- Each month the team working on this catechism presents you
with two texts, and we hope that with your help and cooperation
they will improve. Any suggestions you may have would be most
welcome, as would ideas on subject matter.
- We look forward to hearing from you.
The Inter-religion dialogue
Through the modern mass media, the world has become a very small place. Distances disappear. We speak of " a planet village" because we cannot ignore each other. The same happens to religions. Religious beliefs are circulating everywhere; they are part of the landscape. Today there is a planet ecumenism. So varied are they, that most of the religions feel the need to dialogue, to know each other, to share their spiritual resources and their traditions.
In 1986 at Assisi the religions met on an equal footing, There was no confusion. Each religion was keeping its peculiarity and was praying according its own liturgy. The Assisi meeting was not presenting a worldwide religion, or a sign of a super-religious unity, in a prophetic way, it foreshadowed a richer unity made of the very diversity of the religions.
That does not happen without unwillingness or opposition. Fundamentalism exists in all religions. The lack of knowledge and fear of change explain in part these mental blocks and intolerance. Inter-religious dialogue is not evident. It experiences dead-end directions. However it often introduces a dynamic transformation and deepens our belief. If we accept the dialogue, we have to move. It is another way of thinking, of finding and of understanding.
Fortunately, there exists today a basic inter-religious dialogue between men and women of good will who work together and learn to know each other in an atmosphere of tolerance. It is understandable that it is more difficult at the top between persons in charge or experts of religions.
Religions cannot be satisfied to stay together and learn about each other. They have to get together for common tasks in favor of humanity. Urgent tasks eagerly need to be accomplished in the coming third millennium. When wealthy populations keep exploiting the most impoverished populations, they have to promote justice. When wars keep wiping out populations, they are expected to promote peace. They have to give up all forms of violence that have, for centuries, distorted their teaching of peace. When nature is spoiled, tortured, dominated by man, they have to restore harmony between man and nature, recalling the "unitary" relationship of men and nature.