|
Andrea Riccardi
Community of Sant�Egidio
Your Holinesses, Eminent Representatives of the Christian Churches and the Great World Religions, Ambassadors, Dear Friends, Religions within violence and peace We have been saying this for a long time: in the contemporary world even the most exclusive communities cannot live alone, isolated. They are all quickly joined by others. Coexistence is one of the great challenges of today�s world to religions: they are one next to the other. But this state of being one next to the other sometimes changes into being one against the other. Coexistence forces us to reflect on our own identity in new terms. Especially when coexistence is a recent experience. Unfortunately, sometimes, clashing attitudes arise. In some cases it takes a huge effort to combine certainty of one�s own faith with peaceful coexistence with someone who does not share that faith. In other cases fundamentalist arrogance rises, almost a childish reaction to others, so different and so close at the same time. The pride of being alone then becomes the pride of fundamentalism. Fundamentalisms are settings ever leaning towards disdain and violence: they are the fruit of the great spiritual emptiness of what Emile Poulat calls a world which has left God behind. Our world is covered with fractures, it is full of conflicts and it draws religions into its dynamics of hatred. We say this once again: religions can be used as fuel on the fire of war so that its flames may grow higher and hotter; but they can also be � and it is their vocation � the water that puts out that fire. During the terrible 20th century we have all been witnesses to many conflicts (waged also for religious reasons), but also of a message of peace, rising from the heart of religions. The unbearable heat of war has drawn a message of peace from the heart of religions. Each tradition affirms peace in its own spiritual language. But there is a convergence. In 1986 in Assisi, still during the cold war, this message of peace came powerfully to surface. Then, representatives of the different religions gathered for the first time in Assisi to pray for peace. The path of Assisi That is why the Community of Sant�Egidio wanted to continue the path of Assisi year after year, as an ideal pilgrimage from city to city. From Assisi a message of peace rose, calling upon the religious traditions to distance themselves from war, as Jean-Dominique Durand wrote. Several times we proclaimed our conviction � as can be read in the appeals � that �there is no holy war, only peace is holy.� We are truly convinced that the words we solemnly pronounced in Warsaw to commemorate the beginning of the Second World War fifty years before, are still true, even more after fifteen years of experience: �every war is a loss for the entire humankind.� Along this path from Assisi a new spiritual climate of dialogue and friendship between people from different religions was created. �This climate�, John Paul II said �breaks� the fatal chain of divisions we inherited from the past or ingenerated with modern ideologies; it begins a new time where the voice of wisdom is heard�� With emotion I remember the words John Paul II often used to encourage us, when he thanked the Community of Sant�Egidio �for the courage and the audacity with which it has taken up the spirit of Assisi�. Our gratitude goes to this elderly pope, who is completing 25 years of ministry. But I cannot forget the support of many personalities throughout these years, along this long path from Assisi. Many of them are present here today. Different religions and universal bonds At every stage this force of peace gushed like a river from the springs of religions. Peace also means a spirituality of living together, rooted in all religions. It has different reasons for being there. But it is neither neglected nor ignored by any religious tradition. This spirituality of living together needs to grow in this wounded world, it needs to develop where difficulties dwell in our societies, in those huge anonymous suburbs where hostility arises in the relationships between ethnic and religious groups. Religions speak of unity, simply because they are different. R�gis Debray, a non-believer and a humanist, interested in religious issues, wrote: �Religions have the vocation �to turn a broken man into a human being that is reunited to himself, to the others and to the universe. This feeling, which is always welcome, is generated by the bond, never the reverse. To establish a bond� is to make the deadly powers of disintegration fail, those powers which used to be called diabolic.� Broken men and women, lost upon the anonymous boundaries of the world, sick because of their profound solitude, are a reality we end up facing more and more often. But religions speak of a bond that unites man to the world, to the others, to God. It is the very bond we perceive in this assembly gathered at Aachen, between many esteemed representatives of the great religions, whom I would like to thank for their presence. Through them the breath of the lives of many believers reaches us. Together with these esteemed religious leaders there are important representatives of humanism and non-believers, as well as ambassadors from different countries, representatives from the press and culture. This meeting expresses the bond between men and women of faith, but also between people: it speaks of unity. President Rau writes: �to reach coexistence in our world dialogue is as vital as the air we breathe, and it does not mean to give up one�s own identity�. Universality is not an abstract construction, concocted in a laboratory, it is found when one digs into the deep. If we are able to be profound and truly dig, then, only at the bottom of our own well shall we find universal horizons and the gift of peace. Lazy men and women have stayed on the surface, forgetting the profound treasures of peace and universality within their own religious traditions. The poor in spirit find universality in the depth of their own well. A great spiritual Russian man, saint Serafim from Sarov used to say: �acquire peace within yourself and thousands around you will find salvation.� Peace: a global word The bond between religions speaks of peace. These days we will hear the word peace many times. We are concerned for the destructive capability of conflicts and the general acceptance of the use of violence. We speak of peace in the perspective of the architecture of human life, which moves his heart and actions. The word �peace� sounds like the end of the horrors of war; but it also speaks about the development of the people; it speaks about spirituality, hearts, liberation from hatred, love. �Peace� is a key word in the language of religions, it is generated by the depths of the human heart, it passes through the life of communities, it is significant for the daily lives of countries and peoples. �Peace� is a holy word and a very common and widespread aspiration. Peace is written in different characters in many holy books of all religions. Peace is a word as ancient as the religious traditions themselves, but it is also an extremely contemporary one. Peace is the first entity offended by the sins of believers or by their spiritual neglect. Peace is also the yearning of those who live in uncertainty, under the threat of war, wounded by suffering produced by war or terrorism. Peace is a global expression and it enfolds one�s spiritual and political life, encompassing relationships between people and countries, while speaking about prayer and spirituality, never disdaining the concrete history of people. Peace is the invocation we have heard in many parts of the world. This year and last year in Cote d�Ivoire (a large Ivorian delegation is attending this meeting): Sant�Egidio followed the events very closely. As in Liberia, a country on the verge of a catastrophe. In Colombia, a Latin American country, scarred by a harsh destiny of violence for too many years. Between Israeli and Palestinians in that Land, which is dear to the heart of many of us, because of our religious memories and the love we feel for the two peoples that live there. Peace and dialogue For us this meeting of representatives and wise men of the religions is the expression of the treasure of peace at the heart of every religion and most of all in the contribution religions can give to peace. Every year � last year we were in Palermo in Sicily in the heart of the Mediterranean- we propose this meeting in different places in the world, ready to become pilgrims of dialogue. The Community of Sant�Egidio was born 35 years ago, it is present in several European countries, in Africa and in other continents, it lives a profound relationship with the world of the poor, and it was able to become a witness to the tight bond there is between peace and religions: how religions can stop hatred and enmity, resolve conflicts, but also how they can be defeated by conflicts, become their prisoners by blessing them and calling them sacred. The cause of war needs religions, but religions cannot flee from the service to peace. This is the �spirit of Assisi�. This �spirit of Assisi� blows in many different religious communities, far from any syncretism. Since Assisi, year after year, we have continued to meet surrounded by different scenarios: the world of the cold war, the suffering one of Jerusalem, the world after the shock of the terrible attack on 9/11 (since then 2 years have passed). The treasure of peace emerges from the religions through dialogue. We have tasted the fruits of this art of dialogue, so delicate and so constructive in giving voice to the peace of hearts and in building a bond between human beings. Dialogue is the art of living diversity through a bond; it is the art of making the power of peace-making lying within religions come to surface. Aachen speaks of Europe Today we are gathered in Aachen, a city that speaks about an ancient Europe, medieval and Christian, distant from today, but still, significant, because it reveals how any construction uniting people requires the presence of spirit. Dear friends, the fact that Europe is becoming a strong Union is a great problem. The European Union first of all meant peace: peace between nations that used to be at war, and Aachen itself has been witness to these difficult relations between Europeans. But today, in an advanced stage of the construction of Europe, we ask ourselves what kind of Europe we want to build, if we need strong feelings, significant roots, common passions, to create confident European citizens. Recently, in May 2003, a conference of the Greek Orthodox Church questioned itself whether the great values of Europe could be evoked without taking into consideration its spiritual roots. It is an issue we are concerned about in these days, as we look upon a text of the European convention, which seems to have forgotten its spiritual and Christian roots, and does not take into account the European tragedy of the Shoah. These days, in Aachen, many religious representatives will be speaking about Europe. In these days Aachen will become the square in front of the mosque, in front of the synagogue, in front of the church, in front of the temple. I want to thank the Bishop of Aachen, Msg. Mussinghof, and the whole diocese, for the active and sensitive welcome he gave to this meeting, European and worldwide at the same time. Together with Mgr. Mussinghof I would like to thank the friends of the Community of Sant�Egidio from Germany and other countries that voluntarily worked for the preparation of this meeting. I also would like to thank the civil authorities of the Land Nordrhein Westfalen and the City of Aachen. I also would like to gratefully underline the interest in this meeting coming from the German religious world, represented here significantly. A sign of hope This meeting is a sign of hope. Religious communities in our world today feel the temptation to close themselves and ignore their neighbors, to protect themselves with distrust and disinterest in someone else�s problems. This attitude reduces the capability of religions to engage in peace. In the Christian world people speak of a crisis in ecumenism. Some people ask themselves perplexed which are the results of decades of ecumenical dialogue. Others observe with concern the deterioration of the relationships between the great religious communities, and the rise of aggressive or exclusive attitudes. Interfaith dialogue seems it has become a useless and fruitless enterprise. But perhaps we should add that one of the elements of greatest concern today is the lack of faith in the art of dialogue, a term which is simply considered in terms of simply politically correctness expression. This happens not only in the field of religious issues, but also in international relations. The breakdown of dialogue is connected to the lack of dreams, the lack of passion for change and the improvement of the world. There is too much pessimism surrounding us. Pessimism is a bad school for young people. It is a bad counselor in facing decisions. Pessimism becomes a way of thinking, disguised as realism. It is pessimism facing the unavoidability of war, facing a huge part of the world cut out from any wealth and condemned to poverty. It is pessimism in facing situations of chronic conflict demanding the courage to take new and sincere paths, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for instance. This pessimism is what people breathe � please allow me to insist � in Africa. The Community of Sant�Egidio is present in more than twenty African countries and is ware of this attitude among the younger generations. It is the same pessimism we fought, in dealing with AIDS, with the hope and the truth of treatment, while the epidemic consumes and kills young Africans and undermines the future of so many countries in the world. Africa, we believe, remains a test for international politics. As John Paul II wrote for our congress in Palermo last year, it is the �continent which seems to incarnate the unbalance between the North and the South of the planet�. The misery of many regions of this continent is the inhuman place where many people live, but also a breeding pool for any kind of extremism. We say this once again this year, in 2003, while we are about to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Rwanda�s genocide, in 1994: in April 1994, 800,000 Africans were slaughtered, mainly civilians, and 44% were women and children. Pessimism generates resignation and powerlessness in too many people. It is a feeling that comes after the shipwreck of many utopias and ideologies: the easy optimism of changing the world, which eventually became bloodsheds or made the world worse than they had found it. Powerlessness: of course, in facing the iron rules of the market. Because one realizes how small man really is, he�s worth nothing when faced with such as large world, such an unwelcoming world, such an unconcerned world� Why should we dialogue, then? It seems it is not possible to change very much, or to improve. These are the feelings and the thoughts, which are spread in our hearts. I have a dream Exactly forty years ago, August 28th, 1963, at Washington, in front of the Lincoln memorial, in the heart of a great march of Afro-Americans, Martin Luther King delivered his speech about the dream, which remained in everybody�s memory: �I have a dream, he said, that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood, I have a dream today!� And he ended: �With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope� we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together�. End of quote. Five years later the American pastor was killed: on April 4th 1968. His story is the story of the strength of a dream pursued at the cost of one�s life. It is a story, which is important for the United States, for the West and for the whole world. It is a story sprung from the soil of religious faith, but also related to other forms of spirituality, like Gandhi�s. It is a story of martyrdom and faithfulness. Indeed, dear friends, the XX century has revealed that, for all their weakness, believers have a strength: the martyrdom of many people has revealed how true this is in Europe, in the East, and especially in Russia. As we face so much pessimism, the question rises of how to see hope. Many people want to see hope. This is the dream of the Bible: to see hope. Hope is no interchangeable policy: it is not the kind of ideology that reveals itself as a wordless and voracious idol. Faiths are a land where hope grows; they are a land where hope finds its roots. We need to have the courage to make our contemporary world shine with hope. We need the courage to make this world dream: to make it dream peace, the most beautiful and realist dream of humanity. Conclusion We too have a dream. And this is what generates this meeting in Aachen. As believers we are called �to get rid of every violent feeling and disarm ourselves from hatred�, stated one of our appeals. While facing what Serge Latouche calls the �economization� of the world, believers are bearers of a wind of spirituality and humanity, with the power to shake hearts made vulgar by consumerism, and resigned because of pessimism. We need a strong wind, of spiritualization and not of economization, a wind of peace and not of violence, to shake the depths of thoughts and feelings; a wind to disquiet the resigned and press them towards new feelings of peace, towards thoughts of solidarity, in a world where it seems that 20% of all men can do without the other 80%. With the art of dialogue and by bearing witness to peace, strong thanks to their long and ancient experience, religions can support the dream of peace of many people. May we grow in the awareness that true servants of God are also servants of peace. May a new audaciousness grow in all servants of God, and friends of peace. �Man is not made for war and war is an evil in the land of man�, we said back in 1988. Faiths must witness that all men and women are made for peace and peace is their common destiny.
|