What Catholics Can Learn During Ramadan
A Palestinian woman prays at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’s Old City 20 July, the first day of Ramadan. The Muslim holy month calls on believers to fast from dawn to sunset, to pray more and recite the Quran, and to distance themselves from worldly activities. (photo: CNS/Ammar Awad, Reuters)
23 Jul 2012 – by Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Muslim holy
month of Ramadan, which started July 20 in many
countries, is a time of fasting, prayer and repentance,
when Muslims distance themselves from worldly activities
in an effort to align their lives more closely with God and
his laws.
According to the Vatican’s point man for dialogue
with Islam, Ramadan is also an opportunity for Catholics
to learn from Muslims’ example of obedience to the
Almighty — and thereby strengthen their own Catholic
faith.
Msgr. Khaled Akasheh runs the section for
relations with Muslims at the Pontifical Council for
Interreligious Dialogue, an office founded by Pope Paul
VI in 1964, during the Second Vatican Council.
One of the most important aspects of Vatican II,
Msgr. Akasheh told Catholic News Service, was that “the church accepted all that is right and beautiful in religions.” The council thus fostered a culture in which theological disagreement did not mean disrespect for what others hold sacred.
Even half a century later, however, many
Catholics perceive a tension between the need to respect
other religious traditions and Christ’s call to bring his truth to all people.
“Managing mission and dialogue is perhaps the
major theological challenge” in communicating with other faiths, Msgr. Akasheh said.
Catholic experts engaged in dialogue do not make
any “explicit appeal to others to embrace our religion, but this doesn’t mean that we are not faithful to our faith and our mission, because in dialogue we say what we are,” he said.
For Msgr. Akasheh, who was born in Jordan and
has taught at the seminary of the Latin Patriarchate in
Jerusalem, dialogue is a process of witnessing to one’s own beliefs, learning about others and sharing common concerns.
Pope Benedict XVI’s famous 2006 speech in
Regensburg, Germany, was part of that process, he said.
The pope’s quotation in the speech of a 14thcentury
Byzantine emperor who had described the legacy
of the prophet Mohammed as “evil and inhuman”
provoked violent reactions in much of the Islamic world.
But following that controversy, a whole new stage
in dialogue was launched: The pope met personally with
ambassadors of countries with a Muslim majority and with
Italy’s Muslim leaders; 138 Muslim scholars from around the world wrote an open letter to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders asking for a dialogue about shared
values; and a new Catholic-Muslim Forum for dialogue
held its first meeting at the Vatican in 2008.
Dialogue with Islam will be on the pope’s agenda
again in September, when he is scheduled to meet with
Muslim leaders during a three-day visit to Lebanon.
Msgr. Akasheh said interreligious dialogue at the
theological level should be reserved for experts: people
who know their own faith well; carry a mandate to speak
officially in the name of their faith community; understand
the beliefs, culture and language of their interlocutors; and who will never compromise on theology for the sake of
agreement.
This is not the kind of dialogue underpinning
peace deals or settlements that are founded on
compromise and concessions, he said.
Tags: Vatican Interreligious Christian-Muslim relations Islam Ramadan