The Catholic Leader - 7 May

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The Catholic Leader, May 7, 2017
News
Unmask violence purporting to be holy, Pope Francis
tells religious leaders in Egypt
CALLING his visit to Egypt a jour-
ney of “unity and fraternity”, Pope
Francis launched a powerful call to
the nation’s religious leaders to ex-
pose violence masquerading as holy
and condemn religiously inspired
hatred as an idolatrous caricature of
God.
“Peace alone, therefore, is holy, and no act of
violence can be perpetrated in the name of God,
for it would profane his name,” the Pope told
Muslim and Christian leaders at an international
peace conference on April 28.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Con-
stantinople was in attendance.
Pope Francis also warned of attempts to fight
violence with violence, saying “every unilateral
action that does not promote constructive and
shared processes is, in reality, a gift to the propo-
nents of radicalism and violence”.
The Pope began a two-day visit to Cairo by
speaking at a gathering organised by Egypt’s al-
Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s highest institute
of learning.
He told reporters on the papal flight from
Rome that the trip was significant for the fact
that he was invited by the grand imam of
al-Azhar Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb; Egyptian
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi; Coptic Orthodox
Pope Tawadros II; and Coptic Catholic Patriarch
Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak of Alexandria.
Having the four leaders invite him for the trip
showed it was “a trip of unity and fraternity” that
would be “quite, quite intense” over the next two
days, he said.
Greeted with a standing ovation and a few
scattered shouts of “viva il papa” (long live the
pope), the Pope later greeted conference partici-
pants saying, “Peace be with you” in Arabic.
He gave a 23-minute talk highlighting Egypt’s
great and “glorious history” as a land of civilisa-
tion, wisdom and faith in God.
Religious leaders had a duty to respect every-
one’s religious identity and have “the courage to
accept differences”, he said in the talk that was
interrupted by applause several times.
Those who belonged to a different culture or
religion “should not be seen or treated as en-
emies, but rather welcomed as fellow-travellers”,
he said.
Religion needed to take its sacred and es-
sential place in the world as a reminder of the
“great questions about the meaning of life” and
humanity’s ultimate calling.
“We are not meant to spend all of our energies
on the uncertain and shifting affairs of this world,
but to journey toward the absolute,” he said.
He emphasised that religion “is not a problem,
but a part of the solution” because it helped peo-
ple lift their hearts toward God “in order to learn
how to build the city of man”.
Egypt was the land where God gave Moses
the Ten Commandments, which included “Thou
shalt not kill”, the Pope said.
God “exhorts us to reject the way of violence
as the necessary condition for every earthly
covenant”.
“Violence is the negation of every authentic
religious expression,” he said.
“As religious leaders, we are called, there-
fore, to unmask the violence that masquerades
as purported sanctity and is based more on the
‘absolutising’ of selfishness than on authentic
openness to the absolute.
“We have an obligation to denounce violations
of human dignity and human rights, to expose
attempts to justify every form of hatred in the
name of religion and to condemn these attempts
as idolatrous caricatures of God.”
God was holy, the Pope said, and “he is the
God of peace”.
He asked everyone at the al-Azhar confer-
ence to say “once more, a firm and clear ‘No!’
to every form of violence, vengeance and hatred
carried out in the name of religion or in the name
of God”.
Not only were faith and violence, belief and
hatred incompatible, he said, faith that was not
“born of sincere heart and authentic love toward
the merciful God” was nothing more than a
social construct “that does not liberate man, but
crushes him”.
Christians, too, must treat everyone as brother
and sister if they were to truly pray to God, the
father of all humanity, the Pope said.
“It is of little or no use to raise our voices and
run about to find weapons for our protection,”
he said.
“What is needed today are peacemakers, not
fomenters of conflict; firefighters, not arsonists;
preachers of reconciliation and not instigators of
destruction.”
The Pope again appealed for people to address
the root causes of terrorism, like poverty and
exploitation, and to stop the flow of weapons and
money to those who provoked violence.
“Only by bringing into the light of day the
murky maneuvrings that feed the cancer of war
can its real causes be prevented,” he said.
Education and a wisdom that was open,
curious and humble were key, he said, saying
properly formed young people can grow tall like
strong trees turning “the polluted air of hatred
into the oxygen of fraternity”.
He called on all of Egypt to continue its lega-
cy of being a land of civilisation and covenant so
it can contribute to peace for its own people and
the whole Middle East.
The challenge of turning today’s “incivility of
conflict” into a “civility of encounter” demanded
that “we, Christians, Muslims and all believers,
are called to offer our specific contribution” as
brothers and sisters living all under the one and
same sun of a merciful God.
The Pope and Sheik el-Tayeb embraced after
the sheik gave his introductory address, which
emphasised that only false notions of religion,
including Islam, led to violence.
The grand imam expressed gratitude for the
Pope’s remarks in which he rejected the associa-
tion of Islam with terror.
The sheik began his speech by requesting the
audience stand for a minute’s silence to com-
memorate the victims of terrorism in Egypt and
globally, regardless of their religions.
“We should not hold religion accountable for
the crimes of any small group of followers,” he
said.
“For example, Islam is not a religion of ter-
rorism” just because a small group of fanatics
“ignorantly” misinterpret texts of the Quran to
support their hatred.
The security surrounding the Pope’s arrival
seemed typical of many papal trips even though
the country was also in the midst of a govern-
ment-declared three-month state of emergency
following the bombing of two Coptic Orthodox
churches on Palm Sunday.
The attacks, for which Islamic State claimed
responsibility, left 44 people dead and 70 more
injured.
Egypt Prime Minister Sherif Ismail and other
Egyptian officials warmly greeted Pope Francis
on the airport red carpet after the Pope disem-
barked from the plane.
They walked together, chatting animatedly, to
the VIP hall of Cairo International Airport, then
the pontiff was whisked off to the presidential
palace to meet Mr el-Sissi at the start of his brief
27-hour visit.
Pope Francis repeated his calls for strengthen-
ing peace in his speech to hundreds of officials
representing government, the diplomatic corps,
civil society and culture.
“No civilised society can be built without
repudiating every ideology of evil, violence
and extremism that presumes to suppress others
and to annihilate diversity by manipulating and
profaning the sacred name of God,” he said.
History did not forgive those who talked about
justice and equality, and then practised the op-
posite, he said.
It was a duty to “unmask the peddlers of illu-
sions about the afterlife” and who robbed people
of their lives and took away their ability to
“choose freely and believe responsibly”.
CNS
Peaceful
embrace:
Pope Francis
embraces
grand imam
of al-Azhar
University
Sheik Ahmad
el-Tayeb at a
conference on
international
peace in Cairo
on April 28.
The Pope
was making a
two-day visit to
Egypt.
Photo: CNS/Paul
Haring
Peace alone is holy