Pope's Words to Cameroon Muslim Leaders

[Hypatia]

Pope’s Words to Cameroon Muslim Leaders

‘Cameroon is home to thousands of Christians and Muslims, who often live, work and worship in the same neighbourhood. Both believe in one, merciful God who on the last day will judge mankind (cf. Lumen Gentium, 16). Together they bear witness to the fundamental values of family, social responsibility, obedience to God’s law and loving concern for the sick and suffering. By patterning their lives on these virtues and teaching them to the young, Christians and Muslims not only show how they foster the full development of the human person, but also how they forge bonds of solidarity with one’s neighbours and advance the common good.’

 

[RedSoxFan]

Good Post. How do you feel about it hypatia?

 

[chrisse]

The full article Hypatia linked to :

Grateful for this opportunity to meet representatives of the Muslim community in Cameroon, I express my heartfelt thanks to Mr Amadou Bello for his kind words of greeting extended to me on your behalf. Our encounter is a vivid sign of the desire we share with all people of good will – in Cameroon, throughout Africa and across the globe – to seek opportunities to exchange ideas about how religion makes an essential contribution to our understanding of culture and the world, and to the peaceful coexistence of all the members of the human family. Initiatives in Cameroon, such as the Association Camerounaise pour le Dialogue Interreligieux, illustrate how such dialogue enhances mutual understanding and assists in the building up of a stable and just political order.

Cameroon is home to thousands of Christians and Muslims, who often live, work and worship in the same neighbourhood. Both believe in one, merciful God who on the last day will judge mankind (cf. Lumen Gentium, 16). Together they bear witness to the fundamental values of family, social responsibility, obedience to God’s law and loving concern for the sick and suffering. By patterning their lives on these virtues and teaching them to the young, Christians and Muslims not only show how they foster the full development of the human person, but also how they forge bonds of solidarity with one’s neighbours and advance the common good.

My friends, I believe a particularly urgent task of religion today is to unveil the vast potential of human reason, which is itself God’s gift and which is elevated by revelation and faith. Belief in the one God, far from stunting our capacity to understand ourselves and the world, broadens it. Far from setting us against the world, it commits us to it. We are called to help others see the subtle traces and mysterious presence of God in the world which he has marvellously created and continually sustains with his ineffable and all-embracing love. Although his infinite glory can never be directly grasped by our finite minds in this life, we nonetheless catch glimpses of it in the beauty that surrounds us. When men and women allow the magnificent order of the world and the splendour of human dignity to illumine their minds, they discover that what is “reasonable” extends far beyond what mathematics can calculate, logic can deduce and scientific experimentation can demonstrate; it includes the goodness and innate attractiveness of upright and ethical living made known to us in the very language of creation.

This insight prompts us to seek all that is right and just, to step outside the restricted sphere of our own self-interest and act for the good of others. **Genuine religion thus widens the horizon of human understanding and stands at the base of any authentically human culture. It rejects all forms of violence and totalitarianism: not only on principles of faith, but also of right reason. Indeed, religion and reason mutually reinforce one another since religion is purified and structured by reason, and reason’s full potential is unleashed by revelation and faith.

I therefore encourage you, my dear Muslim friends, to imbue society with the values that emerge from this perspective and elevate human culture, as we work together to build a civilization of love.** May the enthusiastic cooperation of Muslims, Catholics and other Christians in Cameroon be a beacon to other African nations of the enormous potential of an interreligious commitment to peace, justice and the common good!

With these sentiments, I once again express my gratitude for this auspicious occasion to meet you during my visit to Cameroon. I thank Almighty God for the blessings he has bestowed upon you and your fellow citizens, and I pray that the links that bind Christians and Muslims in their profound reverence for the one God will continue to grow stronger, so that they will reflect more clearly the wisdom of the Almighty, who enlightens the hearts of all mankind.

Another wonderful piece from our wonderful Pope B. YHWH bless him, and keep him safe. Amen

After the slaughter and riots that the perpetually offended enacted ostensibly because of the Regensberg address, Pope B has been cleverly circumspect with his words, while still conveying the truth.

The perpetually offended will struggle justify the enactment their perpetual offense.

 

[Hypatia]

Good Post. How do you feel about it hypatia?

What’s not to like?

I too thought it was very good. I too ‘pray that the links that bind Christians and Muslims in their profound reverence for the one God will continue to grow stronger, so that they will reflect more clearly the wisdom of the Almighty, who enlightens the hearts of all mankind’, as he says at the end. Ameen.

 

[chrisse]

What’s not to like?

I too thought it was very good. I too ‘pray that the links that bind Christians and Muslims in their profound reverence for the one God will continue to grow stronger, so that they will reflect more clearly the wisdom of the Almighty, who enlightens the hearts of all mankind’, as he says at the end. Ameen.

I’ll assume here your opinion also includes :

Genuine religion thus widens the horizon of human understanding and stands at the base of any authentically human culture. It rejects all forms of violence and totalitarianism: not only on principles of faith, but also of right reason. Indeed, religion and reason mutually reinforce one another since religion is purified and structured by reason, and reason’s full potential is unleashed by revelation and faith.

I therefore encourage you, my dear Muslim friends, to imbue society with the values that emerge from this perspective and elevate human culture, as we work together to build a civilization of love

I wonder, if you do, how you will deal with the majority of the islamic doctrine that does not support this view.

 

[Hypatia]

how you will deal with the majority of the islamic doctrine that does not support this view.

As I said, there is nothing to which one would seriously object to in that speech.

The idea that God is Truth is fundamental to all of Islam (Allah al-Haqq). And the path to God is through God’s manifestation in God’s ‘acts’ (which is the word commonly used for creatures): i.e., creation is the ayat of God; written on nature and, esp., the human soul, for we are made in the form (sura) of God.

“The one who knows/recognizes their self, knows/recognizes God,” says the Prophet (pbuh). Perhaps the most important and influential Muslim theologian, ibn’Arabi, loves this saying from the Prophet (pbuh), citing it often. Ibn’Arabi goes on to say:

“Humans are nothing but knowers of God. Some of the knowers know they know, and some do not know that they know God. The latter know the things that appear and which they can examine, but they do not recognize that it is the Real” (Meccan Revelations, III.510).

God is the Truth of things, the Being of beings, perfect Peace, because God is the One. Because the pursuit of knowledge breaks down the barriers that divide us and creates unity (tawhid), the way of knowledge is the way of love and peace…the way to God.

 

[humble_in_doubt]

the only hope for the Muslim world is secularism … not more religion (I think those poor saps have had their fill of mystical gods who promise a paradise in exchange for maniacal behavior … only they have to die first).

 

[RedSoxFan]

Wow, that was wrong on so many levels.

Look I won’t agree theologically with about 90% of what Hypatia would have to say about religion. Yet Im pretty sure we could agree on three basic things.

1. Our God is the same from a different view point.
2. I think your viewpoint is cloudy.
3. I will not kill you for your viewpoint.

Secularism in the end is not what is best for the Muslim world. Continued thought and prayer to God is what is best for the Muslim world.

 

[tomarin]

Wow, that was wrong on so many levels.

Look I won’t agree theologically with about 90% of what Hypatia would have to say about religion. Yet Im pretty sure we could agree on three basic things.

1. Our God is the same from a different view point.
2. I think your viewpoint is cloudy.
3. I will not kill you for your viewpoint.

Secularism in the end is not what is best for the Muslim world. Continued thought and prayer to God is what is best for the Muslim world.

I agree with you that secularism is not what is best for the Muslim world, but I wonder if I’m being a cultural imperialist in saying that I wish the Muslim world would discover the virtue of religious freedom and freedom of conscience?

 

[RedSoxFan]

No I would say it makes you honest not an imperialist. I think that can come in time, and is in some places already around, (I saw this in Jericho when I was there), but it seems to me that your idea builds off my 3 points.