LITTLE has been said about the Pope’s recent Lebanon
visit in our
local press. I suppose we are too concerned about our burning local
issues to be distracted by some news about the Pope. But there’s
actually something of importance and of universal relevance to say
about this papal trip.
And that is that the Pope managed to attract rousing, even rapturous
welcome and attention from the people in a region severely torn by
conflict and violence. He seemed to click with the Muslim crowd in a
way no world leader today could.
This, in spite of the fact that the visit coincided with some
unfavorable conditions. For one there is that current rage in the
region because of a video that denigrated the Prophet Mohammed and
that has resulted so far with the killing of an American ambassador.
Then you have Syria that is practically going down into flames now.
It also coincided with the anniversary of an ugly event, the massacre
by Christian militiamen of some Palestinians and Shiites in Beirut 30
years ago. That’s, of course, a very emotional memory.
Then let’s recall also that the Pope himself ruffled the Muslim world
back in 2006 when in an academic address, he said something the
Muslims considered to be a smear against Prophet Mohammed.
But this time, it’s a different atmosphere. The Pope was even welcomed
by the leaders of one of the most uncompromising Muslim sects. One of
the Muslim exponents of co-existence welcomed the Holy Father with the
kindest words, saying, “any harm done to a Christian is a wrong done
to all Muslims, and every attack on a church is an attack against all
mosques.”
The crowds that attended the Papal activities were large. All these
indicate that in spite of the worrying developments in the region,
there are also some good ones taking place, albeit in some quiet way,
typical of what is truly good compared to our own different versions
of what is good to us. Let’s thank God for this.
But the Pope managed to attract this attention also because of the
message of peace and hope that he brought. He proposed a way forward
to a society composed of very different elements.
In his own words, he said that to promote a future of peace and
solidarity, the people must work “to ensure that cultural, social and
religious differences arrive through sincere dialogue at a new
fraternity, where what unites them is the shared sense of the
greatness and dignity of every person, whose life must always be
defended and protected.”
These words remind me that what usually unites us in spite of our
sharp differences in politics, social position and religion, is when
we have natural disasters. There, we don’t talk about differences. We
just help one another.
But we don’t have to wait for disasters to put us together. We have to
learn to build unity and genuine fraternity with or without disasters,
and especially when we move forward to national and world progress and
development.
This, of course, will need some fundamental requirements. There has to
be unconditional respect for the dignity of the person, always
acknowledging his transcendental destiny and not just his earthly,
temporal and material welfare. This will stretch our patience to
infinity as we unavoidably traverse through our differences.
There has to be genuine religious freedom that is the antithesis of
intolerance, discrimination and bitter zeal. This means we have to be
filled up with unconditional love for one another if we truly love God
or Allah or whatever it is that one considers as God.
True religious freedom allows sincere differences in our religious
beliefs, but also knows how to resolve these through cordial dialogue
and respect for the others no matter how convinced we may be that they
are wrong.
Then, of course, life in all its stages, from conception to natural
death, should be respected if peace is to be attained. The Pope said
it well when he said: “If we want peace, let us defend life.”
How can we have peace when there is already fear of life by
contracepting and aborting totally defenseless babies? The attitude
for contraception and abortion is already the very germ that can grow
into the monsters of hatred, suspicion, envy, violence and terrorism.
The Pope also said that we should foster stable families and that
instead of hoarding on weapons, we should rather make a growing stock
of good ideas and creativity about ways of how to handle our
differences well. This is the challenge of all of us today.
local press. I suppose we are too concerned about our burning local
issues to be distracted by some news about the Pope. But there’s
actually something of importance and of universal relevance to say
about this papal trip.
And that is that the Pope managed to attract rousing, even rapturous
welcome and attention from the people in a region severely torn by
conflict and violence. He seemed to click with the Muslim crowd in a
way no world leader today could.
This, in spite of the fact that the visit coincided with some
unfavorable conditions. For one there is that current rage in the
region because of a video that denigrated the Prophet Mohammed and
that has resulted so far with the killing of an American ambassador.
Then you have Syria that is practically going down into flames now.
It also coincided with the anniversary of an ugly event, the massacre
by Christian militiamen of some Palestinians and Shiites in Beirut 30
years ago. That’s, of course, a very emotional memory.
Then let’s recall also that the Pope himself ruffled the Muslim world
back in 2006 when in an academic address, he said something the
Muslims considered to be a smear against Prophet Mohammed.
But this time, it’s a different atmosphere. The Pope was even welcomed
by the leaders of one of the most uncompromising Muslim sects. One of
the Muslim exponents of co-existence welcomed the Holy Father with the
kindest words, saying, “any harm done to a Christian is a wrong done
to all Muslims, and every attack on a church is an attack against all
mosques.”
The crowds that attended the Papal activities were large. All these
indicate that in spite of the worrying developments in the region,
there are also some good ones taking place, albeit in some quiet way,
typical of what is truly good compared to our own different versions
of what is good to us. Let’s thank God for this.
But the Pope managed to attract this attention also because of the
message of peace and hope that he brought. He proposed a way forward
to a society composed of very different elements.
In his own words, he said that to promote a future of peace and
solidarity, the people must work “to ensure that cultural, social and
religious differences arrive through sincere dialogue at a new
fraternity, where what unites them is the shared sense of the
greatness and dignity of every person, whose life must always be
defended and protected.”
These words remind me that what usually unites us in spite of our
sharp differences in politics, social position and religion, is when
we have natural disasters. There, we don’t talk about differences. We
just help one another.
But we don’t have to wait for disasters to put us together. We have to
learn to build unity and genuine fraternity with or without disasters,
and especially when we move forward to national and world progress and
development.
This, of course, will need some fundamental requirements. There has to
be unconditional respect for the dignity of the person, always
acknowledging his transcendental destiny and not just his earthly,
temporal and material welfare. This will stretch our patience to
infinity as we unavoidably traverse through our differences.
There has to be genuine religious freedom that is the antithesis of
intolerance, discrimination and bitter zeal. This means we have to be
filled up with unconditional love for one another if we truly love God
or Allah or whatever it is that one considers as God.
True religious freedom allows sincere differences in our religious
beliefs, but also knows how to resolve these through cordial dialogue
and respect for the others no matter how convinced we may be that they
are wrong.
Then, of course, life in all its stages, from conception to natural
death, should be respected if peace is to be attained. The Pope said
it well when he said: “If we want peace, let us defend life.”
How can we have peace when there is already fear of life by
contracepting and aborting totally defenseless babies? The attitude
for contraception and abortion is already the very germ that can grow
into the monsters of hatred, suspicion, envy, violence and terrorism.
The Pope also said that we should foster stable families and that
instead of hoarding on weapons, we should rather make a growing stock
of good ideas and creativity about ways of how to handle our
differences well. This is the challenge of all of us today.
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