MONASTIC TOPICS IN GENERAL
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REPORT
ON THE MONASTIC INTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE The Abbot
General’s Council asked me to give the General Chapters a short
report on the Monastic Inter-religious Dialogue. I think
you are all aware of the existence of a joint Benedictine and Cistercian
organization called M.I.D (D.I.M. in French), whose purpose is to
raise the awareness of our monastic communities concerning the importance
of dialogue between Christianity and the other great religious traditions
of humanity. It will perhaps be useful briefly to recall the beginnings
of this organization. Vatican
II’s declaration Nostra aetate emphasized the fact that dialogue
with the other great religious traditions of humanity was an aspect
of the Church’s mission of evangelization. Along these same lines,
the two great pan-Asian monastic meetings organized by A.I.M at
MID’s
activities have always been carried out in collaboration with the
Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and, in fact, the
secretary of MID is a consultant on this Pontifical Council. One
aspect of DIM/MID’s work was to set up a program of monastic hospitality
to allow Eastern monks and nuns, Buddhist or otherwise, to spend
some time in American and European monasteries, and vice versa.
These visits contributed a great deal to better mutual understanding.
Each time a group of Buddhist monks came to In a recent
report given at a MID meeting, Bishop Michael Fitzgerald, current
president of the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Christian
Religions, warned that sensitivity for interreligious dialogue should
not be a sort of hobby for one or the other monk or nun of a community,
but should be the concern of the whole community. I would
like to make this last point the focus of my report. The main goal
of MID at the time of its creation was not simply to gather together
the monks and nuns of our communities who were already involved
in interreligious dialogue, but rather to raise the awareness of
all our communities, first of all regarding the richness of the
other religious traditions, and then regarding the importance of
an attitude of dialogue with them (even if, obviously, not all monks
and nuns need to be involved in dialogue activities). It seems to
me that our communities still have a long way to go in this area
of providing information and fostering a collective attitude of
dialogue. We need to find ways to help our communities as a whole
better to know and appreciate the richness of all the great religious
traditions of humanity, especially—but not exclusively—in their
monastic dimension. A second
point that Bishop Michael Fitzgerald emphasized in his above-mentioned
talk at the MID meeting was the following. Up until now, the dialogue
supported by MID was especially with the Eastern religions that
have an ancient monastic tradition, and particularly with Buddhism.
However, it is becoming important and even urgent to develop dialogue
with Islam, for several reasons. On the
one hand, Westerners today tend too easily to identify Islam with
the violence displayed by certain Islamic fundamentalists (not true
Islam), which violence is often in response to the fundamentalism
of groups that claim to be Christian but that do not represent a
truly Christian stance. It is therefore important to know and respect
the other face of Islam, where are found compassion, tolerance,
and respect for others. On the
other hand, at a time when, in the context of debate over the European
Constitution, there is much talk of about the Christian roots of
Europe, we must not forget that Europe also has deep Muslim roots,
first through Averroes and Avicenna and then through the rich cultural
influence the Ottoman Empire had on In a world
where some people want to see—and, if need be, start—a war between
civilizations and cultures, it is important for monks and nuns—whose
whole life has a communion dimension—to work towards communion
among religions, cultures, and peoples by means of their life and
dialogue. As Dom
Bede recalled the day before yesterday, many of our monasteries
are now surrounded by populations in which both Islam and Asian
cultures are widely represented. Although
organized dialogue in the shape of formal encounters and meetings
remains necessary, dialogue through everyday life is all the more
necessary. Much has been said about the dialogue of Christian de
Chergé and a
few of the Atlas brothers with the Sufis of Medea in the El Ribat
group, but of equal and even greater importance was the constant
dialogue lived out between the Tibhirine community and its Muslim
neighbors. It is
to this form of respect, friendship, and dialogue that we are all
invited in one way or another. Armand
Veilleux |
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