Subject: VISnews 111027
Organization: VIS - Ufficio Stampa della Santa Sede
From: Vatican Information Service - Eng - txt
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
TWENTY FIRST YEAR - N. 186
ENGLISH
THURSDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2011
SUMMARY:
- Assisi: Religion Can Never Be Justification for Violence
- Acts of the Oriental Churches
- Other Pontifical Acts
___________________________________________________________
ASSISI: RELIGION CAN NEVER BE JUSTIFICATION FOR VIOLENCE
VATICAN CITY, 27 OCT 2011 (VIS) - Today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary
of the historic meeting for peace in the Italian town of Assisi, called by
Blessed John Paul II. For the occasion, Benedict XVI has made a pilgrimage
to the city of St. Francis, accompanied by representatives of other
religions and by non-believers, for a Day of reflection, dialogue and prayer
for peace and justice in the world under the theme: "Pilgrims of Truth,
Pilgrims of Peace".
The Pontiff and the members of the various delegations left the Vatican by
train at 8 a.m. today, reaching Assisi at 9.45 a.m. where they were greeted
by the civil and religious authorities in front of the Basilica of Santa
Maria degli Angeli. As the ceremony unfolded inside the basilica, the large
numbers of faithful present were able to follow events on giant screens set
up in the square outside.
Following a greeting from Cardinal Peter Kodwo Turkson, president of the
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, a video was screened in
commemoration of the 1986 meeting. Then, one after the other, the
representatives of the various religions rose to speak: His Holiness
Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; Anglican Archbishop
Rowan Williams of Canterbury, Primate of the Anglican Communion; Archbishop
Norvan Zakarian, Primate of the Armenian Diocese of France; Rev. Olav Fyske
Tveit, secretary general of the World Council of Churches; Rabbi David
Rosen, representative of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel; Wande Abimbola,
spokesperson for the Yoruba faith; Acharya Shri Shrivatsa Goswami,
representative for Hinduism; Ja-Seung, president of the Jogye Order of
Korean Buddhism; Kyai Haji Hasyom Muzadi, secretary general of the
International Conference of Islamic Schools, and Julia Kristeva,
representing non-believers.
The Holy Father then rose to make his address, extracts of which are given
below:
"Twenty-five years have passed since Blessed Pope John Paul II first
invited representatives of the world's religions to Assisi to pray for
peace. What has happened in the meantime? What is the state of play with
regard to peace today?
"At that time the great threat to world peace came from the division of
the earth into two mutually opposed blocs. A conspicuous symbol of this
division was the Berlin Wall. ... In 1989, three years after Assisi, the
wall came down, without bloodshed. ... In addition to economic and political
factors, the deepest reason for the event is a spiritual one: behind
material might there were no longer any spiritual convictions. ... For this
victory of freedom, which was also, above all, a victory of peace, we give
thanks. What is more, this was not merely, nor even primarily, about the
freedom to believe, although it did include this. To that extent we may in
some way link all this to our prayer for peace.
"But what happened next? Unfortunately, we cannot say that freedom and
peace have characterised the situation ever since. ... Violence as such is
potentially ever present and it is a characteristic feature of our world.
Freedom is a great good. But the world of freedom has proved to be largely
directionless, and not a few have misinterpreted freedom as somehow
including freedom for violence. Discord has taken on new and frightening
guises, and the struggle for freedom must engage us all in a new way".
"In broad strokes, we may distinguish two types of the new forms of
violence, which are the very antithesis of each other in terms of their
motivation and manifest a number of differences in detail. Firstly there is
terrorism, for which in place of a great war there are targeted attacks
intended to strike the opponent destructively at key points, with no regard
for the lives of innocent human beings, who are cruelly killed or wounded in
the process. In the eyes of the perpetrators, the overriding goal of damage
to the enemy justifies any form of cruelty. Everything that had been
commonly recognised and sanctioned in international law as the limit of
violence is overruled. We know that terrorism is often religiously motivated
and that the specifically religious character of the attacks is proposed as
a justification for the reckless cruelty. ... In this case, religion does
not serve peace, but is used as justification for violence".
"The fact that, in the case we are considering here, religion really does
motivate violence should be profoundly disturbing to us as religious
persons. In a way that is more subtle but no less cruel, we also see
religion as the cause of violence when force is used by the defenders of one
religion against others. The religious delegates who were assembled in
Assisi in 1986 wanted to say, and we now repeat it emphatically and firmly:
this is not the true nature of religion. It is the antithesis of religion
and contributes to its destruction".
"As a Christian I want to say at this point: yes, it is true, in the
course of history, force has also been used in the name of the Christian
faith. We acknowledge it with great shame. But it is utterly clear that this
was an abuse of the Christian faith, one that evidently contradicts its true
nature. The God in whom we Christians believe is the Creator and Father of
all, and from Him all people are brothers and sisters and form one single
family. For us the Cross of Christ is the sign of the God Who put
'suffering-with' (compassion) and 'loving-with' in place of force. ... It is
the task of all who bear responsibility for the Christian faith to purify
the religion of Christians again and again from its very heart, so that it
truly serves as an instrument of God's peace in the world, despite the
fallibility of humans.
"If one basic type of violence today is religiously motivated and thus
confronts religions with the question as to their true nature and obliges
all of us to undergo purification, a second complex type of violence is
motivated in precisely the opposite way: as a result of God's absence, His
denial and the loss of humanity which goes hand in hand with it. The enemies
of religion - as we said earlier - see in religion one of the principal
sources of violence in the history of humanity and thus they demand that it
disappear. But the denial of God has led to much cruelty and to a degree of
violence that knows no bounds, which only becomes possible when man no
longer recognises any criterion or any judge above himself, now having only
himself to take as a criterion. The horrors of the concentration camps
reveal with utter clarity the consequences of God's absence.
"Yet I do not intend to speak further here about State-imposed atheism,
but rather about the decline of man, which is accompanied by a change in the
spiritual climate that occurs imperceptibly and hence is all the more
dangerous. The worship of mammon, possessions and power is proving to be a
counter-religion, in which it is no longer man who counts but only personal
advantage. The desire for happiness degenerates, for example, into an
unbridled, inhuman craving, such as appears in the different forms of drug
dependency. ... Force comes to be taken for granted and in parts of the
world it threatens to destroy our young people. Because force is taken for
granted, peace is destroyed and man destroys himself in this peace vacuum".
"In addition to the two phenomena of religion and anti-religion, a further
basic orientation is found in the growing world of agnosticism: people to
whom the gift of faith has not been given, but who are nevertheless on the
lookout for truth, searching for God. Such people do not simply assert:
'There is no God'. They suffer from His absence and yet are inwardly making
their way towards Him, inasmuch as they seek truth and goodness. They are
'pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace'. They ask questions of both sides.
They take away from militant atheists the false certainty. ... But they also
challenge the followers of religions not to consider God as their own
property, as if He belonged to them, in such a way that they feel vindicated
in using force against others.
"These people are seeking the truth, they are seeking the true God, Whose
image is frequently concealed in the religions because of the ways in which
they are often practised. Their inability to find God is partly the
responsibility of believers with a limited or even falsified image of God.
So all their struggling and questioning is in part an appeal to believers to
purify their faith, so that God, the true God, becomes accessible. Therefore
I have consciously invited delegates of this third group to our meeting in
Assisi, which does not simply bring together representatives of religious
institutions. Rather it is a case of being together on a journey towards
truth, a case of taking a decisive stand for human dignity and a case of
common engagement for peace against every form of destructive force. Finally
I would like to assure you that the Catholic Church will not let up in her
fight against violence, in her commitment for peace in the world. We are
animated by the common desire to be 'pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace'".
Following the meeting in the basilica, Benedict XVI and the delegations
made their way to the convent of Porziuncola. A frugal lunch was followed by
a period of silence for individual refection and prayer before the
participants moved on to the Basilica of St. Francis for the concluding
ceremonies of the Day.
PV-ITALY/ VIS
20111027 (1610)
ACTS OF THE ORIENTAL CHURCHES
VATICAN CITY, 27 OCT 2011 (VIS) - His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, major
archbishop of Kyiv-Halyc, Ukraine, with the consent of the Permanent Synod
meeting in Curitiba, Brazil, on 10 September, and having informed the
Apostolic See, has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the
eparchy of Sambir-Drohobych of the Ukrainians, Ukraine, presented by Bishop
Julian Voronovsky M.S.U. in accordance with canon 210 para. 1 of the Code of
Canons of the Eastern Churches. He is succeeded by Coadjutor Bishop Jaroslav
Pryriz C.SS.R.
.../ VIS
20111027 (90)
OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
VATICAN CITY, 27 OCT 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Bishop Jesus
Herrera Quinonez of the clergy of the diocese of Mexicali, Mexico, as bishop
of Nuevo Casas Grandes (area 36,320, population 149,000, Catholics 130,000,
priests 37, religious 45), Mexico. The bishop-elect was born in Mexicali in
1961 and ordained a priest in 1987. He has worked as a pastor in the diocese
of Mexicali, diocesan assistant to the Christian Family Movement, and
secretary-chancellor of the diocesan curia.
NER/ VIS
20111027 (90)
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