By Jerry Filteau

Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — A top Vatican official and an internationally renowned Muslim scholar said April 24 that the quest for peace in the world calls for efforts to advance Catholic-Muslim dialogue at all levels.

Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, said the very fears and tensions caused by events such as the war on Iraq and the U.S. terrorist attacks in 2001 "have brought Christians and Muslims together, perhaps more than ever before. New opportunities have been created for a constructive dialogue between the adherents of Christianity and Islam."

Imam Abdulaziz Sachedina, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, acknowledged the growth of dialogue among Muslim and Christian leaders and scholars but asked, "When dialogue takes place at the official level, is it reaching the people? This is where the dialogue needs to have its effect. This is where respect has to take place."

The two spoke to an overflow crowd in the meeting hall of Annunciation Parish in Washington. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington and Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore, both members of the U.S. bishops' Subcommittee on Interreligious Dialogue, were among those attending.

Also present was Imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat of Baltimore, founder and president of the Civilizations Exchange & Cooperation Foundation devoted to advancing Muslim-Christian-Jewish understanding.

Archbishop Fitzgerald said one of the first reasons for Christian-Muslim dialogue is simply sociological: Adherents to those faiths form half the world's population, and both "are to be found almost everywhere." Catholics and Muslims, with more than a billion adherents each, account for about a third of the global population.

But there are "deeper reasons for developing good relations between Christians and Muslims," he said. For Christians it begins with "love, God's love which embraces the whole of humankind," he said.

He said for Christians the inherent dignity of each person, created in God's image, is intensified by Christ's redemptive act, which "enhances beyond measure the dignity which each person already possesses. These are solid grounds for developing a respectful relationship with another person, even if that person does not belong to my religion." He spoke briefly of Quran texts that urge respect for Christians and Jews but left it to Imam Sachedina to develop that theme.

The imam, a Shiite Muslim, said, "Dialogue cannot occur without recognizing the dignity and equality of the other."

He said there is an "intrinsic pluralism in Islamic scripture," because "Islam did not arise in a vacuum of faith," but in cultures filled with Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and other believers.

But both Christianity and Islam need to overcome a long history of triumphalism, of adherents believing only they can be saved and all others are condemned, he said. He argued that neither the Bible nor the Quran warrants that kind of religious triumphalism.

"My own work," Imam Sachedina said, "is to make Muslims aware of what is in the Quran itself" on respect for and acceptance of Christians and Jews.

He noted that predominantly Christian Egypt was conquered when Mohammed's son-in-law, Ali, was caliph. In a letter appointing Egypt's governor, he said, the caliph urged him to infuse his heart with mercy, love and kindness, adding that his subjects would be of two kinds: "either your brothers in religion, or those equal in creation with you."

Besides urging popular outreach to extend dialogue and understanding beyond the upper levels of Islam and Catholicism, Imam Sachedina said along with dialogue there is need for "diapractice," or collaboration between Muslims and Catholics based on "the common ethic that we all share" of helping those in need and working for justice.

Addressing a predominantly Catholic audience with a scattering of Muslims and others, Archbishop Fitzgerald highlighted the difference between ecumenical dialogue, which is between divided Christians, and interreligious dialogue, which is between people of different religions.

He pointed out that, however distant, the goal of ecumenism is bringing Christians to unity of faith.

In interreligious dialogue, he said, unity of faith cannot be the goal because a Muslim who confesses Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior would no longer be a Muslim, and a Christian who accepts Jesus as a prophet but denies his divinity, as Muslims do, "ceases to be a true Christian."

The aim of interreligious dialogue, he said, "is to allow people to live in harmony and peace, despite their differences."

"The worth of this goal is not to be underestimated," he added.

The archbishop described "an attitude of self-sufficiency" and "fear and prejudice" as enemies of dialogue.

"If I am convinced that I alone possess the truth, then I shall not be open to recognizing the truth in someone else's position," he said, and dialogue seeking understanding of the other degenerates into a polemic where the goal is to win the argument.

He said lack of religious freedom is also an obstacle to dialogue. "If there is no freedom to practice one's religion openly, or if this freedom is curtailed, there will be a fear to reveal one's true convictions. Moreover constructive criticism of society, of authority, will be avoided in order not to jeopardize the limited freedom that may exist," he said. "This creates a defensive rather than an open mentality."

He added that it might sound odd to talk about that need to an American audience, but there is a need at the global level to "create this public opinion that this freedom is a right."

Imam Sachedina praised the church's Second Vatican Council for recognizing the rights of religious freedom and the need for governments to respect religious pluralism.

He acknowledged that lack of religious freedom for minorities in some countries with Muslim majorities is an obstacle to dialogue and the trust on which it must be based. But he emphasized that this is not the only model offered by the Quran and Islamic history.

John Borelli, the U.S. bishops' associate director for interreligious relations and moderator of the session, urged members of the audience to read Imam Sachedina's recent book, "The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism," which explores that issue in depth.