only for the good of Catholics. Francis expresses it as a “respect for the human person as such, endowed with basic and inalien-

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able rights ordered to his or her integral development” (LS, 157). Here the pope acknowledges the basic concept of humanism, namely, human rights.9 The urgent problems to deal with, writes Francis, are not the traditional questions in the center of Catholic bioethics but the welfare of society, social peace, security, solidarity, distributive justice, social injustice, care and help for the poor, and dignity of the poor (LS, 157–158). While it is interesting that this shift in the issues at the center of the debate is condemned by conservative Catholics, I think that it is essential to achieve Francis’s humanistic, social, and ecological goals. Trailblazers cannot deal only with the inner problems of their narrow circles. Tristram Engelhardt is right in his diagnosis that the pope: invites Roman Catholics to evangelize and preach the Gospel with joy, while fasting from confrontational discourse in the domain of bioethics. He engages in a pastoral discourse that is to reach out to all. … The shift from a doctrinal to a conciliatory pastoral discourse radically changes the character of Roman Catholicism’s moral discourse. … Pope Francis recognizes that momentous changes in moral attitudes can occur without the disruption of having explicitly made a change.10

While I see this shift as highly prudent and necessary for the world’s current condition, Engelhardt is very much upset with it and calls Pope Francis’s strategy “the discourse of an Argentine populist.”11 Perhaps the irritation of conservative Catholics with Pope Francis is driven not only from the shift in the pontiff’s discourse but also due to his compassionate and humanistic attitude toward Catholics. In a conversation with Andrea Tornielli, Pope Francis explained what he had in mind and expressed views that aroused controversy. The first concerns his saying that confessionals should never be torture chambers.12 Francis explained that “some confessors can be excessively curious … especially in sexual matters. … In a dialogue with a confessor we need to be listened to, not interrogated.”13 The other polemic began when, on a flight from Brazil, Francis was asked about the “gay lobby” in the Vatican; his reaction was: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”14 In the same conversation with Tornielli, Francis clarified: “These people [homosexuals] should be treated with delicacy and not be marginalized. … Before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity. And people should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies.”15 Although this

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essay does not deal with inner-Catholic debate, I think these two examples perfectly demonstrate the humanism of Pope Francis. Francis condemns egoism and self-centrism. As human beings, we should look at other creatures, human and non-human, and recognize their true worth. And Francis postulates a moral imperative “of assessing the impact of our every action and personal decision on the world around us. If we can overcome individualism, we will truly be able to develop a different lifestyle and bring about significant changes in society” (LS, 208). Consequently, Francis is convinced that each and every person is responsible for the whole world, because every deed, even the tiniest, has influence on one’s fellows and the world. This moral imperative sets on us the obligation for care and responsibility. This responsibility is not only toward other people but toward the whole of being. The pope warns us against anthropocentrism: while we should not neglect the relationship with other human beings, this cannot be isolated from our relationship with the environment (LS, 119). As he says: “Many people will deny doing anything wrong because distractions constantly dull our consciousness of just how limited and finite our world really is” (LS, 171).

Non-believers In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis addresses all humanity. He mentions not only Catholics, Christians, or members of other religions but also non-­believers. I believe that when such a worldly religious leader invites non-believers to enter into a dialogue, one should not refuse. Reading Pope Francis, I encountered an impressive personality with highly important messages for all humanity, believers and non-believers. I also realized that Pope Francis and I have much more in common than what I had previously thought, and what connects us is more essential and fundamental than what separates our worldviews. In the current condition of the earth and its inhabitants, there are many more acute problems and dangers to face and fight together than entering into a debate about the existence of the divine. Moreover, I think that the dualistic division between believers and non-­ believers or secular and religious is too binary, superficial, and artificial. I would like to suggest rather a spectral view, a continuum, on which we shift in different periods of our lives. I would also like to suggest that an appropriate tension to consider is not believer versus non-believer but rather doubter versus trustful.

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I believe that Pope Francis would agree with my suggestion. In an interview with the Italian atheist journalist and the co-founder of La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, regarding the secular-religious dialogue, Francis asked Scalfari: “You, a secular non-believer in God, what do you believe in? … I am asking what you think is the essence of the world, indeed the universe.” Scalfari replied: “I believe in Being, that is in the tissue from which forms, bodies arise.” Francis’s reaction was remarkable: “And I believe in God. … This is my Being. Do you think we are very far apart?” If I were there I could answer the pope that “No,” we are not very far apart. The humanism of Pope Francis is expressed by his respect for non-­ believers, in his awareness that such people exist, that they have the right to be as they are, and that they are not a target for missionary activities. On the contrary, in the interview with Scalfari he declared that “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense.”16 A good example for this assertion is the pope’s ending words in his first press conference after his election to be the bishop of Rome. Pope Francis concluded the appointment not with the customary formulation, “I cordially impart to all of you my blessing,” but made a slight change, switching from Italian to his mother tongue Spanish, “I told you I was cordially imparting my blessing. Since many of you are not members of the Catholic Church, and others are not believers, I cordially give this blessing silently, to each of you, respecting the conscience of each, but in the knowledge that each of you is a child of God.”17 Being a good person does not necessarily mean being a religious person. Francis’s attitude to moral questions is entirely inclusive; moral questions are both universal human and religious questions. However, Francis, already in 2010, while still the archbishop of Buenos Aires, spoke of the ethical path as follows: “No person, be they a believer, an agnostic, or an atheist, can avoid the demands of what is ethical, which range from the most general principles—the most basic of all: ‘Do good and avoid evil’— to the most specific.”18 For Bergoglio, ethics and morality were not the same as religion. Being religious or a non-believer has nothing to do with being moral. According to the pope, each person has their own idea of good and evil and has the inner freedom to decide to realize this good. This is also understood by the pope as following one’s conscience. In spite of the reluctance of some people in the Catholic Church to get into a dialogue with atheists like Scalfari, Francis did not hesitate to do so. He deeply

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believes that a true dialogue is to have an encounter with all women and men no matter what their beliefs are. Therefore, in Letter to a Non-Believer, Francis invited Scalfari for a dialogue that resulted in their meetings and interview.19 In the letter the pope answers Scalfari’s question whether “the God of Christians forgives those who do not believe and who do not seek faith?” Francis answered that “Given the premise, and this is fundamental, that the mercy of God is limitless for those who turn to him with a sincere and contrite heart, the issue for the unbeliever lies in obeying his or her conscience. There is sin, even for those who have no faith, when conscience is not followed.”20 Therefore, it seems that for Francis, unbelievers should follow their conscience, it is their ethical obligation, and not to do so is a sin. The Italian journalist Marco Politi, a specialist on Vatican issues, noticed that although Francis might be perceived as “revolutionist,” his letter draws, in fact, from a noble tradition of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis truly realizes the message of Vatican II21: “The time has now finally come, ushered in by the Second Vatican Council, for a dialogue that is open and free of preconceptions, and which reopens the doors to a responsible and fruitful encounter.”22 Politi observed then that the pope in “rendering account of his faith before the world of the nonbelieving, he faced the knottiest question head on: absolute truth.”23 However, for Francis, truth cannot be absolute because truth is a relationship: I would not speak about “absolute” truths, even for believers. … Truth, according to the Christian faith, is the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. Therefore, truth is a relationship. As such, each one of us receives the truth and expresses it from within, that is to say, according to one’s own circumstances, culture, situation in life, and so on. This does not mean that truth is variable and subjective, quite the contrary. But it does signify that it comes to us always and only as a way and a life. … Therefore, we must have a correct understanding of the terms and, perhaps, in order to overcome being bogged down by conflicting absolute positions, we need to redefine the issues in depth. I believe this is absolutely necessary in order to initiate that peaceful and constructive dialogue which I proposed at the beginning of my letter.24

Francis would like to avoid any fruitless war of ideas. The essence of a dialogue is to concentrate on what can unite and not what divides while not ignoring differences. But what is more crucial for dialogue is mutual respect. The participants should be bereft of feelings of superiority and proselytizing intentions. In this light, Francis expressed the wish for a seri-

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ous encounter with non-believers in the hope of finding “the paths along which we may walk together.”25 Scalfari notes the various and contradicting reactions to Pope Francis’s open letter to non-believers. For example, Ian Buruma reflected that to acknowledge the primacy of conscience means that “neither God nor the church is really needed to tell us how to behave. Our conscience is enough. Even devout Protestants would not go that far. … Francis’s words suggest that it might be a legitimate option to cut out God Himself.”26 I think that Buruma is right only in the case of non-believers. Francis assumes that sincere believers have God to guide their ethical conduct, while sincere non-believers have their own conscience. God is not eliminated but Francis understands that non-believers do not need the concept of God. This fact does not mean that they cannot be moral; they are able to distinguish right from wrong and if they follow their conscience they will do good. As Francis told Scalfari: “Everyone has their own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as they conceive them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”27 These views do not imply that Francis abandoned the religious discourse. In one of his first texts as pope, the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium,28 he wrote, in the spirit of the traditional Church, that secularization is the reason for ethical degradation, confusion among youngsters, and prospering of, on the one hand, fundamentalist religious movements and, on the other hand, “new age” religions (EG, 63–64). But also in this important text one can find the following words: As believers, we also feel close to those who do not consider themselves part of any religious tradition, yet sincerely seek the truth, goodness and beauty which we believe have their highest expression and source in God. We consider them as precious allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building peaceful coexistence between peoples and in protecting creation. A special place of encounter is offered by new Areopagi such as the Court of the Gentiles, where believers and non-believers are able to engage in dialogue about fundamental issues of ethics, art and science, and about the search for transcendence. This too is a path to peace in our troubled world. (EG, 257)

Thus it is clear that a dialogue of all people of goodwill is necessary in the search for “truth, goodness and beauty.” So I see the pope as a good and courageous ally, especially in a world in which so few worldly leaders have concern about the common good as he does.

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Perhaps Marco Politi shared this idea when he inquired of Julia Kristeva about her perception of Francis: Francis is the small-town curate on the pontifical throne: unique, surprising, unexpected. … His warm and popular style of communication is a political act. He has attracted sympathy from even the most critical secularists. … He turns toward the misery of populations in a palpable fashion and touches hearts with the revolutionary language of a Trotsky or a Che Guevara. Who is saying it better? It’s a challenge for us humanists. … “Catholicism is in decline around the world … but it has a strong card to play: Christian humanism.”29

Politi asserts that Francis is fully aware of the need for dialogue between the Catholic Church and secular humanism in the twenty-first century. However, this strategy reflects his own sincere belief held long before he became the pontiff. In his talk with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, Francis said, “I would never say [to an atheist] that his life is condemned, for I am convinced that I have no right to judge the honesty of that person. All the less so if they display human virtues of the kind that make a person great and do good as well.”30 I believe that a dialogue between Francis and secular humanism is not only achievable but also extremely significant. Humanity is facing great problems—even catastrophes—and the only way to address them is by a global cooperation of people from all the various faiths and viewpoints. Secular humanists share similar views with Francis on many issues, and I believe that after a long discussion we could formulate a common stand on many subjects including social justice, ecology and climate change, economic inequality, immigration and refugees, the death penalty,31 and sexual identity. I am uncertain, but we might even agree on some, not all, points concerning gender equality.32 In this chapter, I will now discuss some of these issues and Pope Francis’s views about them.

Ethical Turn, Integral Ecology, and Climate Change In Laudato Si’ one can read: “Now, faced as we are with global environmental deterioration, I wish to address every person living on this planet. … In this Encyclical, I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” (LS, 3). Francis is aware that many people

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reject the idea of God, or consider it irrelevant, or tolerate religions although they are non-believers, but still the pope is certain that a fruitful dialogue is possible (LS, 62). In this eon of climate change and ecological crisis, with an extreme economic inequality between both people and societies, if humanity would not change its conduct, a catastrophe is expected. Therefore, the pope believes that it is his moral responsibility to speak to all on what is significant for humanity as such and not to restrict his activity only to inner-Catholic issues: “Whether believers or not, we are agreed today that the earth is essentially a shared inheritance, whose fruits are meant to benefit everyone” (LS, 93). “Everyone” in the pope’s encyclical is the earth and its creatures (LS, 69): different species have value in themselves; they are not only a tool in the hands of people, they are not resources for the comfort of humanity. It is focal, that Francis, “like most scientists, considers humans as part of the natural ecology, rather than separate from it. … The priority for human worth is clear, and he walks on a tightrope between affirming human worth and valuing the natural environment for its own sake.”33 People do not have the right to treat plant and animal species as their possession and exploit them (LS, 33). Furthermore, caring for the environment cannot be separated, according Francis, from feelings of empathy and compassion to other human beings: “It is clearly inconsistent to combat trafficking in endangered species while remaining completely indifferent to human trafficking. … Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society” (LS, 91). However, because humanity is the main cause of the crisis, it is in humanity’s hands to change and improve the conditions of living on earth. It is the responsibility of human beings to take care of the world and its inhabitants, today and for future generations. This “ethical turn” of Pope Francis—namely, turning ecological and economical issues into moral questions—is, I believe, the strength of his message to both believers and non-believers. We never considered our attitude toward our planet in moral categories, yet our attitude has moral consequences.34 Ecology and economy are ethical issues. We cannot disconnect facts like climate change, pollution, lack of clean water, poverty, and global inequality with the moral state of humanity, with human’s everyday actions and decisions (LS, 56). This is not only Francis’s opinion, it can be shared also by atheists; “Many of us have come to believe that to achieve real and sufficient change it will be

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necessary to introduce a moral or spiritual element into the discussion.”35 It is a delusion to think that nature and culture are autonomous and not dependent on each other. Environmental deterioration is caused by human and social decline (LS, 48): “We have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment” (LS, 49). Therefore, Francis proposes, what he calls integral ecology: Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it. … It is essential to seek comprehensive solutions which consider the interactions within natural systems themselves and with social systems. We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. (LS, 139)

The current crisis is both ecological and social. The social crisis derives from self-centered people and societies guided only by their own narrow interest, producing consumerism and a culture of waste. Mending the world means a social and ecological revolution. I do not think that it is an exaggeration calling Francis a revolutionist. In Laudato Si’, he did not hesitate to call for “significant changes in society” (LS, 208). But, to achieve these changes, a dialogue of all humanity is needed. Zygmunt Bauman saw in Francis the courageous and determined public figure of authority who promotes the culture of dialogue as an alternative to Huntington’s seductive notion of a “Clash of Civilizations.”36 The integral ecology of Francis relates to two primary domains: climate change and the many ecological disasters connected to it and the global economic crisis, a result of fast-growing economic inequality. Fighting one requires fighting the other. I consider Laudato Si’ the most important document Pope Francis has published so far. In this encyclical, the pope courageously put into words a severe diagnosis of the condition of humanity and our planet, risking criticism by those who speak for the powerful and privileged parts of society, among them also Catholics. Indeed, Francis faced harsh criticism from those who have a strong interest in maintaining social, economic, and ecological orders as they are today. They belittle his competence to express his opinions on matters like ecology and economy. However, in the document he draws from different sources, the Hebrew Bible, Catholic, Eastern

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Orthodox, scientific, and philosophical, and calls in inspiring inclusive language for a real dialogue.37 The encyclical discusses major societal issues like climate change, loss of biodiversity, pollution, global inequality and poverty, and the failure to cope with these acute problems. The pope suggests ways to repair these problems and to face the environmental challenges: Pope Francis emphasizes the importance of individual responsibility and rejects overreliance on technology and markets as solutions to the world’s ills. … The pope specifically criticizes the pursuit of profit maximization which, he argues, harms future generations and the environment.38

Laudato Si’ shows that one cannot separate ecological problems like climate change, that is, scientific issues, from politics. But the need to engage politically to influence reality does not discourage the pope. In an interview with Scalfari he was asked about politics: “Personally I think so-­ called unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded. We need great freedom, no discrimination, no demagoguery and a lot of love. We need rules of conduct and also, if necessary, direct intervention from the state to correct the more intolerable inequalities.”39 Francis also shows that today those who suffer the most from climate change and the current economic structure are the poor—individuals and countries—so, the injustice in distributing the earth’s goods is enormous, as well as the abuse of earth’s sources. Climate change and war generate hunger: “Let us stop presenting it as an incurable illness,” said the pope.40 In the same article it is reported that today about 815 million people suffer undernourishment and Francis calls for programs of prevention and intergovernmental activity. Humanity devastates its home, says Francis: “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth” (LS, 21). The earth is the home for all, but only a thin layer of humanity enjoys the advantages of technology, a global economic system that favors the rich, and the exploitation of sources at the expense of the rest of humanity and all living species. Twenty percent of the world’s population controls over 80 percent of the world’s resources; there is no limit to human greed (LS, 203–204). Francis also shows that the poor suffer the most from the effects of climate change. They are the victims of tsunami, flooding, violent storms such as hurricanes, warming, drought, and lack of clean water. These natural phenomena cause waves of

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immigration by millions of people who are not considered as refugees by any international organization (LS, 25).41 As mentioned before, Francis’s call is so powerful because he pleads to all with clear and inclusive language. In his appeal he writes: The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can be change. … Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the suffering of the excluded. I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all. … Obstructionist attitudes … can range from denial of the problems to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity. (LS, 13–14)

Francis’s introductory words contain, in a nutshell, the essential ideas in the encyclical. It is written with a feeling of emergency: we do not have much time to overcome the crisis and understating that change requires solidarity and cooperation of all humanity. In the current social situation, young people, primarily, demand and need change, especially for the future generations, so intergenerational solidarity is highly important. In the eyes of Francis, it is “a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us” (LS, 159). Francis is aware of the indifference of people and their tendency to self-deception, negation of reality, and laziness when confronting a severe situation. He also sees that humanity must take responsibility for the problems, yet he expresses optimism that people have the power to make change and that each of us must be aware of our own responsibility and act. The introduction also echoes an emphasis on the interrelation between humanity and nature. Social and ecological degradations are connected and the economic and environmental crises are inseparable. Humanity has the power to overcome these crises, but it can be achieved only if humanity adapts modesty, slows down, and resigns from its hubris as the center of the universe and its imperator (LS, 114). I believe that the only point in which Francis is shortsighted is the contribution of population growth to climate change. Because of the teaching of the Catholic Church against birth control, Francis does not admit that

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it is a problem: “Demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development. To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issue” (LS, 50).42 It is interesting that this step that Francis failed to make was made by Sean McDonagh, a priest and eco-theologian, who commented widely on the pope’s encyclical. He states that Francis made a questionable generalization in his words concerning demographic growth, and although it is not the main factor in climate change, it is a contributing factor. Therefore, McDonagh concludes bravely: “In the face of this demographic crisis I think that the time is now ripe for the Catholic Church to revisit its teaching on birth control.”43 Nevertheless, I share the view of Celia Deane-Drummond in valuing Laudato Si’ that “perhaps one of the greatest contributions that this encyclical will engender is a strong sense that another world really is possible, and the explicit message for scientists is one of both encouragement and restraint. Ecologists and natural scientists more generally will hope that this encyclical will have wider political and social ramifications.”44

Social Justice, Poverty, and Migration Evangelii Gaudium is a very clear and direct protest against the global, neo-liberal economic system. Francis did not spare harsh words in illustrating the current situation: Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. … Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. (EG, 53)

These words aroused enormous controversy and stern criticism, especially from conservative circles in the US, including Catholics, who took for granted the connection and cooperation between the Church, Catholic thought, and capitalism.45 Marco Politi asserts that the economic problem of inequality was not an abstract question for Francis when he was Cardinal Archbishop Bergoglio. He became a pope in a time of global crisis, and therefore, when he mentions poverty, the trafficking of women, and inhu-

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mane conditions of labor—all forms of modern slavery—he knows this from his own experience living in Argentina. He saw it with his own eyes, and he speaks the language not of neo-liberal economists but of millions of simple people. Francis gives voice to the excluded and outcast.46 In a conversation with Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi, Francis diagnosed the current situation. He repeated his ideas expressed in Evangelii Gaudium and explained them further. In many texts and interviews, Pope Francis keeps reiterating similar ideas. However, taking into account the many slanders he faces (Marxist, populist, economic ignorance, and so on), perhaps this is the right method to continue reminding us of his good tidings: “When at the core of the system [economic, SR] humanity is replaced by money, and when money becomes an idol, men and women are reduced to mere instruments of a social and economic system characterized—better yet dominated—by profound imbalances.”47 What Francis criticizes is the “trickle-down” economic theory which assumes “that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.”48 However, what Francis sees is that poor people get poorer and the rich get richer: “The promise was that when the glass was full, it would have flowed over, and the poor would have benefited from it. Instead, what happens is that when the glass is full it mysteriously gets larger, and so nothing comes out of it for the poor.”49 Charles Clark asserts that the unique point of Francis: has been his linking of poverty to inequality, and his framing of both poverty and inequality in terms of exclusion. In his “No to an economy of exclusion” Francis reformulates these issues in a way that goes beyond the typical right-left divide on the issue of wealth and poverty. Both poverty and inequality are caused by exclusion while these conditions also increase exclusion.50

Clark also suggests that the answer to the theory of “trickle down” should be to promote “sprinkle-up” policies, empowering the poor so that, as Francis says time and again, they should become more socially and politically active.51 So, what does Pope Francis propose instead of the current situation of social injustice, gigantic economic inequality, unlimited greed of the few who have no inhibitions, idolatry of wealth, new forms of slavery, economic ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the mar-

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ket and financial speculation, and a “culture of waste” which also treats people as a product to use and to throw away? Francis would like to see a more equal economy in which the gap between poor and rich is not so unimaginable, solidarity and more ethics in economy and politics shaped by respect for each human being, dignified work for everyone and not slave labor, and access to health care and education for all.52 The question then aroused is how to attain these noble ideas? What is the solution according to Francis? The solution is, at the same time, simple and revolutionary: to change the system: “A global rethinking of the whole system as a quest for ways to reform it and correct in a way consistent with the fundamental human rights of all human beings.”53 Without solving the problem of poverty, there will be no solution to any other problem. This should be the first step. Removing the structural causes of poverty can be achieved if markets do not have absolute autonomy: “We need programs, structures, and politics leading to a better allocation of resources, job creation, and integral advancement of those who are excluded.”54 At this point I can hear the voices accusing Francis of being a Marxist—although he has denied it, and not once.55 Nonetheless, what is much more stimulating is a comparison between the thought of Francis and Thomas Piketty. Both are convinced that structural change of capitalist institutions is necessary in order to bring an end to economic inequality.56 Weithman grasps the thinking of Francis and Piketty as being different yet also complementary: “Francis’s work contains the resources needed to show the moral significance of Piketty’s findings.”57 Perhaps another similar point between Francis and Piketty is that both doubt the absolute value given in our culture to private property.58 What is interesting is that Francis declares that all that he says is nothing new; it is not a revolutionary thought but only what emerges from the tradition of Catholic social teachings. Explaining his ideas in Evangelii Gaudium, the pope reiterates: I did not say anything that is not already in the teaching of the social doctrine of the Church. … I do not speak as an economical expert, but according to the social doctrine of the church. … The gospel does not condemn the rich but the idolatry of wealth … that makes it insensitive to the cry of the poor. … This concern for the poor is in the gospel, and it is within the tradition of the church. It is not an invention of communism.59

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Harry Boyte also thinks that Francis’s words emerge from the social teaching of the Catholic Church, but he also adds to it the notion of democracy shaped by dynamic civil society and decentralization of power, where communities are more active in organizing their lives: “The ‘civic economy,’ an allied concept, seeks to transcend debates about the market between left and right, arguing that the market must operate within a moral framework that puts human dignity foremost and involves all stakeholders in deliberating about achieving these goals.”60 As the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis was very much active in that direction. A major concern in which Pope Francis is highly engaged is that of immigrants, refugees, and ecological catastrophe. Francis, who repeats frequently that he is a son of immigrants,61 embarked on his first journey, after being elected in July 2013, to Lampedusa,62 the Italian island called “the door for Europe,” where many refugees of wars and ecological catastrophes have attempted to cross the Mediterranean by boat, with the result many have died trying. In June 2013, about ten refugees drowned after their boat capsized off the coast. Francis’s decision to visit the place was a significant and expressive gesture which turned the attention of media and public opinion around the world to the tragedy of immigrants. In his homily, Francis said words of reproach but also of kindness. He thanked the people of Lampedusa who help the immigrants although they are so few, and toward the Muslim immigrants, he expressed support in their search for a dignified life: I felt that I had to come here today, to pray and to offer a sign of my closeness, but also to challenge our consciences lest this tragedy be repeated. … I wish to offer some thoughts meant to challenge people’s consciences and lead them to reflection and a concrete change of heart. … How many of us, myself included, have lost our bearings; we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live; we don’t care … and we end up unable even to care for one another! And when humanity as a whole loses its bearings, it results in tragedies like the one we have witnessed. … Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters of ours? Nobody! That is our answer: It isn’t me; I don’t have anything to do with it; it must be someone else. … Today no one in our world feels responsible. … The culture of comfort, which makes us think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of other people, makes us live in soap bubbles which, however lovely, are insubstantial; they offer a fleeting and empty illusion which results in indifference to others; indeed, it even leads to the globalization of indifference.63

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Is the pope succeeding in his mission to challenge our conscience or was his a voice crying out in the wilderness? I’m afraid we still live in an era of globalized indifference. Since then, Pope Francis has repeated similar words many times in many places around the world, but in vain. Still too few are righteous.64 However, Francis does not give up and continues his struggle to help immigrants. For example, in September 2017, he “launched a two-year global campaign by Caritas Internationalis … to assist families forced to migrate and promote Catholic social teaching on refugees and migrants.”65 Zygmunt Bauman is one who is greatly encouraged by Francis’s message: the pope is “one of the very few public figures alerting us to the threats of following Pontius Pilate’s gesture of washing hands of the consequences of the current trials and tribulation of which we all are, simultaneously, in one degree or another, victims and culprits.”66 The Argentinian pope identifies himself as a man on the periphery. In his speech at St. Peter’s Square, following his election, he called himself a person who came from the end of the earth. These words should not be treated only as a geographical statement. Francis believes that from the periphery one sees much better, clearer, and deeper than from the center what is indispensable for engendering great changes in history.67 Perhaps the wise observations and the accurate and shrewd analyses of our current world condition by this “peripheral man” will at last open the eyes and hearts of humanity.

Notes 1. Because the pope is a worldly, religious leader, I will take into consideration not only his texts like encyclical, apostolic exhortation, or letters but also interviews, books with extended interviews, speeches, audiences, homilies, messages, and gestures. Much of Francis’s written materials can be found in the website of the Vatican: http://w2.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en.html. 2. For Karl Marx, humanism was necessarily atheism. For Robert Norman, “Humanism is an attempt to think about how we should live without religion.” Robert Norman, On Humanism, (London: Routledge, 2004), 13. 3. Ibid., 8. 4. http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Julia-Kristeva:-The-humanism-of-theEnlightenment-must-dialogue-with-Christian-humanism-23031.html (Accessed 28 October 2017). 5. http://theweek.com/articles/578420/pope-francis-isnt-liberal-hessomething-more-radical-christian-humanist (Accessed 28 October 2017).

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6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. For this essay I used the following publication of the encyclical: Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, The Encyclical of Pope Francis on the Environment, with commentary by Sean McDonagh (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016). 9. Francis’s language is a reminder of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948. For the document, see: http://www.un.org/ en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ (Accessed 29 October 2017). 10. H. Tristram Engelhardt, JR, “A New Theological Framework for Roman Catholic Bioethics: Pope Francis Makes a Significant Change in the Moral Framework for Bioethics,” Christian Bioethics 21, no. 1 (2015): 130–134. 11. Ibid., 133. Engelhardt concludes: “With regard to sexual ethics, Pope Francis takes the position of ‘Who am I to judge?’” Yet with regard to economic issues, according to Engelhardt, he appears quite ready to judge. Mark Cherry is also upset that Francis neglects bioethical culture war and therefore resigns from dogmatic moral views. He defines Francis’s theology as a weak theology: “Many of Francis’ public statements on bioethics … appear to adopt a weak postmodern position; that is, a position that avoids directly underscoring an objectively true moral-theological position. … Such a ‘weak theology’ does not require Roman Catholicism to confront secular bioethics directly. … Central to weak theology is the deflation of moral-theological claims. Moral statements may still be made, but they are stated without any emphasis on dogmatic certainty and with an ecumenical openness to the bioethical positions and moral perspectives of others.” Mark J. Cherry, “Pope Francis, Weak Theology, and the Subtle Transformation of Roman Catholic Bioethics,” Christian Bioethics 21, no. 1 (2015): 84–88. 12. See http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/03/13/confessionshould-not-be-a-form-of-torture-says-pope-francis/ (Accessed 19 October 2017). 13. Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli (London: Bluebird, 2017), 24. For more about the unnecessary emphasis on sexual questions, see Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti, Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio (UK: Hodder and Stoughton, 2013), 104–105. 14. See http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23489702 (Accessed 19 October 2017). This saying, as other gestures of Francis such as washing the feet of a Muslim woman, are, according to Christopher Hrynkow, examples of his “emancipatory approach to diversity.” He asserts that

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Francis is an adherent of cultural, religious, and ecological diversity. See Christopher W.  Hrynkow, “Pope Francis and Respect for Diversity: A Mapping Employing a Green Theo-Ecoethical Lens,” New Blackfriars (9 October 2016): 12. 15. Francis, The Name of God, 57–58. 16. Ibid. 17. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/march/ documents/papa-francesco_20130316_rappresentanti-media.html (Accessed 24 October 2017). The whole episode is described in a book by Marco Politi, Pope Francis Among the Wolves: The Inside Story of a Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 81. 18. Rubin and Ambrogetti, Pope Francis, 98–99. 19. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2013/documents/ papa-francesco_20130911_eugenio-scalfari.html (Accessed 11 July 2017). 20. Ibid. 21. Politi, Pope Francis, 83. 22. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2013/documents/ papa-francesco_20130911_eugenio-scalfari.html (Accessed 11 July 2017). 23. Politi, Pope Francis, 83. 24. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2013/documents/ papa-francesco_20130911_eugenio-scalfari.html (Accessed 11 July 2017). 25. Politi, Pope Francis, 84. 26. Ibid. Buruma’s text can be found in this link: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ian-burumapope-francis-and-the-morality-of-indiv idualism?barrier=accessreg (Accessed 20 October 2017). 27. http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/10/01/news/pope_s_conversation_with_scalfari_english-67643118/ (Accessed 11 July 2017). 28. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium. html (Accessed 29 October 2017). 29. Politi, Pope Francis, 86. 30. Ibid., 86–88. 31. Pope Francis said in a speech on 11 October 2017: “It must be clearly stated that the death penalty is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity.” See: http://w2.vatican.va/ content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/october/documents/papa-francesco_20171011_convegno-nuova-evangelizzazione.html (Accessed 1 November 2017). 32. Many times, Francis expressed his respect for women, their influence on him, the fact that the marginal and oppressed role that women have in the Catholic Church hurts him, that the Church should give more place to women and their perspectives. However when it comes to the essential

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question of the ordination of women to the priesthood, which is the focal point of real equality in the Catholic Church, Francis stated that the door is closed. The current state on this issue is that in August 2016, Francis created a papal commission to study female deacons. http://press.vatican. va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2016/08/02/ 0569/01268.html. The commission had several meetings, but there are no noticeable results so far. On the women’s issue and Francis, see Pope Francis and Antonio Spadaro, My Door is Always Open: A Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 63. Elisabeth Piqué, Pope Francis: Life and Revolution (London: Darton, 2014), 268. Politi, Pope Francis, 95–101. 33. Celia Deane-Drummond, “Laudato Si’ and the Natural Sciences: An Assessment of Possibilities and Limits,” Theological Studies 77, no. 2 (2016): 392–415. 34. Nellie McLaughlin, Life’s Delicate Balance (Dublin: Veritas, 2016), 14. 35. Peter H.  Raven, “Our World and Pope Francis’ Encyclical, Laudato Si’: Four Commentaries on the Pope’s Message on Climate Change and Income Inequality,” The Quarterly Review of Biology 91, no. 3 (September 2016): 247–260. 36. Zygmunt Bauman, Retrotopia (Cambridge: Polity, 2017), 164–167. 37. Anna Rowlands, “Laudato Si’: Rethinking Politics,” Political Theology 16, no. 5 (2015): 418–420. 38. Jonas J. Monast, Brian C. Murray, and Jonathan B. Wiener, “On Morals, Markets, and Climate Change: Exploring Pope Francis’ Challenge,” Law & Contemporary Problems, vol. 80 (2017): 135–162. 39. http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/10/01/news/pope_s_conversation_with_scalfari_english-67643118/. 40. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/10/16/ pope-francis-war-and-climate-change-cause-hunger-stop-treating-it (Accessed 17 October 2017). 41. McLaughlin, Life’s Delicate Balance, 39–41. 42. Although, in a flight from the Philippines (19 January 2015), Francis mentioned “responsible parenthood.” See Raven, Our World, 252. For a critical but not conservative view of the pope’s words, see: https://thehumanist. com/commentar y/pope-francis-two-steps-for ward-one-step-back (Accessed 8 September 2017). 43. On Care for Our Common Home: Laudato Si’, The Encyclical of Pope Francis on the Environment, with commentary by Sean McDonagh (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016), 63–66. 44. Celia Deane-Drummond, Laudato Si’, 414. Some studies were done in the US to examine the influence of Laudato Si’ on Americans. One article shows that the encyclical had almost no influence on the perception of

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people and had not changed their opinions. It only strengthened those who were previously convinced, and had no effect on the opinions of those who do not believe in the seriousness of climate change. See Asheley R.  Landrum et  al., “Processing the Papal Encyclical through Perceptual Filters: Pope Francis, Identity-Protective Cognition, and Climate Change Concern,” Cognition 166 (2017): 1–12. Similar results were found in a survey of Catholics around the publication of the encyclical. The results show that “while Pope’s environmental call may have increased some individuals’ concerns about climate change, it backfired with conservative Catholics and non-Catholics, who not only resisted the message but defended their preexisting beliefs by devaluing the pope’s credibility on climate change.” See Nan Li et  al., “Cross-Pressuring Conservative Catholics? Effects of Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the U.S. Public Opinion on Climate Change,” Climatic Change 139 (2016): 377. Another study had different results: “We find evidence that Pope Francis … may exert a significant influence over public opinion by enhancing moral beliefs about climate change … the present study offers complementary experimental evidence that Francis’s views may indeed prompt moral and ethical considerations of global warming and climate change among the general public.” Jonathon P.  Schuldt et  al., “Brief exposure to Pope Francis Heightens Moral Beliefs about Climate Change,” Climatic Change 141 (2017): 167– 177. The diverse results of the above studies are interesting. What might be a possible explanation is that the first two studies were conducted before and after the encyclical was published (June and July 2015), while the third was conducted between 15 April 15 and 1 May 2016 following the pope’s visit to the US in September 2015. So, perhaps the great influence was not of the encyclical but of the pope’s visit, or the public and media debate on this issue. However, another study done after the pope’s visit shows “There are signs that a good number of U.S. Catholic bishops and parish priests have not made climate change a priority.” See Seth Heald, “The Pope’s Climate Message in the United States: Moral Arguments and Moral Disengagement,” Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 58, no. 3 (2016): 9. 45. For some of these critics, see Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi, This Economy Kills: Pope Francis on Capitalism and Social Justice (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2015), 47–68. Politi, Pope Francis, 115. 46. Politi, Pope Francis, 109–113, Rubin and Ambrogetti, Pope Francis, 102–103. 47. Tornielli and Galeazzi, This Economy, 148. 48. Evangelii Gaudium, 54. 49. Tornielli & Galeazzi, This Economy, 151.

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50. Charles M.  A. Clark, “Pope Francis, Economics, and Catholic Social Thought,” Horizons 42, no. 1 (2015): 128–140. 51. Ibid., 137. 52. Tornielli & Galeazzi, This Economy, 24–42, 148; Evangelii Gaudium, 52, 55–59. 53. Tornielli & Galeazzi, Pope Francis, 28. 54. Ibid., 149. 55. For example, ibid., 151; the interview with Scalfari, http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/10/01/news/pope_s_conversation_with_scalfari_ english-67643118/. 56. Paul Weithman, “Piketty and the Pope: A Dialogue Begun,” Theological Studies 76, no. 3 (2015): 572–595. 57. Ibid., 572. 58. Laudato Si’, 93. 59. Tornielli & Galeazzi, Pope Francis, 151–153. 60. Harry C. Boyte, “Laudato Si’, Civic Studies, and the Future of Democracy,” The Good Society 25, no. 1 (2016): 46–61. 61. For example, https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/ 10/26/pope-francis-urges-us-dreamers-continue-dreaming (Accessed 27 October 2017). 62. Politi, Pope Francis, 77. 63. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130708_omelia-lampedusa.html (Accessed 1 November 2017). 64. For example, Francis visited Poland, the most Catholic country in Europe, in July 2016 and mentioned the migrants but was talking to indifferent people. A country of 38 million refuses to welcome even a few hundred migrants. In one of the latest surveys, 71 percent of Poles reject reception of Muslim migrants and only 9 percent do not reject them. See https:// oko.press/polacy-szczytach-islamofobii-ue-boja-sie-nienawidza-chockogo/ (Accessed 1 November 2017). 65. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/09/27/pope-francislaunches-caritas-campaign-assist-victims-forced-migration (Accessed 28 September 2017). 66. Zygmunt Bauman, Strangers at Our Door (Cambridge: Polity, 2016), 20. 67. Pasquale Ferrara, “The Concept of Periphery in Pope Francis’ Discourse: A Religious Alternative to Globalization?” Religions 6 (2015): 42–57.

PART III

Reflection and Final Assessment

CHAPTER 15

Be Friends and Help the World: The Contributions of Pope Francis to Interreligious and Secular Relations Leo D. Lefebure

The Contributions of Pope Francis Jorge Mario Bergoglio Rabbi Abraham Skorka poses for us the question, “Who is Jorge Bergoglio?” The good rabbi offers us a glowing response inspired by his warm friendship with the Archbishop of Buenos Aires who was unexpectedly called to the Chair of Peter. When, however, Antonio Spadaro, SJ, asked the recently elected Pope Francis, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?,” the Roman Pontiff gave a response that may appear surprising, as Spadaro recalls: The pope stares at me in silence. I ask him if this is a question that I am allowed to ask. … He nods that it is, and he tells me: “I do not know what might be the most fitting description. … I am a sinner. This is the most

L. D. Lefebure (*) Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2018 H. Kasimow, A. Race (eds.), Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_15

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accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” The pope continues to reflect and concentrate, as if he did not expect this question, as if he were forced to reflect further. … “[T]he best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” And he repeats: “I am one who is looked upon by the Lord. I always felt my motto, Miserando atque Eligendo [By Having Mercy and by Choosing Him], was very true for me.” The motto is taken from the Homilies of Bede the Venerable, who writes in his comments on the Gospel story of the calling of Matthew: Jesus saw a publican, and since he looked at him with feelings of love and chose him, he said to him, “Follow me.” The pope adds: “I think the Latin gerund miserando is impossible to translate in both Italian and Spanish. I like to translate it with another gerund that does not exist: misericordiando [‘mercy-ing’].” “Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.” Then the pope whispers in Latin: “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.”1

“I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” This self-description decisively shapes all Pope Francis’s relations: to God, to himself, to the Catholic community, to other Christians, to followers of other religious paths, as well as to those who are not religious. In proclaiming a special Jubilee Year of Mercy (8 December 2015, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, to 20 November 2016, the Feast of Christ the King), Pope Francis expressed the center of his faith: “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him.”2 Acknowledging his own sinfulness and trusting the mercy of God enfleshed in Jesus Christ, Pope Francis reaches out to others in a world of overwhelming suffering and invites followers of other religious paths as well as those who are not religious to become friends and help the world. Early Development The young Jorge Bergoglio entered the Society of Jesus in 1958, the year that the Patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was surprisingly

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chosen to become pope. While Bergoglio was a Jesuit novice and student, Pope John XXIII reached out warmly to all human beings, launching a transformation of Catholic relations with followers of other religious paths and with those who are not religious. After meeting in 1960 with the French Jewish historian, Jules Isaac, Pope John set in motion the process that would lead to Nostra Aetate, The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Just a few months before his death in 1963, for the first time in papal history Pope John addressed an encyclical, Pacem in Terris, not only to the leaders of the Catholic Church but to all people of goodwill, issuing an urgent plea for all people to work together for world peace. The message resonated widely: Pacem in Terris is the only papal encyclical to have been published in both The New York Times and in the official Soviet newspaper, Pravda. It is also the only papal encyclical to have been set to music in an oratorio—by the French Jewish composer, Darius Milhaud. The actions of good Pope John offered an extremely important model for the future Pope Francis. Bergoglio’s ministry as a Jesuit was shaped by the 32nd General Congregation Society of Jesus in 1975, which affirmed that work for justice is an integral part of the society’s mission to proclaim Christian faith. Twenty years later, in 1995, the 34th General Congregation proclaimed the imperative for Jesuits and others to nurture positive interreligious relations: “To be religious today is to be inter-religious in the sense that a positive relationship with believers of other faiths is a requirement of a world of religious pluralism.”3 The values of mercy, justice, and positive interreligious relations that were modeled by Pope John XXIII and affirmed by the Society of Jesus inspired Jorge Bergoglio’s life as a Jesuit and prepared him for future leadership. During his years as auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires, then as coadjutor bishop with right of succession, and finally as Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio cultivated warm relations with the local Jewish and the Muslim communities. Claudio Epelman, Executive Director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, described the friendship of the future pope with the local Jewish community: “In Buenos Aires, he was always very close to the Jewish community and very sensitive toward Jews. … He was always so close with Jews, that I joked that … [e]very Jewish person in Buenos Aires believes he is his best Jewish friend.”4 Leaders of the Muslim community in Argentina, Sheij Mohsen Ali and Dr. Sumer Noufouri (Secretary General of the Islamic Center of the Republic of Argentina), described Cardinal Bergoglio as “pro-dialogue,” saying, “He

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always showed himself as a friend of the Islamic community.”5 The interreligious friendships that he cultivated in Argentina prepared him to extend friendship to people across the world. Program of a Pontificate: Evangelii Gaudium On 13 March 2013, the papal conclave of Cardinals of the Catholic Church elected Bergoglio as the Roman Pontiff. Exactly one week later, Pope Francis issued an appeal for friendship to a gathering of interreligious leaders: “The Catholic Church is conscious of the importance of promoting friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions—I want to repeat this: promoting friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions.”6 Eight months later, on 24 November 2013, Pope Francis issued an apostolic exhortation, which set forth the central vision of his pontificate. The great theme of Pope Francis’s exhortation is expressed in its title, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), and is the proper Christian response to God’s coming into human life in the person of Jesus Christ.7 The title reprises the exultation of Pope John XXIII, who opened the Second Vatican Council in October 1962, on the eve of the Cuban missile crisis, with a speech entitled Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (Mother Church Rejoices). Pope John called the Catholic Church to be a church of the poor, and he set the Catholic Church on the path toward warmer, more respectful relations with followers of other religions. Pope Francis renews this call, inviting Catholics to reflect on how to relate more effectively and joyously to followers of different religious paths and to the many poor and suffering. Pope Francis frames his invitation to improve interreligious relations in light of the great challenges of the present time. At the beginning of Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis warns of a dire threat to all people today: The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. (EG 2)

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Francis sees the temptation of consumerism as one of the central challenges facing all humans. Pope Francis views the grace of God that Christians experience in Jesus Christ as nurturing and shaping the lives of followers of other religious paths as well. He believes that Christians can learn from other traditions: “The same Spirit everywhere brings forth various forms of practical wisdom which help people to bear suffering and to live in greater peace and harmony. As Christians, we can also benefit from these treasures built up over many centuries, which can help us better to live our own beliefs” (EG 254). Francis reaches out to those who do not belong to any religious tradition: “As believers, we also feel close to those who do not consider themselves part of any religious tradition, yet sincerely seek the truth, goodness and beauty which we believe have their highest expression and source in God. We consider them as precious allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building peaceful coexistence between peoples and in protecting creation” (EG 57). Francis trusts that reflection on ethics, art, and science, as well as consideration of the human search for transcendence, can serve as “a path to peace in our troubled world” (EG 257). Despite all the difficulties facing the global community, Francis encourages interreligious leaders and the entire global community: “Challenges exist to be overcome! Let us be realists, but without losing our joy, our boldness, and our hope-filled commitment” (EG 109). Interreligious Quest for Peace and Justice In his effort to be a realist, Pope Francis is painfully aware of the tragic intertwining of religious identity and violence in many conflicts around the world, with twin dangers of hatred and indifference. On 29 January 2018, he told the leaders of the Rome International Conference on anti-Semitism: It is not merely a question of analyzing the causes of violence and refuting their perverse reasoning, but of being actively prepared to respond to them. Thus, the enemy against which we fight is not only hatred in all of its forms, but even more fundamentally, indifference; for it is indifference that paralyzes and impedes us from doing what is right even when we know that it is right. I do not grow tired of repeating that indifference is a virus that is dangerously contagious in our time, a time when we are ever more connected with others, but are increasingly less attentive to others.8

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He commented to the diplomats accredited to the Holy See in January 2017: “Sadly, we are conscious that even today, religious experience, rather than fostering openness to others, can be used at times as a pretext for rejection, marginalization and violence. I think particularly of the fundamentalist-­inspired terrorism that in the past year has also reaped numerous victims throughout the world.”9 Francis condemned fundamentalist movements that engage in violence: We are dealing with a homicidal madness which misuses God’s name in order to disseminate death, in a play for domination and power. Hence I appeal to all religious authorities to join in reaffirming unequivocally that one can never kill in God’s name. Fundamentalist terrorism is the fruit of a profound spiritual poverty, and often is linked to significant social poverty. It can only be fully defeated with the joint contribution of religious and political leaders.10

Francis sharply distinguishes between Islam and fundamentalist movements that perpetrate indiscriminate violence on civilians: “Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” (EG 253). Francis calls for all religious leaders to unite in opposing violence, oppression, and poverty and to work for peaceful transformation of conflicts. While this appeal is cogent, the terminology Pope Francis uses in this area poses difficulties. Like many others, Pope Francis uses the term “fundamentalism” in a pejorative sense to name certain forms of violent religious practice in a wide variety of religions; Evangelii Gaudium uses “fundamentalism” as a negative term to name “obstacles and difficulties” (EG 250). Even though this usage of the term “fundamentalism” is widespread, it is problematic and has been strongly criticized in recent years.11 Originally, conservative Protestants in the United States used the words “fundamentalist” and “fundamentalism” to emphasize their fidelity to what they saw as the “fundamentals” of Christian faith in opposition to progressive Protestants. The original “fundamentalists” were not violent revolutionaries or terrorists. While this label was originally embraced by conservative American Protestants, today the term is usually used to denounce others and is only rarely a term of self-designation. Pope Francis is rightly concerned to reject the abuse of religious traditions to justify

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violence, but it is questionable whether his continuing pejorative use of the term “fundamentalism” is helpful and appropriate. In efforts to transform situations of conflict, mediators have found that it is important to listen to each party, including those who have engaged in violence, and hear their concerns with empathy; this does not imply agreeing or approving their views or actions. Pope Francis’s rhetoric appears to create two worlds: one of partners in interreligious dialogue and the other consisting of “fundamentalists” who engage in “homicidal madness” where no conversation seems possible. It is doubtful that the practice of negative labeling of certain movements can contribute to the type of interreligious understanding that Pope Francis is seeking. Francis has repeatedly invited interreligious partners to work together to transform situations of conflict toward greater understanding and respect for the human rights of all. He has spoken movingly of spiritual ecumenism and the ecumenism of blood that unites persons of different traditions who find themselves united in situations of persecution.12 Unfortunately, his repeated appeals have to date not received sufficient response to bring about the desired transformations in many contexts. Care for the Earth: Laudato Si’ In 2015, Pope Francis promulgated the encyclical, Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home), which issues a dramatic call to all humans to care for the earth as our common home: “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.”13 After describing the multiple challenges that all humans face, Francis proposes a vision of integral ecology based on the recognition that “everything is interconnected” (LS 138). This principle has a special importance for interreligious relations. Earlier popes had made statements on interreligious relations and on poverty and also on ecology, but Pope Francis has stressed more strongly than his predecessors both the suffering that environmental devastation causes especially to the poor and also the intrinsic relation between caring for our common home and developing better relations with other religious traditions and all persons of goodwill. This appeal is arguably his most dramatic contribution to developing interreligious and secular relations. Pope Francis grounds his appeal in principles that many different religions can accept in their own manner. At the center of his ecological vision

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is the acknowledgment: “Each organism, as a creature of God, is good and admirable in itself; the same is true of the harmonious ensemble of ­organisms existing in a defined space and functioning as a system” (LS 140). This vision of caring for all creation encompasses the earth, the community of all forms of life, and also humanity’s historic, artistic, and cultural heritage. Francis believes that an ecological revolution must be informed by religious and ethical principles that go beyond the domain of empirical science: “Any technical solution which science claims to offer will be powerless to solve the serious problems of our world if humanity loses its compass, if we lose sight of the great motivations which make it possible for us to live in harmony, to make sacrifices and to treat others well” (LS 200). Francis acknowledges that believers have not always been “faithful to the treasures of wisdom which we have been called to protect and preserve,” and so he calls for a return to the sources of religious traditions in order to respond to current needs (LS 200). In this context, he calls for renewed interreligious dialogue on these issues. In developing this appeal, Francis turns to the great mystical traditions. The encyclical takes its title from the famous Canticle of the Sun of St Francis of Assisi, which praises God through all creation. In the spirit of St Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis writes: “The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face” (LS 233). In a footnote to this passage, Pope Francis quotes the Muslim spiritual writer, Ali al-Khawas: “There is a subtle mystery in each of the movements and sounds of this world. The initiate will capture what is being said when the wind blows, the trees sway, water flows, flies buzz, doors creak, birds sing, or in the sound of strings or flutes, the sighs of the sick, the groans of the afflicted” (LS 233, n. 159). This is probably the first time in history that a papal encyclical has quoted a Muslim mystical writer. Pope Francis believes that the mystical traditions of many different religions converge in finding the presence of God in all creation and calling all humans to a fresh concern for the earth. Religious Identity in a Culture of Encounter Shaping Pope Francis’s entire papal ministry, including interreligious relations, is his commitment to building a culture of encounter based upon dialogue and the recognition of the goodness of diversity. Shortly after he

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issued his encyclical on care for the earth, Laudato Si’, he traveled to Paraguay, where he set forth this vision: Moreover, dialogue presupposes and demands that we seek a culture of encounter; an encounter which acknowledges that diversity is not only good, it is necessary. Uniformity nullifies us, it makes us robots. The richness of life is in diversity. For this reason, the point of departure cannot be, “I’m going to dialogue but he’s wrong.” No, no, we must not presume that the other person is wrong. I dialogue with my identity but I’m going to listen to what the other person has to say, how I can be enriched by the other, who makes me realize my mistakes and see the contribution I can offer. It is a going out and a coming back, always with an open heart. If I presume that the other person is wrong, it’s better to go home and not dialogue, would you not agree? Dialogue is for the common good and the common good is sought by starting from our differences, constantly leaving room for new alternatives. … Dialogue is about seeking the common good. Discuss, think, and discover together a better solution for everybody.14

Pope Francis combines his call for a culture of encounter with a strong commitment to maintaining Catholic identity. In recent decades many scholars have debated the positions often labeled “inclusivism” and “pluralism.”15 Pope Francis presents a clearly inclusivist view of Christian faith rooted in the Second Vatican Council: for him Jesus Christ is the concrete manifestation of God’s mercy, which is offered to every human person, whether a believer or not. On the one hand, Pope Francis seeks to foster interreligious and secular relations of respect and reciprocity and to end all proselytization and aggressive competition. On the other hand, Pope Francis is also committed to proclaiming Jesus Christ as the incarnate mercy of God and the unique Savior of the world. As we will see, many interreligious partners find a tension between mission and dialogue in Pope Francis’s outreach, and pluralists in various traditions have challenged his perspective for retaining a claim of superiority for the Christian tradition over others.

Responses to Pope Francis Interreligious dialogue occurs in a to-and-fro movement among the various parties involved; and so to understand the full significance of Pope Francis’s invitation to dialogue, we must consider the responses he has received. Since his election to the Chair of Peter, Pope Francis has become

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one of the most frequently discussed and controversial persons on this planet, with both fervent admirers and forceful critics considering and evaluating his words and actions from many angles. The chapters in this volume represent some of the many diverse responses to the invitation of Pope Francis. The Virtues and Vices of Distraction The Book of Ecclesiastes famously advises us that there is a proper time to do or refrain from doing various activities (Eccl 3:1–8), but it does not explicitly consider the time for distracting or being distracted. Two of the authors in this volume approach the paradoxical question of when distraction may be a vice and when it may be a virtue. With the advent of electronic devices and social media, many people now live in a world of incessant distractions competing for finite attention. Such constant distractions can isolate us and reinforce alienation. Nikky-­ Guninder Kaur Singh aptly applies T. S. Eliot’s classic description of being “distracted from distraction by distraction” to the world of cell phones, where technical devices effectively block Pope Francis’s hopes for a culture of encounter. The danger is that distractions can lead to distancing and indifference to the suffering of others; distractions can block genuine relationships. Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh finds that Pope Francis’s warnings in this regard converge powerfully with traditional Sikh wisdom, as expressed by Guru Nanak; both Pope Francis and Guru Nanak urgently call us to awake from distractions in order to listen to the voices of our neighbors and welcome them into a new community beyond traditional boundaries. On the other hand, memories can be a trap, and historic grievances can dominate our attention in unhelpful ways. Citing the wisdom of the Jewish tradition, Debbie Young-Somers intriguingly suggests that at times distraction may be helpful and healing. She recounts a midrashic tale of two donkey drivers who had long been locked in conflict but who unexpectedly come to reconciliation when one aids the other’s donkey in a time of need. The key moment in the narrative comes when the driver whose donkey has been helped realizes that his longtime enemy has had mercy on him, and so they enter a tavern together to sit down to eat and drink in newfound amity. The narrative calls our attention to the positive transformative effect of being distracted by a common task. When parties have long been locked in adversarial relationships, a distraction may change the

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focus of the relationship and nudge the relationship forward, possibly moving through mercy toward friendship. Young-Somers sees Pope Francis’s denunciation of oppressive economic systems as offering just such a distraction, and she praises him for proposing in Laudato Si’ the distracting call to care for the community of life on earth as the great task for our generation. On the whole, the authors in this volume strongly endorse Pope Francis’s invitation to focus attention on constructive actions for the future, including his calls for integral ecology, for alleviation of suffering, for mutual interreligious understanding and acceptance, and for nonviolent transformation of religiously motivated conflicts. Perhaps the most consequential question regarding Pope Francis’s initiatives is whether his call can offer a powerful enough distraction to focus the attention and resources of the world’s population on positive collaboration in these areas. “Viral Pontiff: Francis Dances with Hasidic Jews at the Vatican” This headline from the National Catholic Reporter on 9 May 2017 would have been unthinkable during almost all of the history of the Catholic Church. Reporter Josephine McKenna commented on the unprecedented scene: “Actually, if anyone has ever seen any pope dancing they’ve never said anything, nor filmed it and put it on YouTube. Yet there was Francis with a smile on his face, grooving to the music with a delegation of Hasidic Jews at the Vatican this week as they serenaded him with guitars and a chant in Hebrew of ‘Long years shall satiate him.’”16 Like Abraham Skorka and Debbie Young-Somers, Ed Kessler praises the culture of dialogue that Francis cultivates. Noting the positive reception that many Jews have accorded Pope Francis, he acknowledges his own experience of being moved spiritually by the pontiff; he also notes the warm reception that Pope Francis received from the Jewish community in Rome when he visited their synagogue in 2016. The enduring conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Christians and Muslims poses a formidable challenge for any pontiff. Pope Francis has sought to address the concerns of Israeli Jews and of Palestinians, inviting Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to come to the Vatican Gardens in 2014 to pray for peace and to plant an olive tree. Abraham Skorka, Debbie Young-Somers, and Ed Kessler all note Francis’s efforts to express concern for both Palestinians and Israelis.

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Given the long centuries of Catholic animosity toward Jews and Judaism, it is not surprising that challenges remain in Francis’s relations with the Jewish community. Kessler notes unresolved tensions in the Catholic Church’s outreach to Jews, especially Catholic views on the relation between the continuing covenant of God with the Jewish people and the mission of the Catholic Church to bear witness to Jesus Christ as Savior of all people. Moreover, Kessler notes that in his preaching. Pope Francis has decried the Pharisees as portrayed in the canonical gospels as examples of hypocrisy and legalism. Catholics and Jews alike have tried to persuade Pope Francis to take note of recent biblical scholarship that sees the historical Jesus as close to the historical Pharisees and that interprets the gospel texts as reflecting the conflicts of the later first century CE. Given the long and painful history of Catholic vilifications of Jews, Pope Francis’s pejorative language about the Pharisees is deeply problematic, and many hope for a change in this area. To date, Pope Francis has not changed his style. Many Christian preachers frequently cite the characters and narratives of the scriptures without worrying about the latest historical critical reconstructions of what did or did not happen historically. It remains a question for discussion and debate to what degree this is legitimate and to what degree it is imperative to pay attention to the difference between the historical reconstructions and the biblical texts. Relations with Muslims: Call to Co-witness as One Community Pope Francis finds in mercy an important point of contact between the Christian and Islamic traditions. In Misericordiae Vultus (The Face of Mercy), the papal bull proclaiming the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015, he compares Catholic trust in God’s mercy to the faith of Muslims that God is merciful and kind; and he calls attention to the Islamic prayer, Basmala: In the name of God, the all merciful, the all-compassionate.17 Ataullah Siddiqui appreciates his efforts, but he also notes distinctive historical challenges in Muslim-Catholic relations and hopes for further improvement. While both Karol Wojtyla and Jorge Bergoglio had close personal friendships with Jews long before they became pontiff, Siddiqui laments that no pope has enjoyed such a warm personal friendship with Muslims before becoming pontiff. He does recall that before becoming Pope John XXIII, Angelo Roncalli served as apostolic delegate in Turkey between 1935 and 1944 and interacted with many Muslims. However, Siddiqui observes that this occurred during the period when Turkey was going

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through a process of secularization and that we do not know much about Roncalli’s personal relations with Muslims or his theological reflections on Islam in this period. Siddiqui does not note Cardinal Bergoglio’s friendly relations with Muslims in Buenos Aires. Siddiqui points out the tension between dialogue and mission in Pope Francis’s statements on interreligious relations. On the one hand, Francis seeks mutual interreligious relationships in a culture of encounter where all give and receive; on the other hand, Pope Francis continues the Catholic Church’s commitment to evangelization. Many Muslims, like followers of other religious paths, are suspicious of this combination. The Second Vatican Council forcefully condemned anti-Semitism from any source at whatever time (Nostra Aetate, 4), implicitly but clearly rejecting statements and actions of earlier Catholic leaders regarding Jews and post-biblical Judaism. While the council urged Catholics and Muslims to forget past animosities (Nostra Aetate, 3) and generically condemned all forms of religious discrimination (Nostra Aetate, 5), Siddiqui believes it did not do enough to clearly renounce the long history of anti-Islamic statements and actions by Catholic leaders. Siddiqui challenges Pope Francis to not wait for a Third Vatican Council but to explicitly reject earlier Catholic attacks on the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic tradition. Siddiqui cites Catholic scholars Louis Massignon and Hans Küng, who called on Catholics to recognize Muhammad as a prophet sent by God. Building on their efforts, Siddiqui hopes that there can be further work to develop a “theological relocation” that would benefit both traditions. Siddiqui cites the important statement of numerous Muslim leaders to Pope Benedict XVI and all Christians, A Common Word between Us and You: The Love of God and Love of Your Neighbor. It is significant that this appeal for common understanding and collaboration between Muslims and Christians is grounded in the two commandments from Torah to love God above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In light of this appeal, Siddiqui responds very positively to Pope Francis and calls for a joint Christian and Muslim “co-witness” based on the moral energy of the “Islamo-Christian tradition.” Siddiqui embraces the proclamation of the Kingdom of God as a social and moral framework that Muslims and Christians can jointly embrace. He closes with a moving call to find our uniqueness in the act of acknowledging “the otherness of the other.” Amineh A. Hoti expresses her deep distress at the horrors of the present world situation and sees Pope Francis’s leadership as carrying forward Abrahamic ideals, especially in supporting migrants, refugees, and victims

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of violence such as Rohingya Muslims. She praises Pope Francis for asking Catholics to welcome Muslims in traditionally Christian countries. Pope Francis’s advocacy for the poor and his condemnation of oppression speak most strongly to her. Like Siddiqui, Hoti develops the programmatic hope that Muslims and Christians are called to be one community, one ummah. The degree to which Jews, Muslims, and Christians can come together as one community witnessing to common values raises many important questions concerning identity, mission, and dialogue. Hoti appreciates Pope Francis’s commitment to maintaining his religious identity in dialogue. She notes that some Muslims have told her that interfaith dialogue necessarily weakens or dilutes one’s faith, and she praises Pope Francis for emphasizing that dialogue does not require renunciation of one’s identity or compromises with one’s faith. Hoti finds that the pope’s stress on maintaining one’s religious convictions in dialogue makes it easier for her to defend the integrity of interreligious dialogue from Muslim critics. Christian Perspectives on Identity, Mission, and Dialogue Christian theologians, Helene Egnell and Stephen B. Roberts, also challenge Pope Francis on the relationship between mission and dialogue, as well as on the question of multiple religious belonging. Egnell chides Francis for his inclusivism and hopes that there may be an implicit pluralism in his openness to learning from other traditions. Egnell welcomes multiple religious belonging and uncertainty as characteristics of the present situation and proposes that an open-ended approach to interreligious relations, as is practiced by many women, is generally more helpful than anxiety for doctrinal purity. Expressing concern to receive gifts from other religious traditions and to allow identities to be transformed, Egnell praises mutual religious belonging as more and more present in people’s lives and as deserving of exploration, not reproof. As an Anglican theologian, Roberts notes the obvious continuity between Pope Francis and earlier Catholic teaching, especially the Second Vatican Council, and he also calls attention to the fluidity of religious identity in dialogue and to Pope Francis’s commitment to the common good, which can lead to unexpected transformations and borrowing. Roberts also notes the contrast between Francis’s calling for a solid and established sense of identity and his calling for openness to learning from other traditions. Roberts correctly notes aspects of Pope Francis’s own

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perspectives that call for fluidity and openness to change as relationships develop. He notes the mutual religious appropriation that often takes place among the poor, who are so important to Francis. Roberts recalls the historic situation of Christians in ancient Antioch who continued to attend Jewish ceremonies in synagogues and who were denounced forcefully by John Chrysostom. The vitriolic anti-Jewish rhetoric of Chrysostom against these Jewish Christians remains a scandal to the present day. Roberts prizes the positive possibilities of Christians participating in Jewish rituals. The issue of multiple religious belonging has been widely discussed and disputed in recent years, and much depends on the specific context.18 In East Asia, multiple religious belonging has frequently been accepted and practiced for centuries; Catholics such as Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, Robert Kennedy, and Ruben Habito immersed themselves in the practice of Zen Buddhism and developed forms of dual practice deeply rooted in the Catholic tradition and open to appropriating Buddhist wisdom and meditation practice.19 While many Buddhists have welcomed this dual practice, other Buddhists have rejected it.20 Some Catholics in Japan such as Shigeto Oshida and William Johnston explored Zen meditation but found dual practice to be impossible for them.21 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned against dangers that could arise from this practice, but he also clearly allowed Catholics to engage in meditation practices coming from other traditions.22 To date, Pope Francis has not pronounced judgment upon the practice of Buddhist meditation practices by Catholics. Multiple religious belonging can consist in a wide variety of personal appropriations of aspects of different religions. Many people in America today draw selectively from multiple religious traditions, often claiming to be “spiritual but not religious.” A few years ago one young American woman told me excitedly, “All my friends have three or four religions!” Robert Bellah and his team of researchers found religious practice in the United States to be increasingly diverse and private, with many persons fashioning a personal spirituality from various sources. They interviewed a woman named Sheila, who described her practice of shaping her own personal religion, which she called “Sheilaism.”23 Pope Francis rejects what he calls “a facile syncretism” that is not deeply rooted in a particular tradition (EG, 251). One of the most challenging areas of multiple religious belonging concerns Christians who claim to be Jews. Many Jews today dispute the claims of some Christians to continue to be Jews. After his entry into the Catholic

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Church in 1940 at age 14, the late Cardinal Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, continued to see himself as a Jew, claiming in his later years to be a “fulfilled Jew.” The Chief Rabbi of France, René-Samuel Sirat, recalled seeing Lustiger enter a synagogue to pray Kaddish for his mother.24 Lustiger wrote the epitaph for his burial place in Notre Dame Cathedral: “I was born Jewish. I received the name of my paternal grandfather, Aaron. Having become Christian by faith and by Baptism, I have remained Jewish as did the Apostles.”25 However, many Jews were not at all pleased by his self-description. Rabbi Meyer Jays, the Chief Rabbi of Paris, commented that “a Jew becoming a Christian does not take up authentic Judaism, but turns his back to it.”26 When Lustiger visited Israel in 1995, Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau publicly denounced him for betraying the Jewish people, charging bitterly that Lustiger “betrayed his people and his faith during the most difficult and darkest of periods. If we were to accept Lustiger as a model, not one Jew would be left in the world to say Kaddish.”27 Nonetheless, the World Jewish Congress honored him. The question of whether and to what degree one can practice more than one religious tradition remains debated. Sikh and Hindu Perspectives on Pope Francis The sharpest critique of Pope Francis’s position in this volume comes from Dharam Singh, who charges that religious claims of superiority encourage religious violence and who insists that no religious tradition can claim to be superior or to have received a universal savior or a final revelation. Despite his assertion that all religions are true and equally valid, Dharam Singh strongly rejects any claim of plurality in God, any affirmation of a divine incarnation, as well as any claim for a single savior or for a final prophet. He thereby asserts the superiority of his own Sikh perspective over Christian Trinitarian theology, over traditional Catholic faith in the unique incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and over Islam’s claim that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets. Because Dharam Singh believes that one God is present in all religions and that God’s love includes all people, he interprets non-theistic traditions such as Buddhism as manifestations of God’s love and thus presents what would appear to be a form of monotheistic inclusivism. The clash between his simultaneous rejection and assertion of claims of superiority is not clarified. Dharam Singh exhorts us to focus only on the similarities among religious traditions and does not offer guidance on how to negotiate significant disagreements in religious

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claims. While Dharam Singh sharply criticizes Pope Francis for not shedding the burden of superiority, he nonetheless forcefully asserts that his own views are superior to the alternatives that he rejects. He does not explain how his rejection of the beliefs of some other religious traditions coheres with his claim that all religions are equally true. Anantanand Rambachan, who participated in an interreligious discussion of Laudato Si’, which included an audience with Pope Francis, warmly endorses Francis’s call for integral ecology. Similar to Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh’s discovery of numerous points of convergence between Pope Francis and Guru Nanak, Rambachan finds many significant similarities between Pope Francis and Swami Vivekananda, notably their rejection of religious violence, concern for the poor, and hope that interreligious understanding and cooperation can contribute to world peace. Rambachan also observes the tension between Pope Francis’s commitment to interreligious dialogue and his proclamation of the Christian Gospel with its unique role for Jesus Christ. He cautions that this tension arouses suspicions among many Hindus who fear that Catholic interreligious openness is actually a tactic designed to enable evangelization. Nonetheless, Rambachan observes that Pope Francis’s inclusivist theology is very similar to the views of Vivekananda and Swami Bhaktivedanta. Rambachan emphasizes that much depends on how one presents one’s religious convictions to one’s partners. He finds Pope Francis’s comments to the Catholic bishops of Asia on walking with the other to resemble Gandhi’s exhortation not to preach directly but rather to allow the fragrance of religious and spiritual life to constitute the preaching of one’s religious path. Rambachan notes the tension between Pope Francis’s stated desire to receive wisdom from other religious traditions and his concern to maintain his religious identity and avoid syncretism. While Rambachan endorses Pope Francis’s insistence that interreligious partners not be required to abandon their identities, he also prods Pope Francis to be more open to receive from other religious traditions, even if the reception of interreligious gifts resembles syncretism. Acknowledging the legitimacy of Pope Francis’s concerns for religious identity in dialogue, Rambachan calls attention to the history of syncretism that runs through the history of interreligious encounters, and he stresses the importance of reciprocity in giving and receiving gifts in interreligious relations. Jeffery D.  Long offers a nuanced assessment of the tension in Pope Francis’s relations with Hindus and with other religious traditions. Like

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Rambachan, Long cautions that many Hindus see Francis’s purported openness to better interreligious relations as merely a means to accomplish the end of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and inviting people to become Christian. He notes that while some Hindus remain deeply suspicious of Pope Francis, others have welcomed him enthusiastically as affirming values dear to the Hindu tradition. Locating himself in a middle path of cautious hope, Long recalls the perennial history of Hindu suspicion of Christian missionary activity while also pointing out the similarity between Pope Francis and Arvind Sharma’s recent presentation of Hinduism as a missionary but not a proselytizing religion. In pondering the debate over inclusivism and pluralism, Long believes that it is unreasonable to expect Pope Francis to break significantly with the received Catholic tradition, especially as expressed in Nostra Aetate. He defends Pope Francis from pluralistic critics, insisting that all religious practitioners view the teachings of their respective tradition as true and as offering distinctive gifts. Long has argued elsewhere: “If one did not believe that one’s tradition had something that others did not, it would not make sense to continue adhering to it. There is a minimal sense, I maintain, in which we are all inclusivists—including religious pluralists, who see pluralism as a fuller truth than nonpluralism.”28 In interreligious relations, Long expects only that others reciprocate the attitude of inclusivity. He accepts Karl Rahner’s term of being an “Anonymous Christian” on condition that Karl Rahner accepts being called an “Anonymous Hindu” or “Anonymous Buddhist.” In conversation with the distinguished Japanese Zen Buddhist thinker Keiji Nishitani, Rahner said he was honored by Nishitani’s view of him as an “Anonymous Zen Buddhist.”29 While Long does not urge Pope Francis to surrender traditional Catholic beliefs, he does prod Francis to uproot proselytizing from Catholic practice so that Christian mission can move more graciously according to Gandhi’s vision of sharing one’s tradition by living it. In this regard, Long is quite hopeful of Pope Francis’s leadership. In particular, Long finds Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ to be inspiring, and he encourages Hindus to support his efforts to transform the Catholic Church. Humanism Secular and Christian Traditionally relations between Catholics and atheists were fraught with mutual condemnations and accusations. As in the case of interreligious relations, the pontificate of Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican

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Council marked a turning point by initiating a more positive Catholic outreach of goodwill to all people, including those who do not believe in God or follow any religious path. Gaudium et Spes30 noted that the concept of God that atheists reject may not be the God in whom Catholics believe (19–21). This development opened up new possibilities for dialogue and collaboration. As a secular humanist, Shoshana Ronen questions the helpfulness of the distinction between believer and non-believer and prefers the terminology of trustful and doubter. Ronen cites an interview where Pope Francis accepted the atheistic Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari’s profession of faith in Being. Francis explained that God is his Being and posed the question of whether he and Scalfari were very far apart. Behind Pope Francis’s remark is a longstanding Christian tradition of viewing God as Being or the One Who Is.31 Ronen comments on this conversation by accepting the close proximity of their perspectives on Being. In this approach, it may be possible for Ronen’s “doubter” to find significant common ground with a “truster” like Pope Francis. Nonetheless, there remains a tension between Pope Francis’s warm outreach to secular persons who seek the true, the good, and the beautiful and his negative characterization of “a spirituality without God.” In Evangelii Gaudium, Francis links fundamentalism to “new religious movements, some of which tend to fundamentalism while others seem to propose a spirituality without God” (EG 63). He interprets these movements as “a human reaction to a materialistic, consumerist and individualistic society” and charges that they exploit “the weaknesses of people living in poverty” (EG 63). This harsh criticism clashes with his respect for the consciences of those who do not believe in God but who seek to live according to deep values. Shoshana Ronen is understandably ambivalent about the pope’s multifarious comments. In the conversation between a Catholic pope and a secular humanist, the question of what constitutes a helpful distraction returns. Noting that secular humanists do not find the meaning of life in faith in a transcendent God, Ronen suggests that debating the existence of God can be an unhelpful distraction from pressing tasks. Ronen accepts the core principle of Pope Francis’s integral ecology that everything is interconnected and further agrees with Francis that both ecological and economic concerns involve an ethical dimension. While Ronen strongly endorses Francis’s feeling of emergency and his criticism of economic processes that exploit the earth and impoverish millions, she also criticizes Pope Francis’s com-

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ments in Laudato Si’ on population growth, because the pontiff does not acknowledge this as a serious problem. Ronen closes by accepting the description of Francis as a man of the periphery, suggesting that such an unfamiliar vantage point may be the most helpful for understanding our situation and calling the world to change. A recent encounter offers a window on Francis’s attitude to non-­ believers. On 15 April 2018, Pope Francis visited a parish in Rome and met with the children. When young Emanuele tried to speak at a microphone, he broke down crying; Francis urged him to come forward and whisper in his ear. After receiving Emanuele’s permission to share his dilemma with the assembly, the pontiff then explained: Maybe we could cry like Emanuele when we have pain in our heart. He cries for his father who died and has had the courage to do it in front of us because there is love in his heart—he underlines—his father was an atheist but he had his four children baptized, he was a good man. It’s nice that a son says his dad was “good.” If that man was able to make children like that, he was a good man. God is proud of your father. God has a father’s heart, your dad was a good man, he’s in heaven with him, I’m sure. God has a father’s heart and before an unbelieving father who was able to baptize his children, would God be able to abandon him? God surely was proud of your father, because it is easier to be a believer and to have children baptized than to be a believer and not to have their children baptized. Pray for your dad, talk to your dad. This is the answer.32

Misericordia et Misera: Mercy and Misery as a Place of Encounter with Buddhists The distinctive character of Buddhist perspectives on ultimate reality and the cosmos poses significant and intriguing challenges to interreligious understanding, and Pope Francis’s attempts to include Buddhists in theistic affirmations may appear at times well-intentioned but somewhat awkward. For example, in his prayer intentions for January 2016, Pope Francis acknowledges that believers frequently think and feel differently and encounter God in different ways, but he nonetheless confidently affirms that “there is only one certainty we have for all: we are all children of God.”33 Because they do not believe in a transcendent God, Buddhists inhabit a very different religious world than Pope Francis. Nonetheless, Buddhist teachings on wisdom, loving kindness, suffering, and compassion offer important points of convergence. In his Apostolic Letter,

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Misericordia et Misera, at the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis recalls Jesus’s encounter with a woman accused of adultery (Jn 8:1–11), and he quotes Augustine’s comment that after the woman’s accusers had all withdrawn, “the two of them alone remained: mercy with misery.”34 Pope Francis’s pairing of mercy and misery resonates deeply with the teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha on suffering and compassion. In his reflection on the relation between Shinran Shonin, founder of the Jodo Shinshu tradition, and Pope Francis, Dennis Hirota astutely notes that in some respects, these two figures are extremely close, while in other ways they remain profoundly different. Hirota agrees with Pope Francis that interreligious dialogue does not mean surrendering our religious principles. Nonetheless, he also warns against clinging to verbal formulations as if they were final, and he cautions that the delusional mind is not a basis for dialogue; Pope Francis would strongly agree on both points. For both the Shin Buddhist and the Catholic traditions, seekers need to go through an intellectual, moral, and religious conversion in order to properly understand the meaning of their tradition’s religious language. Shinran and Pope Francis share a dislike for self-importance in verbal argumentation. Francis would strongly agree with Shinran’s comment: “Where disputation takes place, blind passions arise. The wise keep their distance.”35 While the fundamental cosmological and anthropological assumptions of Shinran and Francis differ significantly, there is a strong convergence regarding the primordial power of sin and ignorance. Shinran’s confession of his own ignorance and selfishness calls to mind Pope Francis’s description of himself as “a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” For both Shinran and Pope Francis, we have to acknowledge our bondage to blind passions and self-aggrandizement and our powerlessness to release ourselves from this bondage. Yet paradoxically, the awareness of our servitude is possible only through the working of a power greater than ourselves. As long as we are striving to secure our existence, we are trapped in delusion; as long as we are struggling to save ourselves, we trap ourselves in harmful patterns of thinking and acting. Shinran locates the source of our violence in ego-attachment, in our mental actions and manipulative calculative thinking. Pope Francis agrees with Shinran that violence is a pervasive condition of human existence arising from the drive to self-­aggrandizement (Evangelii Gaudium, 59–60).36 Pope Francis describes the results of calculative thinking: “Once we believe that everything depends on human

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effort as channeled by ecclesial rules and structures, we unconsciously complicate the Gospel and become enslaved to a blueprint that leaves few openings for the working of grace.”37 For both Shinran and Francis, we need to negate self-power, but we cannot do this through our own power. We need an insight which we cannot produce on our own. As Hirota notes, Shinran directly challenges modern humanism’s self-confidence in the insights and actions of an autonomous individual. For Shinran, as for Pope Francis, we can find no way out of our dilemma through our own efforts, but we can encounter the gracious compassion of a power coming from beyond our control. Shinran speaks of shinjin (entrustment-mindedness) coming as a gift from Amida Buddha illumining our blindness. Hirota points out that Shinran sees us as always already within the working of Amida’s Vow; Pope Francis sees the mercy of God enfleshed in Jesus Christ as embracing all humans. For Shinran and Pope Francis respectively, realization of shinjin or of the mercy of God in Christ overflows in compassionate action in the world. Shinran trusts completely in the power of the Nembutsu and not in his own efforts. Pope Francis cites the teaching of the Second Synod of Orange in 529: “Even the desire to be cleansed comes about in us through the outpouring and working of the Holy Spirit.”38 Francis also quotes St Theresa of the Child Jesus: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you empty-handed, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justices have stains in your sight.”39 Shinran calls the process of trusting the Nembutsu “realizing shinjin” or “being free of calculative thinking.”40 Hirota notes that Shinran introduces us to a structure of awareness that moves on two levels simultaneously. There is the self-centered mode of calculative thinking that dominates much of our world; but there is also the non-discriminating wisdom of Amida Buddha that comes to us in the Nembutsu. When we surrender to the gracious vow of Amida Buddha, we can allow our defenses to fall away and enter a world of grace. Pope Francis calls for an analogous surrender of our pride. His motto miserando et eligendo and his invented word misericordiando acknowledge a grace that comes to us beyond our expectation, that prods us to see our usual thinking as erroneous and harmful, and that invites us to a world of wisdom and compassion.

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Conclusion: “Mercy Gives Rise to Joy” Pope Francis’s interreligious initiatives face formidable obstacles and tensions. Interreligious conflicts continue to rage, while the call for integral ecology has not yet evoked responses adequate to the crisis of the present time. Nonetheless, his appeals for friendship have been widely reciprocated and his efforts at understanding widely appreciated. He has gained the attention of the world community on a level that few figures can approach. In a world of unbearable cruelty and suffering, Francis trusts not primarily in human efforts but finds in mercy a point of encounter with all other religious traditions as well as with secular humanists. Pope Francis sees himself as a sinner whom God has looked upon, and he recently urged Catholics: “We need to think of ourselves as an army of the forgiven. All of us have been looked upon with divine compassion” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 82). Mercy sums up Pope Francis’s understanding of Christian faith: “Mercy cannot become a mere parenthesis in the life of the Church; it constitutes her very existence, through which the profound truths of the Gospel are made manifest and tangible. Everything is revealed in mercy” (Misericordia et Misera, 1). While acutely aware of overwhelming misery in this world, Francis hopes: “Mercy gives rise to joy, because our hearts are opened to the hope of a new life. The joy of forgiveness is inexpressible, yet it radiates all around us whenever we experience forgiveness” (Misericordia et Misera, 3).

Notes 1. Antonio Spadaro, “Interview,” https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papa-francesco_20130921_intervista-spadaro.html (Accessed 10 February 2018). 2. Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus: Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy (2015); http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ bulls/documents/papa-francesco_bolla_20150411_misericordiae-vultus. html (Accessed 29 March 2018). 3. General Congregation 34 of the Society of Jesus, Decree 5: “Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue,” (1995); https://jesuitportal.bc.edu/ research/documents/1995_Decree5GC34/ (Accessed 29 March 2018). 4. Deborah Castellano Lubov, “Every Jewish Person in Buenos Aires Thinks Bergoglio Was His Best Friend,” Zenit (28 October 2015); http://zenit.

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org/articles/interview-each-jewish-person-in-buenos-aires-thinks-bergoglio-was-his-best-friend/ (Accessed 19 January 2016). 5. Buenos Aires Herald, 14 March 2013. 6. Pope Francis, “Address to Representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of the Different Religions,” (20 May 2013); http:// w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/march/documents/papa-francesco_20130320_delegati-fraterni.html (Accessed 5 April 2018). 7. Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium; http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papafrancesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html (Accessed 29 March 2018). Hereafter citations from this document are referenced by numbered paragraphs in the body of the text. 8. Pope Francis, “Address to Participants in the International Conference on the Responsibility of States, Institutions, and Individuals to Fight Anti-­ Semitic Hated Crimes,” (29 January 2018); http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2018/januar y/documents/ papa-francesco_20180129_lotta-antisemitismo.html (Accessed 17 April 2018). 9. Pope Francis, “Address to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See,” (9 January 2017); http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/januar y/documents/papa-francesco_20170109_corpo-diplomatico.html (Accessed 8 April 2018). 10. Pope Francis, “Address to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps.” 11. For example, David Harrington Watt, Anti-Fundamentalism in Modern America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017). 12. Cindy Wooden, “‘Ecumenism of Blood Unites Us,’ Francis Tells Coptic Pope,” The Catholic Herald (12 May 2015); http://www.catholicherald. co.uk/news/2015/05/12/ecumenism-of-blood-unites-us-francis-tellscoptic-pope/ (Accessed 5 April 2018). 13. Pope Francis, Praise Be to You: Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana/San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015), 13. Hereafter, citations from this document are referenced by numbered paragraphs in the body of the text. 14. Pope Francis, “Address to Representatives of Civil Society,” Asunción, Paraguay (11 July 2015); http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2015/july/documents/papa-francesco_20150711_paraguaysocieta-civile.html (Accessed 9 June 2016). 15. Alan Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1982). 16. Josephine McKenna, “Viral Pontiff: Francis Dances with Hasidi Jews at the Vatican,” National Catholic Reporter (9 May 2017); https://www.ncron-

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line.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/viral-pontiff-francis-dances-hasidicjews-vatican (Accessed 29 March 2018). 17. Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus, Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy 23, in Pope Francis, Name of God is Mercy, 146. 18. Catherine Cornille, ed., Many Mansions? Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002). 19. Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, Living in the New Consciousness, ed. Roland Ropers, trans. Paul Shepherd (Boston: Shambhala, 1988); Robert E. Kennedy, Zen Gifts to Christians (New York: Continuum, 2000); Ruben L.F.  Habito, Zen and the Spiritual Exercises: Paths of Awakening and Transformation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013). 20. David G.  Hackett, The Silent Dialogue: Zen Letters to a Trappist Monk (New York: Continuum, 1996), 32, 105–106. 21. William Johnston, Mystical Journey: An Autobiography (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), 117–118. 22. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, 16; http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_ cfaith_doc_19891015_meditazione-cristiana_en.html (Accessed 8 April 2018). 23. Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (updated edition; Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 221. 24. Daniel Ben Simon, “He’d Say Kaddish for his Mother,” Haaretz (7 August 2007); https://www.haaretz.com/1.4959828 (Accessed 8 April 2018). 25. Christopher White, “Cardinal Lustiger: 10 Years after Death Jewish Convert Still Looms over Church in France,” Crux News (4 August 2017); https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/08/04/cardinal-lustiger10-years-death-jewish-convert-still-looms-church-france/ (Accessed 8 April 2018). 26. John Tagliabue, “Jean-Marie Lustiger, French Cardinal, Dies at 80,” New York Times (6 August 2007); https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/ world/europe/06lustiger.html (Accessed 8 April 2018). 27. Clyde Haberman, “Jerusalem Journal; The Cardinal Visits, and the Chief Rabbi Is Pained,” New York Times (1995); https://www.nytimes. com/1995/04/28/world/jerusalem-journal-the-cardinal-visits-and-thechief-rabbi-is-pained.html (Accessed 8 April 2018). 28. Jeffery D. Long, “The Eternal Veda and the ‘Truth which Enlightens All’: Correspondences and Disjunctures between Nostra Aetate and Swami Vivekananda’s Vedantic Inclusivism,” in The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multireligious Conversation on Nostra Aetate, eds Charles

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L. Cohen, Paul F. Knitter, and Ulrich Rosenhagen (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017), 260. 29. Karl Rahner, “The One Christ and the Universality of Salvation,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 16, trans. David Morland (New York: Crossroad, 1983): 219. 30. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html. 31. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1.13.11, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947), vol. 1, 70–71. 32. “A Child Cries for His Dead Atheist Father and Pope Francis Consoles Him,” Catholic Sat (15 April 2018); https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CkeGXQEh_GY (Accessed 19 April 2018). 33. Pope Francis’s Prayer Intentions for January 2016; https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=-6FfTxwTX34 (Accessed 17 April 2018). 34. Augustine, On the Gospel of John, XXXIII, 5; cited by Pope Francis, Misericordia et Misera, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco-lettera-ap_20161120_misericordia-et-misera.html (Accessed 29 March 2018). 35. Shinran, The Collected Works of Shinran, ed. and trans. Dennis Hirota et al (Kyoto: Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-Ha, 1997), 1: 669. 36. Ibid., 1: 488. 37. Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate, 59. 38. Second Council of Orange, Canon 4; cited by Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate: On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World, 53; http://w2.vatican. va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20180319_gaudete-et-exsultate.html (Accessed 12 April 2018). 39. Theresa of the Child Jesus, “Act of Offering to Merciful Love” (Prayers 6); cited by Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate, 54. 40. Dennis Hirota, Asura’s Harp: Engagement with Language as Buddhist Path (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, 2006), 85–109.

Selected Bibliography1

Abboud, Omar, Abraham Skorka, and Antonio Spadoro. “Nessuna religione e un’isola. Converzsazione con Abraham Skorka.” In Oltre il muro: Dialogo tra un musulmano, un rabbino e un Cristiano, Italian ed. New York City: Rizzoli, 2014. Althaus-Reid, Marcella. From Feminist Theology to Indecent Theology: Readings on Poverty, Sexual Identity, and God. London: SCM, 2004. Ambrogetti, Francesca, and Sergio Rubin. Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words. New York City: Penguin Group, 2014. Astley, Jeff. Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2002. Barbour, John. “The Ethics of Intercultural Travel: Thomas Merton’s Asian Pilgrimage and Orientalism.” Biography 28, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 15–26. Barks, Coleman. The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2001. ———. The Soul of Rumi. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Barnes, S.  J. Michael. Theology and the Dialogue of Religions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Bauman, Zygmunt. Strangers at Our Door. Cambridge: Polity, 2016. ———. Retrotopia. Cambridge: Polity, 2017. Bellah, Robert N. et al. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996.

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Bellah, Robert. Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Berger, Peter. “Pluralism, Uncertainty, and Interreligious Dialogue.” Inculturation 6, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 4. Bergoglio, Jorge (Pope Francis). The Name of God is Mercy: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli. London: Bluebird, 2017. Bergoglio, Jorge (Pope Francis), and Abraham Skorka. On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Image, 2013. Bergoglio, Jorge (Pope Francis), and Antonio Spadaro. My Door is Always Open: A Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Borelli, John. “Nostra Aetate: Origin, History and Vatican II Context.” In The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multireligious Conversation on Nostra Aetate, edited by Charles L. Cohen et al. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017. Boyte, Harry C. “Laudato Si’, Civic Studies, and the Future of Democracy.” The Good Society 25, no. 1 (2016): 46–61. Buaben, Jabal Muhammad. Image of the Prophet Muhammad in the West: A Study of Muir, Margoliouth, and Watt. Leicestershire, UK: Kube, 1996. Clark, Charles M. A. “Pope Francis, Economics, and Catholic Social Thought.” Horizons 42, no. 1 (2015): 128–40. Cornille, Catherine ed. Many Mansions? Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002. Coward, Harold G. ed. Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. D’Costa, Gavin. The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000. Deane-Drummond, Celia. “Laudato Si’ and the Natural Sciences: An Assessment of Possibilities and Limits.” Theological Studies 77, no. 2 (2016): 392–415. Donner, Fred M. Muhammad and the Believers at the Origins of Islam. Cambridge: Belknap, 2010. Draper, Robert. “Will the Pope Change the Vatican? Or Will the Vatican Change the Pope?” National Geographic 228, no. 2 (August 2015): 30–59. Dupuis, Jacques. Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997. Eck, Diana. A New Religious America. San Francisco: Harper, 2001. ———. “What is Pluralism?” The Pluralism Project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2006. Egnell, Helene. Other Voices: A Study of Christian Feminist Approaches to Religious Plurality East and West. Uppsala: Swedish Institute of Mission Research, 2006. Fackenheim, Emil. To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought. New York City: Schocken Books, 1982.

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Ferrara, Pasquale. “The Concept of Periphery in Pope Francis’ Discourse: A Religious Alternative to Globalization?” Religions 6 (2015): 42–57. Flannery, Edward. “Seminaries, Classrooms, Pulpits, Streets: Where We Have to Go.” In Unanswered Questions: Theological Views of Jewish-Catholic Relations, edited by R. Brooks. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Forward, Martin. Inter-Religious Dialogue: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. New York City: Crossroads, 1982. Gandhi, M. K. (Mahatma Gandhi). The Message of Jesus Christ. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1963. ———. Gandhi on Christianity, edited by Daniel Ellsberg. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991. ———. All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections. New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 2001. Goshen-Gottstein, Alon. Friendship Across Religions: Theological Perspectives on Interreligious Friendship. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015. Gross, Rita M. “A Buddhist Response to Nostra Aetate.” In The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multi-Religious Conversation on Nostra Aetate, edited by Charles L. Cohen et al. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017. Habito, Ruben L.  F. Zen and the Spiritual Exercises: Paths of Awakening and Transformation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013. Hackett, David G. The Silent Dialogue: Zen Letters to a Trappist Monk. New York: Continuum, 1996. Haq, Mushirul. “Muslim Attitudes towards Guru Nanak.” In Perspectives on Guru Nanak, edited by Harbans Singh. Patiala: Punjabi University, 1975. Heald, Seth. “The Pope’s Climate Message in the United States: Moral Arguments and Moral Disengagement.” Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 58, no. 3 (2016): 9. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays in Applied Religion. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. Hick, John. The Rainbow of Faiths. London: SCM Press, 1995. ———. An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent. Second edition. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Hirota, Dennis. “Shinran’s View of Language: A Buddhist Hermeneutics of Faith.” The Eastern Buddhist 26, no. 1 (1993): 50–93 and 26, no. 2 (1993): 91–130. ——— ed. and trans. The Collected Works of Shinran. Kyoto: Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-Ha, 1997. Hoti, Amineh. Sorrow and Joy Among Muslim Women: The Pukhtuns of Northern Pakistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Hrynkow, Christopher W. “Pope Francis and Respect for Diversity: A Mapping Employing a Green Theo-Ecoethical Lens.” New Blackfriars (9 October 2016): 12.

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Jha, D. N. Rethinking Hindu Identity. London and Oakville: Equinox, 2009. Johnston, William. Mystical Journey: An Autobiography. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006. Kasimow, Harold. No Religion Is an Island: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Interreligious Dialogue. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991 ———. John Paul II and Interreligious Dialogue. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999. ———. Interfaith Activism: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Religious Diversity. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015. Kennedy, Robert E. Zen Gifts to Christians. New York: Continuum, 2000. Kerr, David A. “‘He Walked in the Path of the Prophets’: Towards Christian Theological Recognition of the Prophethood of Muhammad.” In ­Christian-­Muslim Encounters, edited by Yvonne Y.  Haddad and Wadi Z. Haddad. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1995. Kessler, Edward. ““I Am Joseph Your Brother”: A Jewish Perspective on Christian-­ Jewish Relations Since Nostra Aetate No. 4.” Theological Studies 74, no. 1 (2013): 48–72. Kilpatrick, William. “Evangelii Gaudium on Islam: Outreach or Overreach?” Crisis Magazine: A Voice of the Faithful Catholic Laity (6 January 2014). Knitter, Paul F. One Earth Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995. ———. Introducing Theologies of Religions. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002. ———. ed. The Myth of Religious Superiority: A Multifaith Exploration. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005. Küng, Hans. Islam: Past Present and Future. Oxford: Oneworld Publication, 2007. Lamptey, Jerusha Tanner. “Beyond the Rays of Truth? Nostra Aetate, Islam, and the Value of Difference.” In The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multireligious Conversation on Nostra Aetate, edited by C. Cohen, P. Knitter, and U. Rosenhagen. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017. Landrum, Asheley R. et al. “Processing the Papal Encyclical through Perceptual Filters: Pope Francis, Identity-Protective Cognition, and Climate Change Concern.” Cognition 166 (2017): 1–12. Lassalle, Hugo Enomiya. Living in the New Consciousness, edited by Roland Ropers, translated by Paul Shepherd. Boston: Shambhala, 1988. Li, Nan et al. “Cross-Pressuring Conservative Catholics? Effects of Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the U.S. Public Opinion on Climate Change.” Climatic Change 139 (2016): 377. Long, Jeffery D. “The Eternal Veda and the ‘Truth which Enlightens All’: Correspondences and Disjunctures between Nostra Aetate and Swami Vivekananda’s Vedantic Inclusivism.” In The Future of Interreligious Dialogue:

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Rubin, Sergio, and Francesca Ambrogetti. Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2013. Sacks, Jonathan. Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence. New  York City: Random House, 2015. Scannone, S.J.  Juan Carlos. “Pope Francis and the Theology of the People.” Theological Studies 77, no. 1 (2016): 118–35. Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Schmidt-Leukel, Perry. God Beyond Boundaries: A Christian and Pluralist Theology of Religions. Münster and New York: Waxmann, 2017. Schuldt, Jonathon P. et  al. “Brief Exposure to Pope Francis Heightens Moral Beliefs about Climate Change.” Climatic Change 141 (2017): 167–77. Sharma, Arvind. Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. ———. Hinduism as a Missionary Religion. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011. Siddiqui, Ataullah. “Islamic Witness in a Pluralistic World.” Concilium 1 (2011): 51–60. Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur. “Sikh Mysticism and Sensuous Reproductions.” In Ineffability: An Exercise in Comparative Philosophy of Religion, edited by Tim Knepper and Leah Kalmanson. Berlin: Springer International Publishing, 2017. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. The Faith of Other Men. New  York: Harper and Row, 1962. ———. Towards a World Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981. Stolorow, Robert D. World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 2011. Suzuki, D. T. Shin Buddhism. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. Swami Vivekananda. The Complete Works, 8 vols. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1964–71. ———. Complete Works. Mayavati: Advaita Ashrama, 1979. Taylor, Charles. “Perils of Moralism.” In Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. Teasdale, Wayne. Catholicism in Dialogue: Conversations Across Traditions. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. Thatamanil, John J.  “Learning From (and Not Just About) Our Religious Neighbors.” In The Future of Interreligious Dialogue: A Multi-Religious Conversation on Nostra Aetate, edited by C. L. Cohen, P. F. Knitter, and Ulrich Rosenhagen. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017. Tornielli, Andrea, and Giacomo Galeazzi. This Economy Kills: Pope Francis on Capitalism and Social Justice. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2015.

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Vallely, Paul. Pope Francis: Untying the Knots. London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2015. Watt, David Harrington. Anti-Fundamentalism in Modern America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017. Weithman, Paul. “Piketty and the Pope: A Dialogue Begun.” Theological Studies 76, no. 3 (2015): 572–95. Young-Somers, Debbie. “A Jewish Theology Embracing Difference.” In Deep Calls to Deep: Transforming Conversations between Jews and Christians, edited by Tony Bayfield. London: SCM Press, 2017.

Note 1. Many of Pope Francis’s speeches, interviews, and writings—including Apostolic Exhortations—can be found on the website of the Holy See: http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html. The above Selected Bibliography mostly reflects many of the works cited by the contributors to this book.

Index1

A Africa, 58–60 Albania, 35–38, 172 Althaus-Reid, Marcella, 139–140 Amaladoss, Michael, 176 Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love): On Love in the Family, 19–21, 124 Andrews, Charles Freer, 205 Anonymous Christians, 122–123, 131–132, 193 Anti-Semitism, 27, 56, 93, 95, 307 Aparecida Document, 14, 136 Argentina, 85, 136–137, 306 Arjan, Guru, 226, 231, 251 Armenians, 48 Arms dealing, 47, 81, 146, 147 Assisi, 64–69, 131 Astley, Jeff, 140–141 Atheists, 12, 102, 162, 283–287, 320–322 Athenagoras, Ecumenical Patriarch, 42, 118

Augustine of Hippo, 104 Auschwitz, 93–95 Authenticity, 245–247 Autonomy, human, 268–269 Axial religion, 265–266 Azerbaijan, 70–74, 134–135, 169 B Barnes, Michael, 123, 133 Barth, Karl, 264 Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch, 45 Bauman, Zygmunt, 288, 295 Bellah, Robert, 264, 265, 317 Benedict XVI, Pope (Joseph Ratzinger), 22, 25, 34, 67, 194, 211–212, 317 Berger, Peter, 121 Bergoglio, Jorge Mario, see Francis, Pope Bhai Gurdas, 229

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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INDEX

Bhaktivedanta, 210 Birth control, 291 Blanco, Richard, 254 Blood, ecumenism of, 42–43 Bonaventure, 14 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 50–52, 155–157 Boyte, Harry, 294 Brothers and sisters, all people as, 37, 54, 57, 59–63, 74–75, 79, 81, 236 Buaben, Muhammad, 151 Buber, Martin, 87 Buddhism calculative thinking, 267–269, 323, 324 Christian use of meditation practices, 317 on the ego-self, 267–268 and the environment, 273 ethical awareness, 269–275 Japanese Buddhism and dialogue, 261–263 points of convergence and disparity with Christianity, 117, 263–265, 322–324 on violence, 266–268 visit of Pope Francis to a Buddhist temple, 30–31, 116 Buenos Aires, 86, 139–140, 305 Bukalov, Alexey, 42 Buruma, Ian, 285 C Cairo, 77–81 Cakir, Esma, 42 Central African Republic, 58–59 Certainty and doubt, 120, 124 Certeau, Michel De, 140 Children, as victims of war, 154–157 Christianophobia, 40–42, 153–154

Chrysostom, John, 138, 139 Church, as mysterium lunae, 43–44, 147 Church growth, 33–35, 195, 211–212 Clark, Charles, 292 Climate change, 13–14, 289–291, 298–299 Common good, service for the, 37, 53–54, 57–59, 133–134, 175–176 Common task, as aid to dialogue, 103, 108–110, 117–118 Compassion, 57, 74–76, 146–148, 165, 264 Conflict, see Violence; War and conflict Conscience, 10, 283–285 Conservatism, 45, 157–159, 281–282, 291 Consumerism, 76, 306–307 Covenant, 8, 79–81, 89–90 Conversion, see Proselytizing Crusades, 151–152 D D’Souza, Diane, 121 Dalai Lama, 238 Dayananda Saraswati (1930–2015), 189 Deane-Drummond, Celia, 291 Decalogue (Ten Commandments), 28, 80 Deren, Maya, 138 Desmangles, Leslie, 138 Dewitte Dubrana, Benjamin, 115 Dharma (way of life), 188–189 Dialogue, 9–12, 172–175 common ground for, 201–205 distraction of a common task an aid to, 103, 108–110, 117–118 empathy needed for, 33–35, 120, 201, 211

 INDEX 

and evangelization (see Evangelization) of everyday experience, 27, 51 in family life, 19–21, 124 fear overcome by, 29, 161–163 feminist approaches to, 116, 119, 121–122, 124–126 horizontal and vertical dimensions, 270–272 and identity (see Identity) importance of relations and process, 116–118 and inclusivism, 209–211 Jesuit support for, 305, 310–311 nature of and conditions for, 9–12, 19–21, 56–57, 77–79, 88, 200–201, 211–212, 259–261, 283–285 as neutralizing counterforce to violence, 272–274 not a diplomatic exercise, 73, 117, 223 peace dependent on, 25–26, 51–52, 72–74, 160–161, 173, 199–200 at the periphery and margins, 116, 119, 125, 136 purpose of, 18, 49–52, 58, 160–161, 172–175, 235–236 receiving from others, 88, 213–214 respectful co-existence in diversity, 28–29, 162–163 as rooted openness, 134–136 sharing religious experience, 41, 161 in Sikhism, 229–230 theology of, 123–124, 134 Distraction, as help or hindrance, 103, 108–110, 312–313, 321 Diversity and evangelization, 206–208 goodness and necessity of, 310–311 respectful co-existence in, 28–29, 162–163

339

Sikh acceptance of, 224–232 unity in, 20, 163–165, 201, 248–251 Donkey drivers, as model of dialogue, 103, 110, 312–313 Doubt and certainty, 120, 124 Dupuis, Jacques, 134 E Easter, date of, 45, 159 Ecclesiam Suam (His Church): Encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the Church, 118 Eck, Diana, 248, 253 Ecology, 12–19, 76, 109–110, 149, 286–291, 309–310 Economic justice, 108, 110, 176, 289–295 Ecumenism, 7–8, 42–44, 113–114 Education, 77, 78 Egypt, 77–81 Empathy, 33–35, 120, 201, 211 Encounter, culture of, 27–29, 33–35, 87, 161, 172, 237–240, 310–311 Engelhardt, Tristram, 281 Environment, care for the, 12–19, 273, 286–291 See also Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You): On Care for Our Common Home Equality, 228 Erdogan, Recep Tayyip, 48 Ethics, 269–272, 281, 283–285, 287–291 Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 7–12 on economic injustice, 291–293 on ecumenism, 222 on evangelization and dialogue, 130, 206–208

340 

INDEX

Evangelii Gaudium (cont.) on fundamentalism, 120, 308–309, 321 Hindu tradition ignored in, 206 on interreligious dialogue, 9–11, 72, 73, 221–223 on Islam, 10, 174–175 on Judaism, 8–9, 88, 206, 222 on liberation of the poor, 203 on non-believers, 285 priority of process and relations, 117–118 on religious freedom, 11, 174–175, 222–223, 229 serving God and his creation, 170, 203 Sikhism, points in common with, 231 theology of religions, 131–133, 209 trust in fellow pilgrims, 227, 229 Evangelization Church growth by attracting, not proselytizing, 33–35, 195, 211–212 dialogue seen as compatible with, 7–9, 29, 130, 173, 200 Hindu suspicion of, 185–186, 188–192, 194–196, 206–208, 210–211 of Jews, 89 of non-believers, 283 rooted in religious superiority and political power, 220, 229, 231–232 Shinran on proselytizing, 273 Evil, good and, 75, 94, 107–108, 267–271, 283–284 F Fackenheim, Emil, 95 Family life, dialogue in, 19–21, 124 Fear, 29, 161–163, 253

Feminist interreligious projects, 116, 118–122, 124–126 Flannery, Edward, 86 Foot-washing, 164, 170 Forgiveness, 76, 284 Francis, Pope (Jorge Mario Bergoglio), 303–304 ADDRESSES TO VARIOUS AUDIENCES (chronological); College of Cardinals, 21–24; Department for Religious Affairs, Turkey, 38–40; on 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, 55–57, 131; Ground Zero Memorial, New York, 53–54, 163–164, 207, 249; International Conference on anti-Semitism, Rome, 307; International Meeting for Peace sponsored by the Community of Sant‘Egidio, 24–26; International Peace Conference, Cairo, 77–81; interreligious and ecumenical gathering in Kenya, 58–59; interreligious and ecumenical gathering in Sri Lanka, 49–50; interreligious gathering in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 50–52, 214; interreligious group in Azerbaijan, 70–74, 133–134, 169; Jewish Community of Rome (2013), 26–28, 138; Jewish Community of Rome (2016), 61–63; Muslim Community in Central African Republic, 59–60; Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Vatican City, 28–29, 213–214; press conference in-flight from Istanbul to Rome, 40–48; press conference in-flight from Sri Lanka to

 INDEX 

Philippines, 30–31; religious leaders in Albania, 35–38; representatives of different religions, Clementine Hall, 74–76; 6th Asian Youth Day meeting with the bishops of Asia, Republic of Korea, 31–35; World Day of Prayer for Peace, Assisi, 65–68, 131 an anonymous feminist?, 124–126 blesses expectant Sikh mother, 240 compared to Guru Nanak, 236–237, 239, 242 compared with Shinran Shonin, 323–324 compared with Swami Vivekananda, 202–205 compassion of, 146–148 criticism of his use of Jewish stereotypes, 91–93 criticism of his use of term “fundamentalism,” 308–309 early development, 304–306 first experience of ecumenism (Salvation Army ladies), 31, 117, 157–158 foot-washing, 145–165, 170 Hindu views on, 185–188, 192–196 humility of, 240–241 as a Jesuit, 106, 108, 304–306 pastoral and practical rather than a theologian, 85–88, 101–103, 105–106, 118, 123, 124, 195, 280–282 relationship with Jews, 85–88, 104, 106–107, 171, 305, 313–314 relationship with Muslims, 146, 151–152, 164, 305 response to Charlie Hebdo attack, 171–172 self-description, 303–304 “Thirst for Peace” (meditation), 64–65

341

use of language, 243 visit to Auschwitz, 93–95 visit to a Buddhist temple, 30, 116 visits to Israel–Palestine, 95–97, 106 visit to Lampedusa, 294 visit to a Mosque, 42, 119, 161 visit to the Synagogue of Rome, 61–63, 86, 133 See also Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love): On Love in the Family; Evangelii Gaudium; Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You): On Care for Our Common Home Francis of Assisi, 12, 14, 64, 109, 118, 148–149 Fraternity of all human beings, 36, 55, 57, 60–63, 74–76, 78–80, 238 Freedom of religion, 10–12, 30, 35–38, 96, 174–175, 223, 230–232, 246–247 Frois, Luis, 263–265 Fundamentalism, 10, 30, 39, 41, 72, 120, 265, 308–309, 321 G Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 244 Galeazzi, Giacomo, 292 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 189–192, 196, 205, 208, 212 Ganjavi, Nizami, 70–73 Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope) on the Church in the Modern World, 321 Germany, 43 Ghar wapsi movement, 191 Giansoldati, Franca, 48 The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable (Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations), 88–90 Gillon, Carmi, 97 Gobind Singh, Guru, 228

342 

INDEX

God beyond our understanding or control, 120, 208 oneness of, 224–225, 227–228 present in everything and every person, 107–108, 203–205, 227 the promoter and defender of life, 62–63 and the unbeliever, 284 understood through love, not fear, 161–162 Good and evil, 76, 94, 107–108, 268–270, 283–285 Gregerman, Adam, 106–107 Gross, Rita M., 122 Ground Zero Memorial, New York, 53–54, 163–164, 207, 249 Gudmundsson, Ulla, 125 Guru Granth Sahib (GGS), 223–227, 230, 241–245, 251–252 H Haiti, 138–139 Hamburg, 43 Hamidullah, Muhammad, 178 Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 226 Hick, John, 140, 141 Hindus and Hinduism, 184–185, 318–320 inclusivism, 193, 208, 219 self-sufficiency of religions questioned, 207–208, 213–214 suspicion of proselytizing, 185–186, 188–196, 206–208, 210–212 views on Pope Francis, 185–188 Holocaust, the, 93–95, 146 Holy Spirit, 11, 22, 44 Hope, 163–164 Human autonomy, 266–268 Humanism

Christian humanism of Pope Francis, 280–282 defining, 279–280 ecological, environmental and ethical concerns, 286–291 secular humanism, 282–286, 320–322 social justice, poverty and migration, 291–295 Humility, 240–241 I Identity being authentic, 245–247 dialogue rooted in, 31–35, 37, 51, 200, 310–311 fear of losing, 28–29, 163 fluidity of, 120–122, 134–141 and openness to receiving from the other, 123, 213–214, 310–311 threats to, 32–33, 201 Idolatry, 206 Immigrants, 10, 294 See also Refugees Inclusivism, 132, 192–195, 209–211, 311, 320 Indifference, 13, 66, 119, 203–204, 294–295, 307 Integral Ecology, 12–19, 109–110, 133, 288–291, 309–310 Interreligious dialogue, see Dialogue Interreligious experience, 30–31, 117, 120–122, 137–138, 250–251, 316–318 Intolerance, see Christianophobia; Freedom of religion; Fundamentalism; Islamophobia Ishida, Hiroshi, 47 Islam, see Muslim–Christian relations Islamophobia, 40–41, 154, 163, 248 Israel–Palestine, 95–97, 106 Izoard, Antoine-Marie, 46

 INDEX 

J Jesuits, 120, 305 See also Loyola, Ignatius Jesus Christ, 104, 149, 174 Jewish–Christian relations anti-Semitism, 10, 62, 93, 307 challenging economical and political norms, 108, 110 Christians who claim to be Jews, 317 Evangelii Gaudium, 8–9, 88, 206, 222 friendships between popes and Jews, 171 The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable, 88–90 holocaust, 93–95, 146 Israel–Palestine, 95–97, 106 John Chrysostom, 138, 139 Nostra Aetate, effect of, 56, 61–63, 86 Pharisees, 90–93, 314 Pope Francis’s addresses to Jews in Rome, 26–28, 61–63, 86, 133 Pope Francis’s relationship with Jews, 85–88, 104–106, 171, 305, 313–314 Jha, D. N., 191 John XXIII, Pope, 305, 306 John Paul II, Pope (Karol Wojtyla), 34, 56, 61, 66–68, 93, 95, 105, 171, 172, 194 Jonas, Hans, 107 Judaism, see Jewish–Christian relations Justice, economic, 108, 110, 175–176, 289–295

Kingdom of God, 134, 176 Knitter, Paul, 134, 220 Koch, Kurt, 90 Korea, 31–35, 154–155 Kristeva, Julia, 280, 286 Kronish, Ron, 97 Küng, Hans, 177–178, 200 Kuppa, Padma, 195–196

K Kabir, 186–187 Kenya, 58–59 Kerr, David, 179 al-Khawas, Ali, 310 Khodr, George, 177

M Maalouf, Amin, 151 Martyrdom, 42–45, 231 Mary (mother of Jesus), 43, 139, 149, 174 Massignon, Louis, 177

343

L Lampedusa, 294 Lau, Yisrael Meir, 318 Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You): On Care for Our Common Home, 12–19, 109–110, 118, 133, 280–283, 286–291, 299n44, 309–310 Leadership in Africa, 60 government separate from religion, 41–43 lack of global, 14–15 responsibility to condemn violence and promote dialogue and peace, 25–26, 39–40, 69, 80–81, 117, 307–309 Liberation theology, 110, 134, 136–137, 139, 203 Listening, 19, 33–35, 95, 137, 201, 230, 241–244 Love, 20, 71, 75–76, 104–105, 122, 161–162, 201, 228, 253–254 Loyola, Ignatius, 106, 108 Lustiger, Aaron Jean-Marie, 318

344 

INDEX

McDonagh, Sean, 291 McKenna, Josephine, 313 Mercy, 57, 74–76, 114–115, 165, 304, 314, 322–325 Merton, Thomas, 119 Metz, Johannes, 93 Middle East, 41, 95–97 Migrants and refugees, 13–16, 46, 117, 146, 164, 294–295 Mission, 172–173, 192 See also Evangelization Moral judgment, 269–272, 282–285, 287–291 Moses, 107 Moyaert, Marianne, 135–136 Muhammad, Prophet, 147, 149–151, 165, 174, 177–178 Multiple religious belonging, 39, 117, 120–122, 138–141, 250–251, 316–318 Muolo, Mimmo, 43 Mushir-ul-Haq, 230 Muslim–Christian relations, 9–11, 149–153, 171, 174–179, 314–316 Evangelii Gaudium on, 10–11, 174–175 Francis of Assisi, 148–149 historical overview, 149–153 place of the Prophet Muhammad, 177–178 Pope Francis’s address to Muslims in Central African Republic, 59–60 Pope Francis’s relationship with Muslims, 145–165, 305 relationship with God, with human beings and the environment, 145–148, 169, 175–176 shared elements, 39 Muslims, differences among, 159 Myanmar, 117, 155

N Nāgārjuna, 265 Nairobi, 58–59 Nanak, Guru encounter and dialogue with others, 229, 230, 237–241 humility of, 240 on love, 253–254 and Pope Francis as “synonymous phenomena,” 236–237 respect for other religions, 225, 229–231 respect for other scriptures, 251–252 welcoming the other, 244–247 Newman, John Henry, 137 New York, 53–54, 163–164, 207 Nishida, Kitarō, 270 Non-believers, 11, 102, 162, 282–287, 307, 320–322 Nostra Aetate (In our Time) on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions, 49–50, 55–57, 72–74; criticism of, 122, 193; Hindus and, 206, 213; Jewish–Christian relations, 56, 61–63, 86; Muslims and, 56, 178, 315; Pope Francis in the tradition of, 49–50, 120, 130, 131, 193 Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in the Preaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church, 99n13 Nuclear weapons, 47–48 O On Heaven and Earth (Bergoglio and Skorka), 105 Openness, 10, 29, 32–35, 78, 134–136, 213, 310–311 See also Encounter, culture of; Reciprocity

 INDEX 

Ordinary theology, 136–141 Orthodox Church, 42–48 Oz, Amos, 97 P Pacem in Terris (Peace on earth) Encyclical of Pope John XXIII on nuclear non-proliferation, 305 Pakistan, 153–154 Palestinians, 95–97 Paraguay, 108, 310–311 Paul the Apostle, 89 Paul VI, Pope, 45, 118 Paul VI, Pope, 45 Peace, 24–26, 54, 59, 65–68, 72–74, 80–81, 160–161, 199–200 “Thirst for Peace” (meditation), 64–65 See also Violence People, the multiple religious belonging of, 30, 118, 120–122, 138–139, 250–251, 316–318 practical theology of, 27, 32–35, 136–141 Pepe, Padre (José Maria Di Paola), 137 Peripheries and margins, 116, 119, 126 Persecution, religious, 35–37, 39–43, 56, 153–154 Personalism, 104–106 Pharisees, 90–93, 314 Piketty, Thomas, 293 Pilgrimage Pope Francis visiting Mosque as pilgrim, not tourist, 42, 119, 161 religious persons as fellow pilgrims, 7, 123, 164, 213, 227, 229 Pinn, Anthony, 139

345

Pluralism, 11, 192, 221, 224–232, 250, 320 Politi, Marco, 284, 286, 291 Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, 88 Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, 28–29, 124–125, 214 Poor, the commitment to, 202–205, 289–295 effects of climate change on, 13–14, 289 religious (mis)behaviour of, 137–140 Popular religion, see People, the Population growth, 290 Poverty, see Poor, the; Social justice Practical theology, 136–141 Prayer a common resource for believers, 56, 68 dialogue related to, 72, 118 in interreligious gatherings, 118–119, 130–131 people’s experience of multiple religious belonging, 250–251 Pope Francis at a mosque, 42, 119, 161 Primacy, 43–45 Process, importance of, 117–118 Proselytizing Church growth by attracting, not proselytizing, 33–35, 195, 196, 211–212 dialogue seen as compatible with evangelization, 9, 29, 130, 172–174, 200–201 divisions a hindrance to evangelization, 7–8 Hindu suspicion of, 185–192, 194–196, 206–208, 210–212 of Jews, 89, 90

346 

INDEX

Proselytizing (cont.) of non-believers, 283 rooted in religious superiority and political power, 219–222, 229, 231–232 Shinran on, 273 Protestants, 30, 117, 158 Q Qur’an, 41, 152, 174 R Radcliffe, Timothy, 136–137 Rahner, Karl, 131–132, 193, 320 Ratzinger, Joseph, see Benedict XVI, Pope Reciprocity, 116, 175 Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer) on the permanent validity of the Church’s missionary mandate, 172 Refugees, 13–14, 46, 117, 146, 164, 165, 294–295 Relationships, 116–118, 124, 171 See also Encounter, culture of Relativism, 37, 200, 227 Religion(s) axial, 265–266 fundamental importance of, 259–261 Hindu perspectives, 185–188, 192–196 misuse of, 36–37, 56, 60, 67, 69, 76, 154, 247–249 purpose of, 71–74, 76, 79–80, 201–205, 224–225, 229 self-sufficiency of questioned, 207–208, 213–214 theology of, 121–123, 131–133, 209–211

Religious freedom, 10–12, 29, 35–36, 96, 174–175, 223, 230–231, 245–247 Religious persecution, 36, 41, 63, 153–154 Religious superiority, 220–221, 318 Religious tolerance, see Diversity; Religious freedom Respect, 30–31, 45, 61–63, 102, 171, 225–232, 243, 283, 284 Revelation, 94, 95, 209, 224 Ricoeur, Paul, 135 Rohingya refugee crisis, 117, 155, 165 Rome, 26–28, 61–63, 86, 138, 307 Rosenzweig, Franz, 88 Rumi, 159 Russia, 43 S Sacks, Jonathan, 161 Salvation, 90, 131–133, 202 Salvation Army, 31, 117, 158 Sarajevo, 30–31, 214 Scalfari, Eugenio, 283–285, 289 Schmidt, Christopher, 30 Scripture(s), 223–226, 251–252, 314 See also Guru Granth Sahib (GGS); Qur’an Second Vatican Council, 178, 306, 320–321 See also Nostra Aetate (In our Time) on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions Secular humanism, see Humanism Service for the common, 55–57 Service for the common good, 37–38, 58–59, 133–134, 176 Sexuality, 139, 281 Sharma, Arvind, 192, 236–237

 INDEX 

Shinran, 262, 265–268, 270–274, 323–324 Shoah, the, 63, 93–95 Sikhism, 220–221, 223–225, 312–313, 318 See also Guru Granth Sahib (GGS); Nanak, Guru Sin, 14, 284 Singh, Harbans, 238 Skorka, Abraham, 87–88, 103, 131, 135, 137, 171, 286 Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 221, 235, 237–239 Social justice, 108–110, 176, 289–295 Society of Jesus (Jesuits), 120, 305 See also Loyola, Ignatius Spadaro, Antonio, 116, 120, 303–304 Sri Lanka, 30–35, 117 Superficiality, 32 Suzuki, D. T., 262 Sweden, 113–114, 125 Syncretism, 9, 124, 140, 200, 214, 252, 317–318 Synod, as protected space, not a parliament, 45–46 T Tanhuma, Midrash, 103 Tao-Te-Ching, 74 Taskin, Yasemin, 40 Taylor, Charles, 269–272, 275 Tegh Bahadur, Guru, 231–232 Ten Commandments (Decalogue), 28, 80 Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa), 64 Theodicy, 107–108 Theologians, 42, 118, 123 Theology of dialogue, 123–124, 133–134 liberation, 110, 134, 136–137, 139, 203

347

practical (ordinary), 136–141 of religions, 122–123, 131–133, 209–211 “Third World War,” 47, 146–148 “Thirst for Peace” (meditation), 64–65 Thomas, Patricia, 45–46 Tirana, Albania, 49–50, 123 Toleration, 248 See also Diversity; Religious freedom Torah, 92–93 Tornielli, Andrea, 281, 292 Torture, 154–157 Truth, 208, 284 Turkey, 38–40, 42, 47–48, 161 Turkle, Sherry, 236 Twal, Fuad, 97 U Unity in diversity, 20, 163–164, 201 ecumenism, 8, 42–43 of God’s presence in all creation, 227–228 Holy Spirit’s role, 22, 44 prevailing over conflict, 117 V Vallely, Paul, 136–137 Vatican II, 177, 306, 320 See also Nostra Aetate (In our Time) on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions Velasco, Irene Hernández, 158 Violence as the antithesis of dialogue, 261 consequences of, 39 conversion (proselytizing) seen as, 189, 191–192 defusing the violence of ignorance, 272–274

348 

INDEX

Violence (cont.) religion no justification for, 36–37, 39, 50, 59, 60, 62–63, 67, 69, 76, 80, 202 religious superiority claims as cause of, 220–221 responsibility of leaders to combat, 24–25, 80–81, 307–309 root causes of, 247–249, 266–268 See also War and conflict Vivekananda, 190–192, 197, 202–205, 209–211 Vodou, 138 W Walking together, 33–35, 37, 211–212 War and conflict, 39, 47–48, 66, 69, 154–157 Weber, Peter, 280

Weithman, Paul, 293 Welcoming the other, 244–254 Wisdom, 77 Wojtyla, Karol, see John Paul II, Pope Women feminist interreligious projects, 116, 118–122, 124–126 as victims in war, 154–157 Worship, see Prayer X Xenophobia, see Christianophobia; Islamophobia Y Young people, 13, 59, 77, 78, 290