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“The
call to prayer from the mosques, the archeological
environment and the people we met, all renewed my faith
that God is present in our world in good and loving
people,” said Sister Grace Walle, FMI, chaplain of St.
Mary’s Law School.
The
tour was funded and hosted by representatives from the
San Antonio Institute of Interfaith Dialog (IID)
www.interfaithdialog.org, working in cooperation with
St. Mary’s Fund for Judeao Christian Studies.
Inspired by the teachings of Turkish educator and
spiritual leader M. Fethullah Gülen, the IID’s mission
is to promote peace and dialogue among people of
different faiths.
One of the
basic hopes of interfaith efforts, noted Cemal Usak,
secretary general of Istanbul’s Intercultural Dialogue
Platform, is “to change the average person’s image of
the ‘Other,’ so that ‘Desperate Housewives’ or ‘Sex in
the City’ do not represent the United States, and El
Qaida and suicide bombers do not represent Turkey or
Islam.”
As people of
faith, “we have a number of common grounds as
monotheistic believers, and we can focus on those
commonalities, at least for the time being,” Usak
emphasized in his welcome to the Texas group. “We are
already working together with Catholics…It’s a humble
idea to promote this kind of
dialogue.”
In addition to
its ancient archeological history and its New Testament
theological importance as a place where St. Paul
traveled, Turkey is important “as a possible practical
bridge into the Muslim world, especially the former
Soviet states with large Muslim populations and Turkic
culture/languages,” explains Father Charles H. Miller,
SM, St. Mary’s professor of Theology and Archeology, and
director of Roamin’ Rattlers.
During his visit to
Istanbul, Pope Benedict went out of his way to express
respect for Muslims and their faith, reiterating that
Christians and Muslims can build on their mutual belief
in the “sacred character and dignity of the person.”
This is, added the pope, “the basis of our mutual
respect and esteem… the basis for cooperation in the
service of peace between nations and people, the dearest
wish of all believers and all people of good
will.”
Father Miller
agrees. “When we realize that ‘the Other’ is as human as
we are, and has many of the same values — family
integrity, respect for persons, concern to bring up
children in loving and positive environment, value of
having children, deep faith in God — then we can start
dialoguing about how to better understand each other’s
core beliefs, which will not always coincide nice and
neatly. Personal acceptance and the building of personal
trust comes first,” explained Father Miller, who has
been traveling to Turkey since 1975, acknowledging that
this interfaith tour was “the first time I really had
the opportunity to observe Turkish family life in the
home.”
Turkey, officially
a secular republic of 63.5 million — with 200,000
Christians, has been called “the Holy Land of the
Church” because so many of the earliest Church
communities were founded there. Most of the writings
that make up the New Testament originated there or were
addressed to its Christian communities, inspired by the
preaching of the Apostles, particularly St. Paul and St.
John. According to tradition, Mother Mary lived at
Ephesus in the home of St. John.
Turkey is also the land
of Abraham — a patriarch shared by Christianity, Judaism
and Islam, making him a significant link for the three
monotheistic religions. But the country’s population is
overwhelmingly Muslim, 99 percent to be
precise.
The Texas group
began their Turkey tour in Istanbul, formerly
Constantinople, and the ancient capital of both the
Roman and the Byzantine empires. Over the next ten days,
the group visited Ephesus, Izmir, Anatalya, Urfa and
Turkey’s capital city of Ankara.
Imam Emrullah Hatipogla
(with mark over the “g”), who greeted Pope Benedict
during his visit to Istanbul’s famed Blue Mosque last
month, also welcomed the St. Mary’s group to the mosque
personally, inviting them across the carpeted prayer
hall into his office, where he informally answered
questions. “I should thank YOU for coming here, for
traveling so far,” he smiled, bringing his right hand to
his heart. “I thank you for your vision and for your
role in this important work (of interfaith
dialogue).”
For the Imam
(or officiating priest), nothing in interfaith dialogue
compares to a personal encounter. “If you’ve never met a
Muslim, you don’t know them as ‘persons.’ You decide
what you believe based on what you hear. But if you see
and meet people first hand, you begin to know each other
as human.”
During his
visit, the pope described “authentic” dialogue as “based
on truth and inspired by a sincere wish to know one
another better, respecting differences and recognizing
what we have in
common.”
Sister
Walle echoes the pope’s definition. The people who
conducted the tour “demonstrated through their actions a
love, acceptance and openness that created an atmosphere
to learn and share our different religious beliefs. It
is like a tree with different branches. We are each
called to demonstrate our love through service to follow
God’s call.”
Part
II of this series will appear in the March 2 issue of
Today’s
Catholic. |