By Deborah Castellano Lubov
In a world run by narrow interests and war, the Pope says religious leaders must set a good example, and commit themselves to encouraging and assisting our wounded and war-struck human family.
This was at the heart of Pope Francis’ address at the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue on 4 November in the Al-Fida’ Square of the Sakhir Royal Palace in Bahrain’s capital of Manama, during the Pope’s first-full day of his Apostolic Journey to the Kingdom of Bahrain.
The Pope is making his 39th Apostolic Journey to Bahrain, 3-6 November, after having accepted the invitation to visit the country extended by the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, and by the local Church.
The Journey to the Middle Eastern, Muslim-majority Gulf nation marks the Holy Father’s 58th country visited as Pope.
He visits the archipelago to participate in this Forum, and to bring his closeness to the country’s small Catholic flock, who make up about 4 percent of the population and are comprised primarily of immigrants and foreign workers.
Urgent appeals
During the Pope’s address at the Forum, Pope Francis condemned war, made strong appeals for true religious freedom, and highlighted “urgent educational priorities” regarding recognition of women, protecting children’s fundamental rights, acting, and on the concept of citizenship.
The Holy Father began by expressing his gratitude for welcoming him to the two-day Forum organized under the patronage of the King of Bahrain, on the theme “East and West for Human Coexistence,” which welcomed the participation of the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Al Tayyeb, and of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew.
Yet, he lamented, we are living at a time when humanity, connected as never before, appears much more divided than united.
On the brink of a delicate precipice
The Pope applauded those participating in the Forum for their common commitment to promoting dialogue and encounter.
Striking paradox struggling for partisan interests
The Pope lamented “a dramatic and childlike scenario” at play around them, where “we are ‘playing’ instead with fire, missiles and bombs, and weapons, covering our common home with ashes and hatred.”
There will be bitter consequences, the Holy Father said, “if we continue to accentuate conflict instead of understanding, if we persist in stubbornly imposing our own models and despotic, imperialist, nationalist and populist visions.”
This, he warned, will be the case, if we don’t listen to the voice of the poor, if we continue simplistically to divide people into good and bad, if we make no effort to understand one another and to cooperate for the good of all.
Rejecting ‘isolating’ thinking
The emergence of conflicts, he insisted, should not cause us to lose sight of the “less evident tragedies in our human family,” such as “the catastrophic inequality whereby the majority of people on our planet experience unprecedented injustice, the shameful scourge of hunger and the calamity of climate change, a sign of our lack of care for the common home.”
Religious leaders must set good example
The Pope underscored the important role and responsibilities of religious leaders.
Challenges related to prayer, education and action
The Pope proposed three areas of challenges that emerge from the Document on Human Fraternity and from the Kingdom of Bahrain Declaration, both of which, they have reflected on in these days: prayer, education and action.
Turning first to prayer, the Pope said prayer touches the human heart.
For this reason, prayer, “the opening of our hearts to the Most High,” is “essential for purifying ourselves of selfishness, closed-mindedness, self-referentiality, falseness and injustice.”
Those who pray, he reminded, receive “peace of the heart,” and “cannot fail to bear witness to this” and invite others to follow suit with their example. The Pope warned instead against falling prey to a paganism that reduces human beings and their dignity.
One essential premise: religious freedom
For this to be the case, however, the Pope said, “there is one essential premise, and that is religious freedom.”
The Kingdom of Bahrain Declaration, he recalled, explains that “God instructs us to exercise the divine gift of freedom of choice” and consequently, “compelled religion cannot bring a person into a meaningful relationship with God”.
Any form of religious coercion, the Pope stated, “is unworthy of the Almighty, since He has not handed the world over to slaves, but to free creatures, whom He fully respects.”
Self-examining whether it is true freedom of religion
“They are called,” he said, “to question whether it coerces God’s creatures from without, or liberates them from within; whether it helps people to reject rigidity, narrow-mindedness and violence; whether it helps believers to grow in authentic freedom, which is not doing what we want, but directing ourselves to the good for which we were created.”
Challenge of education
While the challenge of prayer, the Pope said, regards the heart, that of education concerns the mind.
Recalling that the Kingdom of Bahrain Declaration states that “ignorance is the enemy of peace,” he acknowledged that “where opportunities for education are lacking, extremism increases and forms of fundamentalism take root.”
If ignorance is the enemy of peace, Pope Francis stated, education is the friend of development, “provided that it is an education truly befitting men and women as dynamic and relational beings.”
The Holy Father said we must raise questions, allow ourselves to be challenged and learn to enter into dialogue patiently, respectfully and with a willingness to listen, to learn the history and culture of others.”
“For it is not enough to say we are tolerant,” the Pope said, insisting, “We really have to make room for others, granting them rights and opportunities.”
The Pope said religions can support this approach.
Recognition of women
The Pope went on to emphasize three urgent educational priorities.
First, he called for the recognition of women in the public sphere, namely, their right “to education, to employment, and their freedom to exercise their social and political rights.”
In this, as in other areas, the Pope said, “education is the path to liberation from historical and social legacies opposed to the spirit of fraternal solidarity that ought to mark those who worship God and love their neighbour.”
Protecting children’s fundamental rights
Second, the Pope called for protecting “children’s fundamental rights” so that “they can grow up, receive schooling, be helped and supported, so as not to live in the grip of hunger and violence.”
The Pope said education begins in the heart of the family and continues within a community, village or city.
The concept of citizenship
The Holy Father also stressed education “for citizenship, for living in community, in respect for one another and for the law.” He specifically focused on the particular importance of the “concept of citizenship,” which “is based on the equality of rights and duties.”
Emphasizing the challenge of taking action, the Pope recalled that Bahrain’s Declaration states that “whenever hatred, violence and discord are preached, God’s name is desecrated.”
Must condemn perpetrators of violence who abuse religion’s name
“Religious men and women, as people of peace,” the Pope said, “are likewise opposed to the race to rearmament, to the commerce of war, to the market of death,” and “do not support “alliances against some”, but means of encounter with all. “
Pope Francis called on those before him as friends, and to join him in pursuing together this path, to open our hearts to our brothers and sisters.
“If different potentates deal with each other on the basis of interests, money and power plays, may we show that another path of encounter is possible. Possible and necessary, since force, arms and money will never paint a future of peace,” he said.
A ‘conscience of peace’ for our world
The Pope invited religious leaders and those at the Forum to come together, for the sake of humanity, and in the name of the One who loves humanity, the One whose name is peace.
“The Creator,” he said, “invites us to act, especially on behalf all those many creatures of his who do not yet find a sufficient place on the agenda of the powerful: the poor, the unborn, the elderly, the infirm, migrants… If we who believe in the God of mercy, do not give a hearing to the poor and a voice to the voiceless, who will do it?”
Pope Francis concluded by urging them to take their side, and to make every effort to assist a “wounded and sorely tried” humanity.
