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.
MEETING THE AGNOSTIC AND ATHEISTIC WORLD
In our countries we fortunately experience more and more the mixing of cultures and races. As Christians we have the occasion to come close to and to know agnostics and atheists. We discover the wealth of humanity of those who come from another philosophy of the existence and have the same interest in human and solidarity values. Meeting those who say it is impossible to know whether there is a God (agnostics) or those who believe that there is no God (atheists) is a challenge for our faith, a useful and fruitful challenge even though it can be sometime perturbing. First they make us realize that we are not by far the only ones who care for mutual aid and solidarity and that we can join together in the great struggle towards Justice and Peace.
In these meetings we have to accept to be vulnerable. Otherwise how can we be opened to the other who is different from us and who is searching a meaning of his own? His questionings can be disturbing, it is necessary for a genuine dialogue. These contacts and collaborations often lead us to figure out in our Christian faith what is essential and worth living among many secondary features which have been gradually accumulated during centuries of Christianity.
Then successful exchanges can take place and Christians as well agnostics or atheists, can better apprehend their own philosophy of existence with full respect for each other and mutual understanding. Diverse ways of life but with the same search for what is essential. Beyond the old separations which have been paved with many common misunderstanding, reconciliation's are establishing in confidence.
- The occasion is thus given to us to go over so many mishearing and
misunderstanding.
- From setting up our faith in contact with people moved by another philosophy of existence, a new freedom comes out from us which give us a greater ability to meet the great challenges of our time.