In the spirit of Assisi

Faith, Reason and Islam

Despite the offence taken by some Muslims at the Pope’s lecture on faith and reason, interreligious dialogue, forged by John Paul II 20 years ago in the city of St Francis, will continue to develop and address the concerns and fears of the world’s faithful

The 15 September marked six months since the surprise appointment of Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald to Cairo by Pope Benedict XVI. As I have written before, his departure left "a deep notch in the history of relations between the Catholic Church and Islam" in that "only under his leadership ... was the Vatican able to establish and maintain continuing dialogues with Muslim partners".

Many were stunned that one so successful in dialogue was moved away from Rome's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue to a papal ambassadorship. Leaving the Tiber for the Nile, he took up a first-class post, critically important for Middle East peace, home to Al-Azhar University and, more importantly, to the League of Arab States to which Archbishop Fitzgerald is the Pope's delegate. Adding to people's amazement was the unusual month-long wait for his replacement's name, who turned out to be the now 76-year-old Cardinal Paul Poupard, still President of another Vatican office involved in dialogue, the Pontifical Council for Culture. September seemed an appropriate time to ask "whither interreligious dialogue," or, more specifically, "whither Vatican-Islamic relations?"

Until the beginning of September, there were few facts and much speculation on the direction Benedict XVI would take the Holy See in interreligious dialogue. Then, the first two weeks of September brought further surprises. The first came as a letter from Pope Benedict to Bishop Domenico Sorentino of the Diocese of Assisi, made public at the Twentieth Annual Interreligious Prayer Meeting for Peace on 4 September. Benedict firmly endorsed the multi-religious prayer event for demonstrating how prayer does not divide but unites and for embodying the premises for dialogue in Vatican II's declaration on interreligious dialogue, Nostra Aetate.

By reiterating "the spirit of Assisi" and praising John Paul II as a prophetic Servant of God for initiating the event in 1986, Benedict dispelled speculations that he regarded the Assisi events as inappropriate. Reactionaries who dismissed John Paul II as "Pope of Assisi" and those still reluctant to endorse interreligious dialogue as intended by Vatican II and subsequently developed could no longer look to Benedict XVI for support. Had he not made this point earlier in Cologne in 2005, when he told Muslims that interreligious and intercultural dialogue "cannot be reduced to an optional extra"?  The three Assisi events, hosted by the Pope in 1986, 1993 and 2002, were the greatest implementation of Vatican II's Nostra Aetate.

That is why Pope Benedict's address in Regensburg on 12 September provided an even greater surprise. Before he spoke at his former university, most of the world had never heard of Emperor Manuel II Paleologus, who reigned at the end of the fourteenth century and in the final decades of the Byzantine Empire. Now, millions know something of him and his account of a dialogue with a Persian Muslim. Because Benedict chose not to make a passing reference leading into his broader message of faith and reason, the immediate future of Christian-Muslim relations seems less clear. Benedict, devoting several paragraphs to the emperor's text, committed a few errors about Islam and, unfortunately, the line between narration and accusation blurred. He quoted directly an insult hurled by the Byzantine emperor at the character of Muhammad, but later in an extraordinary and unprecedented move, apologised for offending Muslims, stating earnestly that the remarks do "not in any way express my personal thought". L'Osservatore Romano carried his apology on the front page in Arabic and other languages.

Benedict's address carries a misidentification of a passage from the Qur'an as early rather than late in the career of Muhammad and an undeveloped understanding of the emergence of jihad and its abuse, partially based on misdating that passage. The medieval text also leaves the general impression that Muslims do not employ reason as a tool for Qur'anic exegesis. Written after three centuries of Crusades, which the Byzantine emperor and his Persian interlocutor might have agreed were dismal failures, the text is representative of the kinds of accusations Christians often made against Muslims. Likewise, there are examples from history of Muslims accusing Christians of unreasonable beliefs and worse. If anything, the episode, set off by the papal address in Regensburg, demonstrated that, even after decades of gestures of good will, improved relations and dialogue, not far below the surface are the effects of the longer legacy of mutual polemics, wars and occupation - namely hostility and suspicion.

Overall, Benedict XVI, who has fitted well into the role of pope, has pursued a path of "less at the centre is better" for the Catholic Church, the papacy and the Roman Curia. After the long papacy of John Paul II, who enjoyed ever-expanding popularity and adulation for his larger-than-life personality and bold gestures, the change in Rome is noticeable. Promising to streamline the Curia, Benedict has so far placed, but not combined, four offices under dual presidencies - interreligious dialogue and culture, and justice and peace and migrants and itinerants. Whereas once there were 13 on the staff of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, now there are nine.

Five years ago, when Cardinal Francis Arinze was President and Archbishop Fitzgerald was Secretary of the PCID, the office generated considerable activity because its president and secretary were fully engaged in projects, travelling, meetings with religious leaders in Rome or abroad, ongoing dialogues, giving talks and workshops, and publishing. Less of this can happen under present circumstances. The office for interreligious dialogue, for decades on a floor beneath the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, recently moved with the Christian Unity office to the same floor of a new building and in closer working proximity. This seems fitting to those of us who have engaged in both ecumenical and interreligious dialogue because these two offices belong closer together. The Pontifical Council for Unity also oversees Jewish relations.

When bishops cut back on staff for dialogue, whether in the Roman Curia, episcopal conferences or dioceses, they lose the considerable depth needed for adequate response to crises and for taking advantage of opportunities. Loss of those who know religious groups so well that they are the first point of confidence and contact means fewer opportunities for constructive dialogue, but the loss is deeper. None of us in ecumenical or interreligious dialogue does our work alone. We depend on networks of scholars and religious leaders, collegially providing depth and breadth so that there are fewer mistakes, careful attention to detail and nuance, and developing consensus. For dioceses, having one full-time person in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue is a luxury. Most bishops ask pastors or diocesan staff to devote only part of their time to dialogue. Diocesan officials turn to episcopal conferences for help, and conferences to the Roman Curia for assistance.

A German broadcaster asked Pope Benedict in August about the tension between papal primacy and the collegiality of bishops. He did not mention national episcopal conferences among the instruments aiding collegiality. Instead, he identified other important structures, ad limina visits of bishops to Rome every five years, the synod of bishops and consistories of cardinals and drew attention to the universal role of the papacy so that "Christians do not identify too much with nationalism". "Less at the centre is better" implies fewer interventions in dioceses and more at the centre will directly involve contact with the Pope.

Until the Regensburg address, I would have concluded that there would be less interreligious dialogue at the centre and that we would accommodate this loss. Archbishop Fitzgerald always repeated during his 19 years in the Roman Curia that the office for interreligious dialogue had no monopoly on it and that the real dialogue takes place at the local level. I have said this too, paraphrasing a famous American politician, that all interreligious dialogue is local. Trust and friendship necessary for everyone to engage in the serious work of dialogue depends on personal relationships contextualised in each setting for dialogue. The more international a dialogue, the less easy it is to accomplish this. Theological work was very difficult for the Catholic-Muslim dialogues co-sponsored by the Vatican because of their broad arena and the distant relationship of the participants. In the United States, there were three regional ongoing annual dialogues with Muslims able to do theological work, some of which resulted in publications. Success depended significantly on the good will of Catholic-Muslim partners living in the same location and joining others in the regional dialogue.

Ecumenical dialogue needs direction and involvement from the centre because of its orientation towards reconciliation of Churches. Highest authorities must be involved for ultimate success. The goals for interreligious dialogue do not include unity in worship and doctrine; rather, interreligious dialogue aims at the other worthwhile goals - mutuality in understanding and spiritual sharing, joint study of topics, healing the effects of past controversies, and cooperation to assure justice and care for those in need. Like "spiritual ecumenism", interreligious dialogue can become a spiritual practice. Special groups with a spirituality for dialogue exist not only among Christians, but also among Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and others.

From the start, Pope Benedict XVI has coupled interreligious dialogue and intercultural dialogue. In his first sermon, he spoke of ecumenical dialogue as a necessary theological dialogue, but he described the "open and sincere dialogue" with representatives of other religions combined with all people of good will as a "promising dialogue ... with various civilisations because it is mutual understanding that gives rise to conditions for a better future for everyone".

In his December 2005 address to the Roman Curia, dedicated to "the correct hermeneutic for interpreting Vatican II", he addressed interreligious dialogue near the end, after some attention to the dialogue between modern reason and faith principally in Europe. He identified three sets of questions: over the relationship between faith and modern science, the relationship between the Church and the modern state that makes room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, and the problem of religious tolerance, a question that required "a new definition of the relationship between Christian faith and the world religions". Pope Benedict uses an underlying continuity with the Church's past as a necessary tool for assessing the changes and discontinuities of the Second Vatican Council. His articulation of interreligious dialogue, as an aspect of broader questions of religious freedom, tolerance and common values in the face of a rampant relativism, gives a very specific purpose to that dialogue.

Aside from countless local interreligious initiatives that will be truly religious encounters, the coupling of interreligious dialogue and cultural dialogue into a dialogue of civilisations is what the Pope feels the world rightly expects of him now. The speech at Regensburg can be read in light of this approach. So too can its mistakes.

His sincere clarification that he intended no harm and his public apology were truly upright first steps. Dialogue needs to take place in earnest so that everyone's concerns are heard. Re-dedicated to improving relations, Christians and Muslims especially need to assess why old problems erupted so quickly. Some in the papal diplomatic corps, notably Archbishop Fitzgerald, are capable of convening dialogues. These could occur in Cairo, Tehran and Jakarta, and other places in between, and in Europe and America, not just to clarify what was misunderstood at Regensburg but also to assess honestly what this occasion has provoked. Eventually, it would be hoped the Pope himself will meet others in dialogue.

This dialogue cannot be left to diplomats and politicians, who do not emphasise its essentially religious character, and would lose its dynamic spirit. Religious leaders, dedicated scholars and people of good will everywhere, for whom "the spirit of Assisi" is not secondary, will take the next step together.

John Borelli is special assistant for interreligious initiatives to the President of Georgetown University. He is also national coordinator for interreligious dialogue for the US Jesuit Conference and served in ecumenical and interreligious relations for more than 16 years at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.