Speaking a common word

When Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope and became Benedict XVI, I had written that the greatest task he would face would be to effect the reconciliation between the two most powerful world religions: Christianity and Islam.

For many centuries various historical phenomena have fomented a deep and incurable wound between the cross and the crescent; events like the crusades, when piety was a thin disguise for lust for land and power, culminating in the double sack of Constantinople. These events have created unbridgeable chasms between Muslim and Christian and have also alienated the Eastern Church in the process.

Since his election, this Pope has, in fact, dropped a few clangers and has backed some rather peculiar initiatives. It did not help when still a cardinal to declare his opinion about Turkey joining the EU, giving as a reason the rather dubious one that the Ottomans had laid siege to Vienna! Had he seen what the erstwhile Duchess of York (in a blond wig) has just made public, namely the shocking state of the orphanages in Turkey, I would have understood, however mentioning the siege of Vienna must have been one of this Pope's famous intellectual jokes as was the Regensburg speech, which was followed by a Vatican-sponsored historical seminar convened to rehabilitate the Crusades, which is tantamount to re-writing nazi history by calling Hitler a benevolent despot! It is like fighting fire with fire.

Along with the welcome news that the newly-elected most powerful man in the world goes by the Arabic name of Barack, which, as we know full well, in Maltese means barka or blessing, the Pope and the Vatican have turned full circle and have convened a meeting at the Vatican composed of 58 scholars and leaders made up of 29 from either faith. The result is a joint manifesto entitled A Common Word that calls for dialogue based on shared principles of love of God and one's neighbour.

This comes not a moment too soon. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the regrouping of the Taliban, the menace of Al Qaeda, the rattling of Iranian sabres and the general mutual antipathy that has grown to unprecedented proportions, the only way forward is clear. It is good that the Catholic Church has taken the initiative at last and gone for reconciliation and I do hope that despite the Barack Obama miracle, it's not too late. After the three-day meeting, the Muslim and Catholic scholars have vowed to jointly combat violence, to defend religious freedom and to foster equal rights for minority faith groups. This is a lesson that still has to be learned in Malta wherein the Catholic religion has taken on a character all of its own and where the Jesuit Order is vilified for running its refugee service by those same kaporjuni who are the first up the greasy pole of parochial politics.

We are indeed a nation of hypocrites where those people who are mooting to have divorce introduced become victims of a smear campaign accusing them of being abortionists! So desperate are the politically-minded clerics and their running-dogs that euthanasia has been thrown in as well. For centuries, the Church intruded in our bedrooms by trying to control every aspect of our innate sexuality and placing anything but "sex to have babies only" on the irretrievably proscribed list. That has gone out of the bedroom window but where people of my generation are concerned it served no other use but debasing the sacrament of confession forever.

To get back to the Vatican and our own future as European Catholics there is a gamut of tenets still to be considered. The fact that, to date, the EU has avoided inserting any religious connotation in its ill-fated Constitution has gone a long way to sidestep direct conflict with the multi-faceted religious elements that grow stronger each day within the European framework. It is possible that, because the EU persists in doing this, the religious fundamentalists have subversively managed to get it thrown out either as a Constitution or as a Treaty of Lisbon. Once the Vatican shows that it need not be the undisputed primus inter pares, first among equals, the pressure to maintain its hegemony will lessen allowing only those with a genuine faith to practise it within the law without imposing its limitations and prohibitions on other people. The same goes for Islam. If that is the case, maybe the Constitution may still happen.

Peaceful coexistence in the immediate future between Christian and Muslim is a vital goal to work towards should we not wish our lives to end up in a cataclysmic conflagration and all that is done to promote it is to be actively encouraged. The change will not be reached in our lifetimes. However, if we can manage to turn the tide now before it is too late there is still hope.

kzt@onvol.net