Cardinal Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, mccj, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, focused the morning speeches of the second day of the conference. 51 Consecrated Life Week which will be held in Madrid from April 20 to 23. Several hundred people, many of them young people, attended the conference in person. religious men and women.
In addition, thousands of registrations have been received from communities of religious life from all over the world who follow this congress through its online modality.
The President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue focused his speech on "Interreligious dialogue as a space for encounter and a commitment to the future", a reality he spoke to Omnes about, as well as some current issues.
In these days, we are witnessing confrontations in which the need for religious confessions to promote reconciliation and not war is evident. How can we carry out this commitment to peace that the Pope asks of us and which is increasingly necessary?
-Since the beginning of his pontificate, the Pope has stressed that the Church is a field hospital that it has to go out to meet others and be converted, inviting the different groups, both the different Christian communions and other religious traditions, to work to be artisans of peace.
It was very surprising that the Pope, during his blessing Urbi et orbi last Easter Sunday cited these conflicts as the fruit of what he calls "a world war in pieces".
It is impressive to see a world really wounded, divided, confronted by interests. Divided, also, by fundamentalism, terrorism, abuses of power, the lack of human rights, the lack of respect for human dignity... This means that, never as today, we need everyone, in a climate of relationship, to know how to collaborate to create this better world that we all want.
It surprises me negatively to see how almost the only cry that invokes peace and tries to create this relationship in favor of peace is that of the Holy Father with some religious leaders; while in other areas of world life war is invoked more. It is necessary to make the effort to look for these means: tables of dialogue, meeting places... for peace. For this reason the theme of dialogue is fundamental; we need it. All that the Holy Father and the Church are doing in this regard is essential.
In recent years, we have seen or known of many such gestures of dialogue in the Church but, Is this commitment to 'openness to the other' reduced to these public gestures?
-Authentic dialogue is the dialogue of daily life. It is a dialogue that is formed in daily life, in the neighborhood, in coexistence..., in those thousand ways in which we live a climate of communion between people, coming from different realities and conditions, to create this climate of peace that is basically the ambition of every human being as God has created us.
We must collaborate so that every human being can enjoy his or her dignity and, together, work to make social cohesion possible for the benefit of all, so that we can promote the common good.
In this climate of communion and bearing in mind your participation in these Days, how do you value the presence of so many religious communities in places where they are almost the only presence of the Church?
-The presence of religious life in these places is commendable and should be appreciated. There is a recognition everywhere, both of different cultural realities and of different religious traditions, of this great respect for religious communities that are in the most remote places and that live totally at the service of others.
We have the example of the 'universal brother', Charles de Foucauld and who lived in the desert, in Tamanrasset. There, from his solitude, from the remoteness of the desert, he gave the Church this possibility of returning to its origins: to the importance of brotherhood and sorority made of the relationship of each one with God and the relationship between us.
Now that we are immersed in a synodal journey that focuses on this relational aspect of dialogue, how is this synod being lived in the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue?
-We have had several meetings and we have realized that to speak of synodality is to speak of dialogue.
We have a series of projects so that, in these two years of joint reflection and growth, the role of the Christian community in relation to other religious traditions is focused on creating this journey together for the good of humanity.
It is important not to forget that the Good Shepherd knows that there are sheep that are not of our fold and we have to go to those sheep farther away.
