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Westminster Interfaith Newsletter
Addenda – January 2009
Interreligious Dialogue Seen as Risk and Grace
Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, spoke of the benefits and the necessity of dialogue at the November 2008 opening of the academic year of the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy.
"Falling into syncretism" is the risk the cardinal warned against, though he said this danger is relative if believers use their reason to go deeper in their faith and can thus defend it. In that case, the risk becomes a grace, because "it puts believers in a permanent state of spiritual vigilance and obliges them to be consistent and to witness."
Acknowledging that interreligious dialogue can be particularly challenging for Christians because "it presents the problem of how to reconcile our faith in Christ as sole mediator with appreciation for the positive values we find in other religions", the cardinal referred to "Nostra Aetate" from the Second Vatican Council, and explained that in every human being "the light of Christ exists and, consequently, all that exists that is positive in religions is not darkness" but "participates in the great light that shines above all lights."
Cardinal Tauran went on to consider four aspects in interreligious dialogue, which he described as not a dialogue between religions, but "between religious persons." He noted the dialogue of life, by which believers share joys and trials; the dialogue of works, by which they collaborate in the wellbeing of all; theological dialogue, when an exchange is possible between religious heritages; and spiritual dialogue, which puts at the other's disposition one's own life of prayer. Dialogue, said the cardinal, "is the quest for understanding between two individuals, with the help of reason, in face of a common interpretation of their agreement or disagreement...It is not a question of being agreeable to please the other, or of a diplomatic negotiation, but, without giving up one's own faith, of allowing oneself to be questioned by the other's convictions. Obviously, it is not about pursuing a universal religion, or a lowest common denominator between all religions", he stressed. "It is about recognizing that God is present and operates in the soul of those who earnestly seek him", for the need for dialogue stems from the "multi-religious and multi-ethnic present-day reality...There is no religiously pure civilization, but complex civilizations that are transformed through a permanent process of interaction...God has returned to our societies. There has never been as much talk about religion as now."
The cardinal agreed with French president Nicolas Sarkozy that the environment and religion are the two major concerns of 21st-century society.
Cardinal Tauran acknowledged that the Islamic presence in Europe with its insistance on space for God in society has brought the need for interreligious dialogue into the public forum.
Dialogue is also necessary today, he considered, because religions are now sometimes "perceived as a danger." "Religions are capable of the best and the worst...They can be at the service of a plan of holiness or alienation. They can preach peace or war. Hence the need to reconcile faith and reason, since to go against reason, in fact, is to go against God." Dialogue can be of great service to society as "believers are also called to contribute to the common good, to genuine solidarity, to the overcoming of crises and to intercultural dialogue."
Civil authority should encourage dialogue between religions because it has the capacity to promote values for the common good of all so that citizens "are not slaves of fashions, consumerism and profit."
Based on reportage in Osservatore Romano
