ORTO ALEGRE,
Brazil, February 23 (IPS): Dialogue has been one of the most frequently
mentioned words at the ninth assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC),
which ends Friday in this southern Brazilian city after 10 days of debates
marked by the controversy triggered by the publication of caricatures of
the Prophet Muhammad in newspapers in Europe.
South African Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu
said the most important thing is to move forward, through dialogue, and
not "shout at one another". "Like my father used to say, we should not
raise our voices, but hone our arguments," said Tutu.
Concern over the need for tolerance and "religious
democracy" was expressed in virtually all of the debates and workshops
attended by the roughly 3,300 participants in the assembly, which began
February 14 in the Pontifical University of Porto Alegre, the capital of
the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.
The crisis that broke out after a conservative Danish
newspaper published 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad was one of the most
widely discussed issues at the assembly.
The wave of violence has generally been blamed on
religious intolerance. But Tutu, recalling the US-led invasion and
occupation of Iraq, noted in a conversation with reporters that today’s
conflicts are first and foremost political in nature.
"Religion is often used as a subterfuge for other problems
that have nothing to do with religiosity," Bishop Margot Käsmann of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hannover, Germany told IPS (…) The
roots of these conflicts can be traced to two different sources, said
Elías Crisóstomo Abramides, an Argentine ecumenical patriarch of the
Orthodox Church of Constantinople, a Greek orthodox church founded in
Turkey.
One of these relates to invasions of countries, such as those that have
taken place in the Caribbean, Afghanistan, and more recently, in Iraq. The
second stems from the differences between the Christian and Islamic worlds
(...)
Meanwhile, the religious leaders gathered in Porto Alegre
were critical of the cartoons published by the Danish newspaper. "The
cartoons sparked the fire, and now the question is how to put it out.
Christians and Muslims must work together to promote dialogue," said Rev.
Dr Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the WCC and an ordained minister in
the Methodist Church of Kenya.
Henry Sobel, chief rabbi of the Israelite Congregation of Sao Paulo,
Brazil, launched a manifesto at the WCC meeting stressing the importance
of freedom of expression as a fundamental principle of democracy and an
inalienable right of human beings, which must always be preserved. But, he
added, so must respect for others.
"If it is not accompanied by respect for others, (freedom
of expression) can become destructive," he maintained. "The only way to
build a more peaceful world is to seek to understand the point of view of
others and respect what is sacred to others," he added (…)
The Geneva-based WCC brings together more than 340
churches, denominations and church fellowships around the world, including
eastern orthodox churches, major Protestant denominations such as
Anglican, Baptist and Lutheran, and united and independent churches. It
represents some 550 million Christians, but does not include members of
the Roman Catholic Church, the world’s largest Christian denomination.
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