Conference
organized by European People’s Party
Working group
on intercultural and interreligious dialogue
European
Parliament, Strasbourg
16 May 2017
Intervention by Rev. Dr. Manuel Barrios
Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenism and Interreligious
Dialogue
Spanish Bishops’ Conference
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
It is an
honour for me to participate as speaker in this conference on “the peace
potential
of religions” here in Strasbourg, during the plenary session of the European
Parliament. I thank very much the European People’s Party, its Working Group on
Intercultural and Religious Dialogue for this opportunity. I find it very appropriate and praiseworthy
for a political group to engage in a structured and regular dialogue with
Churches and religious representatives, as the EPP does. Churches and religions
have much to offer to the political community in the way of insights, values,
world views, solidarity, spiritual renewal, which are so much needed in our
world. A world that is in agony and threatened by many things. My name is
Manuel Barrios. I am a catholic priest and I a work in the Spanish Bishops’
Conference since 2011 as director of the Secretariat for ecumenism and interreligious
dialogue.
I want to
argue in this brief speech that religion, when it is authentically lived and
taught, not only nurtures peace, but it also enhances humankind, making persons
and communities more genuinely human and full. The reason for this is that the
human being, as the Bible teaches, is made in the image and likeness of God,
that is, he has an inherent transcendent dimension, he is open to the Ultimate
Reality in his very being. His very nature, as the existentialists say, is to
ex-ist, to exist outside himself, in reference to the Other. This is what Saint
Augustine also expresses in his famous quote: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O
Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee”.
It is true
that today many people, mainly in the West, don’t think this way. What they
have seen and learned in the social sciences, in the media, and in public
discussion brings them to consider religion as dangerous and as a hindrance to
human development; as something that promotes or gives grounds to fanaticism,
terrorism, bigotry, superstition and that threatens basic human rights, like freedom
of conscience and equality between men and women. Many, to avoid this danger,
lobby to reduce the presence of religion in the public sphere and use the means
at their disposal to discredit religions and religious leaders. Obviously, I
don’t believe this. I believe that religion is inherent to the human person as
such and if well practiced brings him to fulfil his potentialities.
But let’s go
back to the initial question: What is the peace potential of religions? What
can we do to enhance it? What can the religions offer to our world? To answer
this I will make a brief reference to Pope Francis’ visit to Egypt a few days
ago and his speech at the University of Al-Azhar and also to the Declaration Toward a Global Ethic of
the Parliament of World Religions.
But first it
is important to state one basic principle that is of paramount importance for
world peace. It is the fundamental human right to freedom of religion. Though
this might seem to us self-evident, it is not so. For the religious minded
person it is difficult to accept that another person does not adhere to what he
considers the Truth, with capital letter. For him this Truth is the most
important thing in his life, it is a Truth that is valid for everyone, it is a
Truth that has directly to do with eternal salvation, therefore he feels he has
the duty to lead others to it. Accepting religious freedom as a fundamental
human right, a right that implies that someone can choose a different truth,
might be difficult to recognize for him. It was difficult for the Catholic
Church. The path that brought finally to the declaration on religious freedom
of the Second Vatican Council was not easy. This document was promulgated in
the last session of the Council after much discussions and clarifications, and
it was not accepted by all. The path undertaken by the Catholic Church has to
be undertaken by all Churches and religions if we want peace. Accepting
religious freedom does not imply that men and women are not obliged to seek truth
and once found to adhere to it; it means that this obligation falls and exerts
its binding force upon the human conscience and cannot be imposed by external
coercion.
In his speech
in the university of Al-Azar in Cairo, Pope Francis spoke of Egypt as the
land of
civilizations and the land of covenants. He spoke of the importance of
education and the quest for true knowledge, for wisdom. He taught that in
interreligious dialogue one has to put together respect for one’s own identity,
the courage to accept differences and sincerity of intentions. He said that the
only alternative to the civilty of encounter, fostered by good education, is
the incivility of conflict. In relation to
the role of religions he said: “especially today, religion is
not a problem but a part of the solution: against the temptation to settle into
a banal and uninspired life, where everything begins and ends here below,
religion reminds us of the need to lift our hearts to the Most High in order to
learn how to build the city of man… Sinai reminds us above all that authentic
covenants on earth cannot ignore heaven, that human beings cannot attempt to
encounter one another in peace by eliminating God from the horizon, nor can
they climb the mountain to appropriate God for themselves”.
In relation
to the image of Mount Sinai, pope Francis spoke of the ten commandments that
were promulgated there. He quoted Pope John Paul II who, in his Jubilee
pilgrimage to Mount Sinai in the year 2000, said: “The Ten Commandments
are not an arbitrary imposition of a tyrannical Lord. They were written in
stone; but before that, they were written on the human heart as the universal
moral law, valid in every time and place. Today as always, the Ten Words of the
Law provide the only true basis for the lives of individuals, societies and
nations. Today as always, they are the only future of the human family”.
Here, I
gather, is where the great peace potential of religions lies. Beyond engaging
in interreligious dialogue and religious leaders giving example of friendship
and cooperation, beyond the defence of the fundamental human right to freedom
of religion and conscience, beyond declaring the sacredness of human life
against every form of violence, beyond praying for one another and imploring from
God the gift of peace, beyond doing all we can to eliminate situations of
poverty and exploitation – all things
that are very necessary – religions can offer and are called to offer a
spiritual renewal that our world desperately needs, a change in the hearts of
people, a change based on the “binding values, convictions and norms which are
valid for all humans, regardless of their social origin, sex, skin colour,
language or religion”, as the Declaration
Toward a Global Ethic states.
According to
this proposal of a Global Ethic Project*, it is possible to define a set of
“binding values, irrevocable standards, and personal attitudes” that are common
to religions, without ignoring the differences between them; in other words, it
is possible to arrive to a minimal fundamental consensus on a set of core
values and attitudes we all share. These can be summarized in the six
ethical principles of a global ethic: humanity, the Golden Rule, non-violence,
justice, honesty and partnership between men and women.
Keeping alive
this sense of global responsibility based on these values and passing it on to
future generations, promoting peace, justice, truthfulness and partnership, is
the special task of religions and their main way of contributing to peace.
Thank you very much!
*According to
the Global Ethic Project, If
we take a close look at world religions, we
find in them similar ethical
teachings. Common to them is that every human being must be treated humanely
and that we must do good and avoid evil. A basic principle that is found in
many religions is the golden rule:
what you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others. From this basic
principle there arises a set of guidelines that are also common to religions.
Namely:
- Commitment to a culture of non-violence and respect for life, in accordance with the commandment: “You shall not kill!”; or, positively expressed: Have respect for life!
- Commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order, in accordance with the commandment: “You shall not steal!”; or, positively expressed: Deal honestly and fairly!
- Commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness, in accordance with the commandment: “You shall not lie!”; or, positively expressed: Speak and act truthfully!
- Commitment to a culture of equal rights and partnership between men and women, in accordance with the commandment: “You shall not commit sexual immorality!”; or, positively expressed: Respect and love one another!
