GUEST COLUMN
Volume 4 Number 6
The Moral Conscience of the World
01 June 1991

Christians, Muslims and Jews have in the past waged war on each other and thought themselves justified in doing so.

By BASIL HUME
The Gulf War took a terrible toll in death and destruction. We need to remember all those who died, those who suffered, and all those who continue to suffer.

Although the conflict was caused by unprovoked aggression and not by any religious issue, it is clear that religious differences are a factor in Middle East tension. Three religions with common roots, who all look to Abraham as their father in faith, confront each other and undoubtedly add to the antagonisms which persist in the area. Christians, Muslims and Jews have in the past waged war on each other and thought themselves justified in doing so.

Of course, there is more to peace than the absence of war. To achieve reconciliation and to establish peace with justice - that is to say, to build structures which show a proper respect for human rights, dignity and aspirations - makes severe demands on us. Greater understanding, mutual respect and tolerance between the different faiths would clearly assist the process of healing and reconciliation at the ethnic and political levels. Moreover, religions transcend other differences - followers are to be found in widely differing countries, races and cultures. At the Second Vatican Council, held in the 1960s, the assembled bishops considered the relationship of the Church to other faiths. Their words give me my starting point in the encounter:

`The Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions. She has a sincere respect for those ways of acting and living, those moral and doctrinal teachings, which may differ in many respects from what she holds and teaches, but which nonetheless often reflect the brightness of that truth which is the light of all people...

`She therefore urges her sons and daughters, using prudence and charity, to join members of other religions in discussion and collaboration. While bearing witness to their own Christian faith and life, they must acknowledge those good spiritual and moral elements and social and cultural values found in other religions, and preserve and encourage them.'

Feasts
This declaration sets out an agenda that is even more relevant today. Large-scale immigration into Europe has created sizeable communities of many faiths within our countries. As well as Jews and Muslims, we have Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jains and Bahais, who live and work as fellow-citizens in Britain. It is a matter of the utmost importance that we should all know that our beliefs and values are recognized and respected by one another.

This year the Christian season of Lent and the Muslim month of Ramadan partly coincided. Both are times of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. The Jewish Passover was celebrated on 30 March - only a day before Christians celebrated the Resurrection of Christ. Both these feasts are times to remember God's gift of liberation from oppression. In mid-April Muslims celebrated the joyful feast of Eid al Fitr, the end of Ramadan, at about the same time as Sikhs were celebrating Baisakhi, the foundation of the Khalsa.

Our calendars are punctuated with many different feasts. Can we see this cultural and religious diversity not as a threat but as an incentive to learn from, and with, each other about the mystery of God's purposes?

The presence of other faiths in the midst of an erstwhile Christian country like ours can challenge religious apathy and indifference, and strike a different note from those so often heard in this secular and materialistic society. The religious fervour of the Muslim community, to take one obvious example, may on some counts be disturbing but nonetheless is evidence of a wholehearted commitment to the supernatural and to the transcendence of God.

The presence of other faiths in Britain today is striking confirmation of the extent to which the whole world is discovering its basic unity and its interdependence. In the past we paid lipservice to the brotherhood of man and the concept of `one world'. Today we experience in practice the unity of the human family and shared responsibility for our home planet.

World religions should in a special way represent the moral conscience of the world, and condemn anything which degrades or destroys human life, dignity and freedom. We recognize that anything which offends our common humanity is itself a threat to world peace.

Four pillars
The most horrific genocide in modern history was the Holocaust which claimed millions of Jewish lives under Hitler almost half a century ago. Today's rollcall of repression would include many countries and minorities - the oppressed people of Iraq, the plight of the Palestinians, the long agony of Lebanon, the occupation of Tibet, the struggle of the Baltic states to recover their independence and of black South Africans to achieve theirs. There are many others, too, whose anguish should be ours.

Much of the secular world is seemingly content with a partial and self-interested response to injustice and aggression. We who are engaged in a common search for values which extend beyond and above those of secular society should seek a fairer, more peaceful, more united world.

Pope John XXIII spoke of `the four pillars of peace': truth, justice, freedom and charity. Where one of these is lacking there is no true peace. These are the values to be prized in every society, of whatever religious faith, ethnic origin or cultural background. Surely the religions of the world can come together in the defence and promotion of these four fundamental values.

I will pray for justice in our world and thus for an enduring authentic peace. May that process begin here and now in our own hearts.

Cardinal Basil Hume is Archbishop of Westminster. The above is abridged from his address to a multi-faith gathering in Westminster Cathedral, London, shortly after the end of the Gulf War.


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