Dialogue, not denial: Pope finds strength in valuing differences

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — January is dialogue month at the Vatican. From World Peace Day Jan. 1, to the World Day of Migrants and Refugees Jan. 14 and concluding with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Jan. 18-25, Pope Francis preaches about dialogue.

In the teaching of Pope Francis, the purpose of dialogue is not to achieve a homogenized unity, but to move humbly, with respect, toward a community and a world where differences are not threatening, but enriching and therefore cannot be manipulated by those who want to sow fear, hatred and violence.

Recently, Pope Francis has been describing as “ideological colonization” the drive, purposeful or accidental, to create a global – and therefore, bland – culture. Religious differences often are the first target. Religion is seen as divisive so people are encouraged to keep their personal beliefs private and objections are raised to any public expression of faith.

In his speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See Jan. 8, the pope decried attacks on religious freedom and how “religion becomes either an occasion for the ideological justification of new forms of extremism or a pretext for the social marginalization of believers, if not their downright persecution.”

But, he said, the only way to build inclusive societies is to understand people and that happens only when they are “recognized and accepted in all the dimensions that constitute their identity, including the religious dimension.”

Globalization and migration created more communities where people of different religions, nationalities and ethnic groups live side by side. As Nigerian Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja told a conference in Rome Jan. 8, “It won’t be long before there is no place where Christians and Muslims don’t live together.”

And while Cardinal Onaiyekan said he knows many people in Europe and North America think that is a recipe for disaster and would point to his own country as an example, the cardinal insisted that is just not true.

At his ordination as a priest and again as a bishop, he said, “my whole family was in the church – Christians and Muslims.”

Humility is key, the cardinal said. Each person must “admit that God is much greater than us, much greater than our religion, to the extent that it is a human construct.”