Christian faith is source of Catholic priest’s passion for Islam

By James Martone
Catholic News Service

CAIRO (CNS) — On a recent afternoon in Cairo, Comboni Father Giuseppe Scattolin was delving into 13th-century Sufi poems at his desk in the single room he inhabits, on an upper floor of a building that also houses an Arabic language school and its related administrative offices.

The ancient odes he studied were written by Sufi Arab poet Umar Ibn al-Farid, who lived in Egypt eight centuries ago, leaving behind a trove of verse in Cairo when he died there in 1235.

They are little known in the Arab and Muslim world and even less so in the Christian West. Bringing such Muslim texts to a wider audience is not only Father Scattolin’s passion, but his duty as a Christian, he said from behind his open laptop and piles of books in Arabic, French, Italian and English.

“What does it mean to be Christian? To know the other! What is the identity of Christ … to put on those stupid garments of the cardinals? What does St. Paul say of Christ? ‘He emptied himself,’” Father Scattolin told Catholic News Service.

And so “emptying” himself is what the missionary has been doing for almost four decades now, in the form of numerous publications and studies, in multiple languages, on Islam’s different literatures and schools, and through dialogue and other interfaith activities with Muslims, aimed at furthering understanding among Muslim and Christian communities.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE 

Pope Hopes to Strengthen Christian-Muslim Dialogue

Pope Francis is to celebrate his first Easter vigil on Saturday after praying for peace in the Middle East and stronger Christian-Muslim dialogue at a torch-lit ceremony for Good Friday.

The newly elected Argentine pope will preside over a mass at St Peter’s Basilica from 1930 GMT, baptizing four adult converts — an Albanian, an Italian, a Russian and a U.S. national.

The ceremony will wrap up a series of intensive preparations leading up to Easter Sunday – the holiest day in the Christian calendar – by the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years.

Tens of thousands of people are expected at mass on Sunday when the pope will issue a special blessing from the same balcony of St Peter’s Basilica where he appeared on the night of his election.

Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican’s official daily Osservatore Romano said seeing the new pope during Easter helped explain the timing of his predecessor Benedict XVI’s resignation.

“Thanks to the timing chosen for this decision, his successor has managed to make the start of his service as successor of St Peter coincide with this most important celebration,” he wrote.

“It is in these crucial liturgical days that we have heard the strength of the voice of a pope who has come for the first time almost from ‘the ends of the world’ as he himself said,” Vian wrote.

“In all his life as priest and bishop he has always shown a special concern for material and spiritual peripheries,” he said, underlining the pope’s Holy Week message of bringing the troubled Roman Catholic Church closer to the needy.

Francis marked Good Friday with a traditional ceremony at the Colosseum in Rome, presiding over the re-enactment of Jesus Christ’s last hours.

“Christians must respond to evil with good, taking the cross upon themselves as Jesus did,” said Francis, who followed the ceremony from under a canopy overlooking the 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater.

FULL ARTICLE FROM AL ARABIYA 

‘Let’s Start Over’: Muslims Hope Pope Francis will Salvage Relations

By Kari Huus, Staff Writer, NBC News

Catholics and Muslims have come a long way since the Crusades, but during the tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, relations between the world’s two largest religions hit the skids.

So it was with relief and renewed optimism that prominent Muslims and interfaith advocates cheered the newly anointed Pope Francis.

“We are hoping for better relations with the Vatican after the election of the new pope,” Mahmud Azab, adviser for inter-faith affairs at Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning in Cairo, told AFP. “We congratulate the Church of St. Peter and all Catholics around the world.”

From the start, Benedict put less energy in reaching out to other religions than his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who blazed the trail for Catholic relations with Muslims and other religions through his tireless travels and scores of meetings and prayer with imams around the world.

Under John Paul, the Vatican launched the World Day of Prayer for Peace in 1986, which was at first a hard sell for prominent Muslims, said Father Thomas Michel, who has a PhD in Islamic studies and headed John Paul’s office for Islam for 13 years.

FULL ARTICLE FROM NBC NEWS

A Way to Bridge the Christian-Muslim Gap

“If any Church or other place of worship stands in need of protection, they will find us standing shoulder to shoulder with them.” His Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad – the worldwide head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the fifth successor of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian and the only existing Muslim caliph – said this to Pope Benedict XVI in a hand-delivered letter on Nov. 10, 2011.

These words of mutual understanding and protection fostered a true building of an interfaith bridge in the future between Christians and Muslims so that they can work together for peace and absolute justice in the world.

Recently, Ahmad echoed further words of mutual understanding to Pope Francis I by congratulating him on his election: “First of all, I would like to offer congratulations to Pope Francis I and to Catholics across the world.” In the same spirit, I reiterate these words for Pope Francis, too.

Some people might be shaking their heads when reading this and equating it to a utopian fantasy. Any reasonable person would be dismayed by analyzing the current Christian-Muslim situation that exists around the world.

This bleak outlook begins in Pakistan, where recently a mob of 3,000 Pakistani Muslims went to a local Christian town, aptly named Joseph Colony, and burned down 150 homes without provocation. Not only is this a very tragic incident, but it has created a sense of distrust between the Christians and Muslims.

This can be labeled as just another isolated incident, but then it would be tantamount to being dishonest to what is really going on here.

FULL ARTICLE FROM MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL 

Muslims Greet New Pope, Eye Better Ties

CAIRO – Muslims worldwide have congratulated Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio for being elected Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, voice hope for better relations with the Vatican under the new pontiff.

“We congratulate Pope Francis on his election by the College of Cardinals and offer the Muslim community’s support and cooperation in every positive effort he will undertake for peace, justice and the betterment of humanity,” Nihad Award, the National Executive Director of the umbrella Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement obtained by OnIslam.net on Thursday, March 14.

Bergoglio was named a pope late Wednesday after four inconclusive votes, replacing Benedict XVI, who resigned last month for health reasons.

The new pontiff, 76, the first from South America, has taken the name Francis.

He will be officially installed as the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church on March 19, the Vatican said.

Bergoglio’s election has broken Europe’s centuries-old grip on the papacy.

He is also the first to take the name Francis, in honor of the 12th-century Italian saint from Assisi who spurned wealth to pursue a life of poverty.

FULL ARTICLE FROM ONISLAM 

What Muslims want in a new pope

(RNS) Together, Islam and Catholicism represent about 40 percent of the world’s population, so the estimated 1.6 billion Muslims in the world have more than a passing interest in the new pope who will shepherd the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Too often, relations between the two groups have been shaped by conflict — the Christian Crusades of 1,000 years ago are still a raw wound for many Muslims, and more recently, Muslim extremist attacks on Christian communities across Africa and the Middle East have left the Vatican deeply concerned.

“What the pope says or doesn’t say can have enormous consequences on such relations,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the Cordoba Initiative, an organization dedicated to improving Muslim-Western relations, and the founder of the controversial so-called Ground Zero mosque in New York.

FULL ARTICLE FROM RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE

What the Catholic Church can Learn from the Muslim Experience

Historians may look back at the second decade of the 21st century and pinpoint the Arab Spring and the resignation ofPope Benedict VXI as two of the era’s most influential events. The former freed some countries in the Middle East from the ironclad grip of dictators and ushered in a new wave of Islamist governments; the latter presents the Catholic Church with a unique opportunity to rebrand itself (a majority of Catholics said in a recent CBS/New York Times poll that the church is “out of touch”) and embrace a more broadened approach.

Both are revolutionary events that represent a sea change in the way we view religion and politics, tradition and modernity. They can redefine what is possible in a world where rigid political and religious orthodoxy present increasing challenges. The election of a new pope and the rise of new Arab governments present an important occasion for cooperation and improved Muslim-Catholic relations. Both parties should jump at the chance to forge such a positive path.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE WASHINGTON POST 

French Muslim Leader on Papacy: ‘A New Beginning Is Necessary’

Dalil Boubakeur is in his office at the Grand Mosque in Paris, where he has poured mint tea. The mosque is an imposing example of Muslim architecture, not far from the Seine, and was built in 1926 to recognize the colonial Muslim troops who had fought for France during World War I.

Boubakeur, who knows Latin and is as well-versed in the history of the Catholic Church as he is in the Koran, is an admirer of Germany, which he got to know after World War II. “I love its regions, its literature and its history,” Boubakeur says. He apologizes for his somewhat rusty German. “I don’t have much of an opportunity to speak it,” he said. “The last time was with Pope Benedict.”

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your excellency, Pope Benedict XVI is stepping down on February 28. What do you wish for from the future pontiff?

Boubakeur: A reversal. Christianity under Pope Benedict XVI started becoming more doctrinaire. He was not able to understand Muslims. He had no direct experience with Islam, and he found nothing positive to say about our beliefs.

FULL ARTICLE FROM DER SPIEGEL ONLINE

Murder In Zanzibar: Christians, Muslims Struggle To Keep The Peace In Tourist Hotspot

Father Evarist Mushi was on his way to lead a service at the Betras Catholic Church in Mtoni — an area not far from Stone Town, a World Heritage Site — when assailants cornered and killed him. The incident echoes a similar attack in December, when attackers shot and seriously wounded another Catholic priest in the Tomondo area to the south of Stone Town.

Mushi’s death spurred condemnation from security officials on the island, who urged calm and vowed to apprehend the perpetrators.

“We understand that these crimes are being propped up by some bad elements under the pretext of politics, religion or economic reasons, though no religion or political grouping supports violence in principle,” said Said Mwema, the Tanzanian inspector general of police, according to the Tanzania Daily News.

Despite these assurances, the death of Father Mushi is sure to unsettle Zanzibar’s Christians, who are vastly outnumbered on the archipelago. Tanzania as a whole is 60 percent Christian and 36 percent Muslim. But in Zanzibar, more than 95 percent of residents follow Islam.

Religion is integral to Tanzanian society; a full 95 percent of both Christians and Muslims said that faith was a very important part of their lives, according to data from a comprehensive 2010 poll conducted by the The Pew Forum. Of Tanzania’s Muslims, 86 percent said the Quran should be taken literally; 78 percent of Christians said the same of the Bible.

A division between the country’s two largest religious groups is evident. Though the survey found that 95 percent of both groups said religiously motivated violence could not be justified, a majority of Muslims said they knew little or nothing about Christianity, just as the majority of Christians said they knew little or nothing about Islam.

FULL ARTICLE FROM INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES 

Is the Lenten Season Awkward for Muslims? Not at Georgetown University

I’ve often heard that the Lenten Season is the most awkward time between Christians and Muslims. This is probably because the end of Jesus’s (PBUH) story is one of the major differences between our two religions. In Islam, Jesus ascended directly into Heaven and was not killed while the Romans crucified another man who was “made by Allah to appear like Jesus” (Quran 4:157-158). For many Muslims, engaging with Christians around the time of Easter is especially challenging because the Christian belief in Jesus’s crucifixion is central and frames much of Christian identity.

However, since Muslims and Christians often find common ground in Jesus’ teachings, I believe that a holy period focused on Jesus provides opportunities to reinforce the commonalities between our faiths. Indeed, attending Georgetown University showed me the enormous potential for interfaith dialogue about common values during the Lenten season.

Georgetown is a Jesuit-Catholic institution, but the university greatly supports other chaplaincies and actively encourages other religious groups to host their own events during the Lenten season. For example, virtually all chaplaincies (and even some secular organizations) host spring retreats which emphasize personal reflection and spiritual growth. Retreats are part of the university’s Ignatian heritage, but people of all faiths (and non-faith, as well) are invited to engage with the Jesuit value of Contemplation in Action. Also, Georgetown hosts a large number of community service and interfaith events designed to bring the campus together around Jesuit values ofWomen and Men for others and Community in Diversity. Although these principles are officially part of Jesuit spirituality, I have found many similarities between them and my personal values as a Muslim. Through Georgetown’s many forums for inter-religious dialogue, I have grown stronger in my own faith.