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CAIR Bulletin – Dec. 6, 2006
Pope's visit to turkey turns corner
on Muslim-Catholic relations
By Parvez Ahmed
Following the death of Pope John Paul II, much of the world, including the Muslim world, anxiously awaited the naming of the next Pope. Such anticipation among non-Catholics was a tribute to John Paul's legacy of outreach and reconciliation with people of other faiths.
As the world waited to hear the name of the new Pope, I was invited to participate in a "virtual conclave" by Beliefnet.com in which Catholics and people of other faiths discussed who they would like to see leading the Church.
When Pope Benedict XVI began his first visit to Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, I went back to the conclave archives to find out what aspirations the participants had about the Muslim-Catholic relationship.
One prominent Catholic participant posed the question, "To what extent should concerns about Muslim-Christian relations guide the choice of a pope?"
Mary Louise Hartman of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church replied, "The new Pope will have to be skilled in diplomacy and sensitive in his approach to our sisters and brothers in Islam."
Russell Shaw of the National Conference of Catholic Bishop's wrote, "the relationship with Islam is one of the big three issues the next pope will have to address. ... But what to do? It's all very well to say Catholics should dialogue with Muslims and encourage the moderates among them. But I do not think the people who flew airliners into the World Trade Center were very open to dialogue."
The desire to build a solid relationship was clashing with fears about extremism.
John Esposito of Georgetown University injected a dose of reality, "Inter-religious dialogue is between the mainstream majorities - their leaders, scholars, followers. Therefore, Catholicism's dialogue with Islam/Muslims is not with the extremist minority no more than its dialogue would be with Jewish extremists, Hindu extremists, etc."
By visiting Turkey, Pope Benedict chose the path of engagement. His visit could help undo the damage resulting from his quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor who had said that Islam was "spread by the sword."
While the reprehensible violence by a tiny minority of Muslims reacting to the Pope's remarks received wide publicity, calls for dialogue by mainstream Islamic groups went virtually unnoticed.
A recent survey by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that among Muslims in America, 84 percent agreed that they should strongly emphasize shared values with People of the Book (i.e. Christians and Jews).
More than three-quarters of American Muslims are native born. They are part of mainstream America and are here to stay. Yet some are bent on marginalizing this voice of moderation.
Take for example some recent incidents that expose a nasty strain of bigotry in our society.
Washington, D.C., radio host, Jerry Klein in an attempt to ridicule and expose anti-Muslim bigotry, made a suggestion on-air that all Muslims in the United States should wear "identifying markers" such as a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band. Rather than be repulsed by this outlandish Nazi-like proposal, the phone lines lit-up with callers who spoke in agreement.
CNN talk-show host Glen Beck recently questioned the patriotism of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. He told Ellison:
"[W]hat I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'"
But perhaps the most disturbing opinion was recently expressed by talk-show host Dennis Prager when he argued that Keith Ellison should not be allowed to take his oath of office on the Quran. "If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book (the Christian Bible)," Prager tells Ellison, "don't serve in Congress."
Pope Benedict's visit to Turkey may help turn a corner in recent Muslim-Christian relations. His concluding plea, "I hope that this dialogue continues," will reverberate louder than his earlier faux pas. Muslims also have responded with optimism. Turkey's influential Milliyet newspaper declared the visit as "The Istanbul Peace."
The Pope made history by being only the second pontiff to set foot inside a mosque and being the first to join Muslims in prayer. Mustafa Cagrici, head cleric in Istanbul, described this gesture as sign of a new beginning for the world.
People of conscience in all faiths must use the opening resulting from the Pope's visit to Turkey to come together and create a new La Convivencia ("the Coexistence"), when Spanish Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in relative peace and managed to develop a golden era progress in science and culture.
[Parvez Ahmed is board chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. ]
Catholic News Service – December 5, 2006
U.S. Muslim-Catholic dialogues growing reality
Jerry Filteau
Muslim-Catholic dialogue is a living and growing reality in the United States.
"The important thing is to keep the dialogue going because there are so many parts of the world where it isn't going," said John Borelli, special assistant to the president and director for interreligious initiatives at Georgetown University in Washington.
Sayyid M. Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America's new Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances, called the advancement of the U.S. dialogues "something of a historical imperative" because "if they go in the right direction, they could give a gift of the 21st century to the rest of mankind."
Father Francis Tiso, associate director for interreligious relations at the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said dialogue "is a tremendous opportunity to refine your thinking about the other side."
Borelli, who held Father Tiso's post from 1987 to 2003, played a major role in the 1990s in getting three official regional dialogues started between Catholic and Muslim leaders and scholars.
Father Tiso said those three dialogues - West Coast, Midwest and Middle Atlantic - have their roots in local dialogues. "The model he (Borelli) set up is to have a pair of persons from each town or diocese, along with Catholic and Muslim scholars, get together once a year for a two-day session," he said.
For example the Midwest dialogue has paired participants from Catholic-Muslim dialogues in Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Louisville, Ky., and Toledo, Ohio. Under that arrangement the regional dialogue also serves as a kind of leadership meeting for the leaders of the local dialogues, Father Tiso said.
He said each regional group decides its own topics. The West Coast dialogue has been focusing on spirituality, the Midwest recently completed a small book on Catholic and Muslim understandings of divine revelation, and the Middle Atlantic is currently working on guidelines for pastoral care of couples in interfaith marriages, specifically Catholic-Muslim marriages.
Father Tiso said the local and regional dialogues may address a wide range of shared interests from social concerns such as immigration and family life to questions of values, religious freedom, revelation, spirituality and scholarly issues.
Christian Brother David Carroll, undersecretary-general of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association and a member of the Middle Atlantic dialogue, is also part of the local Muslim-Catholic dialogue in the New York Archdiocese. When asked about other local dialogues in his area, he immediately ticked off a list of other examples – in the Brooklyn and Rockville Centre dioceses in New York, in Newark and Paterson in New Jersey, and in the Philadelphia Archdiocese…
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=22243
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