Interfaith dialogue is of the utmost priority for world peace, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said before leaving Vienna to take part in the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue this week. Source: The Tablet.
Together with 200 religious leaders and research scientists, the cardinal will be taking part in the forum, which begins today and concludes on Saturday, at the invitation of the President of the Supreme Council for Islamic affairs, Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Khalifa.
Cardinal Schönborn told the Austrian Catholic news agency, KathPress, that all religions had three fundamental things in common – sharing a common source, a relation to transcendence and a responsibility for justice and peace.
“Different cultures and different languages are, in the final instance, only a differentiation within one family,” Cardinal Schönborn pointed out. Pope Francis had emphasised this in Fratelli Tutti, his third encyclical, he recalled, but it had already been underlined in 1937 by pope Pius XI in his encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, in which he sharply criticised all forms of racism.
All religions, moreover, related to transcendence, which created a broad base for dialogue. And thirdly, they also had a common responsibility for peace and justice. “The idea that we will all finally have to take responsibility for our actions” was common to all religions, Cardinal Schönborn recalled.
Pope Francis will attend the Bahrain forum’s closing ceremony on Friday.
After attending the forum, Cardinal Schönborn will join Pope Francis for the ecumenical prayer for peace in Our Lady of Arabia Cathedral in Awali on November 4 and at the Mass in Bahrain stadium on November 5.
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Interfaith dialogue ‘a priority for world peace’ (by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt, The Tablet)
