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The Ark of Fraternity

9/2/2019

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Last week, Pope Francis made a historic visit to Abu Dhabi, the first Pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula and by all accounts the visit seems to have been a success. At the Interreligious Gathering the Pope acknowledged that he was following in the footsteps of St Francis of Assisi who had met the Sultan al-Malik al Kamil 800 years ago during the Fifth Crusade, a meeting during which each recognised the other as men who knew and loved God. It’s said that for twenty days they conversed with one another about the ways of God.  Like his namesake, Pope Francis came to Abu Dhabi as a pilgrim of peace, stating “I have welcomed the opportunity to come here as a believer thirsting for peace, as a brother seeking peace with the brethren. We are here to desire peace, to promote peace, to be instruments of peace”.  He called those present at the Interreligious Gathering at which he spoke to a new way of being together, “we too in the name of God, in order to safeguard peace, need to enter together as one family into an ark which can sail the stormy seas of the world: the ark of fraternity”
 
What a wonderful image - the ark of fraternity! So often the ark has been used as a bulwark against those who are different, protecting communities from the enemy, the only place that is secure and safe in a troubling world. Noah’s ark, to which the Pope refers, saved Noah and his family from the destruction of the rest of the population who were living a sinful life. The ark  was a place of  justice and goodness and only within it was one safe. This image was transferred to Christianity where Jesus was seen as the Ark of Salvation. Only within the confines of a relationship with Jesus could people be saved and protected from the forces of evil that raged not just in the world but in other faiths too. For the Catholic Church this ark came to be associated with the Catholic Church so that membership of that Church alone could guarantee salvation. Thank God this attitude has changed though many religions are still suspicious and fearful of religious proselytization and conversion which reflects a little of that mind-set.
 
Now we have the image of the ark extended and expanded to include all those who desire peace and recognise the common humanity of all.  We are quite literally in the same boat, members of the same species, interconnected with one another, facing the same hopes and joys, concerned about and vulnerable to the future of our planet and our world. As the Pope said, echoing his two predecessors, “There is no alternative: we will either build the future together or there will not be a future.”   
 
In his speech the Pope set out a full agenda for humanity if we are to establish this ark of fraternity and truly recognise one another as brothers and sisters. This includes an appreciation of plurality and recognition of difference, a sense of our own identity, while respecting the identity of others, a protection of the rights and freedoms of others especially religious freedom. What the Pope wants for all of us is an open identity that doesn’t in any way compromise who we are or closes itself off from others but is enriched by our relationships.

Dialogue of course plays a part in all of this. Religions, the Pope says, “cannot renounce the urgent task of building bridges between peoples and cultures. The time has come when religions should more actively exert themselves, with courage and audacity, and without pretence, to help the human family deepen the capacity for reconciliation, the vision of hope and the concrete paths of peace”.   And something not often mentioned in interreligious dialogue, but mentioned by the Pope, is prayer “as for the future of interreligious dialogue, the first thing we have to do is pray, and pray for one another: we are brothers and sisters!”  
 
During his stay in Abu Dhabi the Pope signed a document with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb. Its title is: On Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together. It’s easy to dismiss these kind of initiatives. Often documents and statements are assigned to the bookshelf if not history and readily forgotten but the fact that two very prominent leaders from Christianity and Islam have signed such a document is significant and it’s always on hand to be used as reference for the best intentions of the two faiths, even if we, their members, don’t always live up to the ideal. So what do we do with it? Hopefully we Christians and Muslims, with others, will dialogue about it. Hopefully, we will take it seriously and begin to think in terms of an ark of fraternity and, as the document suggests, the document itself will become the object of research and reflection in all schools, universities and institutes of formation". Now wouldn’t that be something?
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Holocaust Memorial Day

28/1/2019

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January is a time for remembering. Like the god Janus that the month’s named after there’s a looking back and a looking forward. We’re aware of it as the New Year dawns but also at the end of the month. Here in Scotland we remember our national poet Robert Burns on 25th January and applaud his poetry which was and is deeply human. One of his poems that’s used often – at the opening of the Scottish Parliament, for example, is “A man’s a man for a ‘that”. It speaks of our common humanity in spite of superficial differences like wealth and rank. It ends with the lines “That man to man the world o’er, shall brothers be for a’ that”. What a wonderful vision. We sing the words with great conviction and hope in our hearts but how badly we humans live up to that ideal.
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This is certainly obvious when two days later, on 27th January, we remember the Holocaust which so contradicts Burns’ sentiments.This year it’s 40 years since the Cambodian genocide and 25 years since Rwanda.  And the on-going conflict in Darfur still continues as well as the systematic killing and expulsion of people in many parts of the world. Why do we never learn? Why can’t we see that we are all brothers and sisters, sharing a common humanity? Why do we need to categorise people, stressing our differences and relegating one another to a pecking order which sees some as inferior and others as superior. And we all do it in subtle if not overt ways. Holocaust Memorial Day faces us with the horrible reality that if one human being can perpetrate such atrocities then we all can. This is a hateful and painful reality that we must face up to and feel the pain of it in our very being – not to wallow in it but to liberate ourselves from it and commit to inclusion and friendship with all.

Nothing brings you up against the horrors of genocide as a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau which I made fifteen years ago but have never forgotten.  I was part of a study visit to Jewish sites in Poland, a land on whose soil three millions Jews were murdered. The group was mostly made up of Christians though we were fortunate in having with us someone from the Jewish community whose family had come from Poland. This personalised many of the issues that we studied and didn’t allow us to forget the pain inflicted on the Jewish community by anti-semitism, a pain still felt by many Jews today. It was a learning and challenging experience.
 
During our trip we learned about the thriving Jewish life that had existed in Poland since the 9th century; of the anti-semitism and pre-conceptions of Jews as Christ-killers and therefore cursed; of the separate lives lived by both communities who never saw one another as neighbours.  But it was the visit to Auschwitz – Birkenau that exposed the reality of the evil of the holocaust.  The empty barracks, the ovens, the so called shower rooms, the piles of shoes, hair, the luggage on display revealed the systematic degradation and humiliation of the Jewish community and the absolute squalor of what life was like. Some of our group spent the visit in floods of tears. I was stunned and felt quite dead inside. I had expected a sense of evil but what we saw was beyond evil. The question that kept recurring for me was how could people’s spirit rest after such a violent end?  To have human beings reduced to ash that was then used for paving roads would have been unthinkable and yet here we were face to face with its reality. The murder of the Jewish community was perpetrated by the Nazis but many Poles were indifferent to it and in one place, Jedwabne, ordinary Poles were responsible for the slaughter of 1600 Jews.  Of course even in darkness there is light and while some Poles betrayed their neighbours, others hid and helped them and for this are included within the ranks of Righteous Gentiles. There are stories of heroism within the camps and a generosity of spirit and courage that showed that even in the midst of evil, the human spirit can soar and triumph.  

There were many challenges in that trip to Poland – challenges that are still pertinent today. For example the role of religion in nation building processes. What is the role of religions in a secular society?  How do we allow people to be different, to look different and yet respect our common civic identity and work together for the common good?  There was also the question of identity. Ethnicity is an invention and a consequence of education and conditioning. It’s based on an imagined common ancestor. It’s the way we perceive our origins. If we recognise it as a perception we have a good basis for cooperation.  If, however, we see it as a consequence of genetic codes we have a basis for racist ideology. And what do we Christians do with the recognition of a history of anti-Semitism that the Catholic Church accepts was the context and seedbed in which Nazi anti-Semitism flourished? How do we keep alive the memory of the Holocaust while healing memories and moving on?  The Council of Christians and Jews tries to do just that and this weekend, talking about Holocaust Memorial Day, Pope Francis exhorted us to "continue to work tirelessly to cultivate justice, increase harmony and sustain integration, to be instruments of peace and builders of a better world." There couldn’t be a better memorial to those who died than that. 
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A One - sided View

13/1/2019

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I came home last evening to find that a friend had sent me an article from a local newspaper.  She had sent it because of a headline and story that, with the rise of anti-Semitism, suggested that many Jews felt so uncomfortable and unsafe in Scotland that they were thinking of leaving for safer places. It so happens that we’d had a conversation about this at a meeting of the executive committee of the Council of Christians and Jews earlier in the week. Then a member of the Jewish community had mentioned the article and thought it was unfortunate as it only helped spread unrest among the community. This I can understand. I grew up in a context where anti-Catholicism was very overt and such a public suggestion that Catholics were leaving because they felt unsafe would have unnerved me. 

The comments had been made by a prominent member of the Jewish community when he had spoken to the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group on Freedom of Religion and Belief but were only now being picked up by the newspaper with the publication of the minutes of that meeting.  It’s true that anti-Semitism seems to be on the rise. The article quotes a recent report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights which found that almost 90% of respondents across European countries believed instances of anti-Semitism had increased over the past five years. Some of this will be due to the high profile killings in France, Belgium and America but in Britain the Community Security Trust reported that there were more anti – Semitic incidents in 2018 than in any previous year. Whether there have actually been more incidents or people are now more likely to report incidents is unclear.

The difficulty with anti-Semitism is that it’s often associated with the Israel – Palestinian conflict. Those who are concerned about the plight of the Palestinians and therefore critical of the State of Israel are sometimes accused of anti-Semitism while they would disassociate themselves from that, distinguishing between Israelis and Jews. Jews conscious of their history, aware of some Middle East countries’ aim to be rid of Israel and still mindful of the hatred that resulted in the Holocaust are anxious for anything that undermines the State of Israel – the only place in the world where they feel safe. As in all conflicts there are two sides to the story and our interpretation of events and understanding of the situation depends where we stand.  Both viewpoints are valid and legitimate but one-sided, limited and partial. Often I hear members of the Jewish community say that to be pro-Israel is not to be anti-Palestine. But it’s also true that to be pro – Palestine is not to be anti –Israel.  The secret is when talking from our own particular viewpoint to remember there is another viewpoint and when listening to one side to remember that there is another side – and both sides will have truth in them. I think it would be helpful very often if these somewhat conflicting truths could be acknowledged.  Some people have suggested that the Israel – Palestine conflict is the elephant in the room when it comes to talking about anti –Semitism and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and discussing how the conflict is to be talked about without a polarisation that renders the participants deaf and unable to hear the other side. We’ve never come up with an answer.

 Anti –Semitism, like Islamophobia and other forms of racism, is wrong. It’s recognised as a sin in the Catholic Church.  But it would seem from the media that things are getting worse. Here in Britain, as we face Brexit, we have also polarised politically and blame immigration for a societal structure that is breaking down and changing. We have become inhospitable to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers and the voices that want to restrict ‘strangers’ from coming to our country are loud and clear. What is it that makes us so distrusting of the other members of our race, people whom many of our religions tell us are made in the image and likeness of God and are out brothers and sisters.  We seem to be incapable of appreciating diversity.  We seem to be driven by fear, suspicion, hate even; to be content to live in our own fortress-like communities, to set up defences against the stranger.

And much of this is unconscious. It so happens that this evening, having started this blog, I went to a Christian service in Glasgow Cathedral to celebrate St Mungo, the Patron Saint of Glasgow. It was a rather wonderful service – good singing, sincere prayers for our city and its people, a talk about hospitality and openness to refugees and asylum seekers. The Christian Churches, educational establishments and civic bodies were well represented. What was missing was representation from any faith tradition other than Christianity. I felt its miss but I don’t suppose too many others even noticed. People of all faiths and none are citizens of Glasgow. Hopefully they will be happy to acknowledge and recognise Glasgow’s Christian origins.It would be good therefore if events such as today’s service could acknowledge the multi-faith nature of our society and the religious and human values that bind us together. To devise a service that did this while honouring our founding saint would take a lot of work, time and even dialogue. But it would be a step in witnessing to the fact that people of all faiths and none are equal citizens and have a common home in our city. Could this be a small assurance for those who experience a prejudice that suggests they do not belong?
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Irrepressibility

30/12/2018

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​A remarkable woman died over Christmas. She had lived as a hermit for over fifty years but had become a bit of a celebrity when she was discovered by the BBC. I understand this was accidental.  The story goes that she had been taken to a medical appointment by a friend who took her to visit an art gallery.  She was overheard telling her friend about the paintings they were viewing by someone who worked for the BBC. He was so impressed by her insight that he invited her to present a number of art appreciation programmes.  No doubt the idea of a fully habited nun, who spoke with a slight lisp, and who professed to living a life of solitude and silence, was an intriguing and unusual presenter for an arts programme - and likely to be appealing to the public.  And appealing it was. She proved to be very popular. She had an amazing intellect, having got a congratulatory first at Oxford University, but she had a simplicity of expression and language which not only showed her unique insights but spoke to the public and taught them how to read a picture.  She was also respected by the art world so she did know what she was talking about. But not only did she make several series of arts programmes in the 1990s which took her to some of the most important art galleries in the world but she was interviewed by Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs and had a television programme made about her life.  She even had a musical written about her called ‘Postcards from God’. Her death has been reported on television and radio and many newspapers have carried an obituary.  This was a woman whose death became national news.
 
I’m intrigued by this because Sister Wendy began her religious life as a member of my community, the Sisters of Notre Dame. I’ve always known about her, about her struggles to find her true vocation which did not seem to be in teaching, her attempts to find a place where she could live out her desire for prayer and contemplation and her final settling to live in a caravan in the grounds of Quidenham Carmel in Norfolk. We have all sorts of stories about her. As a young sister I visited Quidenham with some friends for evening prayer. We hoped Sr Wendy would be there and notice us, maybe even talk to us, but she came and went without a sideways glance.
 
 In a way we sisters have always felt she belonged to us. We’ve always been interested in her and marvelled at how she fulfilled her teaching vocation in an unusual way. She struggled with teaching until her health broke down but her abandoning the classroom hasn’t meant abandoning teaching which she continues to do through her programmes that are now available on youtube and her books, written because she needed an income. However, I think of her as irrepressible. Her desire for silence, prayer and contemplation was true no doubt and she spent hours, days, months and years in this pursuit.  But some people just cannot avoid coming to the attention of the public. It’s as though their spirit cannot be dampened and needs a conduit to express itself.  
 
Thomas Merton was like this. He entered a Trappist Monastery, a monastery of strict silence and prayer but this wasn’t enough for him and he got permission to stay in a hermitage a mile removed from the main monastery buildings.  He wrote about silence and obedience but struggled with them. He wrote prodigiously, entertained visitors and got involved in the peace movement as well as interfaith dialogue.  He died fifty years ago this December and many commentators wonder about what his future would have been if he had not died so young.  Would he have left and got involved actively in social justice issues, particularly non- violent peace making? Would he have become Buddhist?  He died in Bangkok and on the way there he stopped off at Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka, with its large rock carved statues of the Buddha. He is reported as saying he was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures.  He wrote in his journal “I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean of the habitual, half – tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the robes themselves, became evident and obvious”. Thomas Merton lives on through his writings and talks. There was no dampening of his spirit, no stopping him communicating and speaking to the world in spite of his great desire for a hidden and silent life.
 
In Assisi I was amused that the casket containing the remains of St Francis was bound by chains and padlocks as though the spirit of Francis was bursting to escape. No doubt the casket’s chained because people tried to steal the remains but it did give the impression of wanting to contain Francis whose spirit is everywhere in Assisi. It’s easy to imagine coming across him wherever you turn.  The spirit of Francis is very much alive and seen in the present Pope who took Francis as his name, explaining to journalists that he chose the name because Francis of Assisi was “the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who lives and protects creation, all themes of his pontificate.  Please God the irrepressibility of this spirit will lead the world into a better space in the coming year.
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A Season of Contradictions?

22/12/2018

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Christmas is full of contradictions.  It’s a time for families, yet there are many people who are homeless, alone or bereaved for whom all the talk about families and festive meals can add to their pain and sense of loneliness. It’s a Christian festival and yet consumerism seems to have taken over and it’s become a winter festival rather than a religious one. In many places scenes of the birth of Jesus remind people of its religious origins but this year some places have decided not to have one, suggesting that in this secular society such scenes are quite irrelevant. And not all Christian denominations celebrate it. Some strict Christian groups such as the Free Church of Scotland withdraw from the festivities altogether, seeing them as reflecting a pagan observance of the winter festival and mistakenly suggesting that Jesus was actually born on 25th December which he obviously wasn’t.   Nor do all Christians celebrate Christmas on the same day. For some Eastern Orthodox churches the birth of Jesus is celebrated on 7th January and not on 25th December.
 
We don’t know when Jesus was born. It was Pope Julius 1, in the 4th century CE, who ordained that 25th December was to be the date when Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus. The date was possibly chosen because it was around the winter solstice and the feast of Saturnalia when pagans were celebrating the return of the “unconquered sun”. Gift giving, festivities and greenery were associated with the feast. What the Pope did was Christianise it, giving it added meaning by showing that Jesus was the Son of God and the true light of the world. Pagan converts could enjoy the festival, keep some of its traditions while understanding it in a new way. Christianity didn’t forbid these celebrations but gave them a deeper meaning and significance by associating them with the birth of Jesus.
 
 It’s not unusual for a religion to somehow incorporate the beliefs of another into its own system. For example Hinduism incorporated the Buddha into its belief system by seeing the Buddha as the ninth incarnation of the God Vishnu. This is especially true when the beliefs are associated with indigenous nature religions, rather than well – established systems of belief.  All religions have their places of pilgrimage, holy mountains, holy wells, which often pre-date the founding of the religion. Religions have traditionally built on pagan foundations but this doesn’t in any way invalidate their particular perspective or belief.
 
Celebrating the birth of its founder is also common in religion. Often there is an element of the miraculous about their conception and birth. The point of these stories is not to tell us what actually happened   to show the significance of the founder as one with a special message and gift for the world. Sometimes their birth and death are celebrated on the same day. Wesak, for example, celebrates the birth, death and enlightenment of the Buddha, giving a symbolic completeness to his life.  While the nativity stories of Jesus’ birth, as described in the Christian scriptures, focus on Jesus as a baby there are indications that this child will be a controversial figure and a suggestion of what is to come. The story of the slaying of the innocents by Herod may be a reflection on the slaying of the first born by the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus, but it foreshadows the rejection of Jesus which culminated in his death. Similarly the gifts that the three wise men bring include myrrh, embalming oil which is symbolic of death.
 
These stories are found in the gospel of Matthew. Matthew is not writing a historical or factual account of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus but is in fact writing theology. He is reminding us of the completeness of Jesus life by prefiguring his end.  As TS Elliot said” in my beginning is my end" Those of us who have experienced the death of someone whose birth we remember know that our recollection of the birth and life of that person takes on a special significance in the light of their death.
 
The gospel accounts of the birth and life of Jesus are written in the light of his death and resurrection so they are stories which convey a meaning. Like all religious scriptures it’s not what they say that counts but what they mean. To read sacred texts we need to look beyond the words to discern the truth they contain - truths about God, about ourselves, about human relationships. For Christians the stories of the birth of Jesus are not about a cuddly baby but about the belief that in Jesus God, the source of Life and Love, entered the human condition, that this God is present in the midst of life and that to struggle to live well is to  touch God. For as it says in the letter of John, God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God.
 
For Christians the birth of Jesus lets them see life in a new light and this includes the secular, for  the secular is not in opposition to the sacred but is a vehicle for it. Thousands of people will celebrate this winter festival with no nod to religion but they will enjoy their families and lovingly give gifts to one another.  In this sense they are in touch with what Christians would see is the true meaning of Christmas.
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A Hanukkah and Advent Party

7/12/2018

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I went to an exciting interfaith event this week. It was a Hanukkah and Advent party organised by the West of Scotland Council of Christians and Jews. We expected 45, prepared for 50 but 85 people turned up.  We managed to organise some extra tables, found some cakes and sent out for more doughnuts, traditionally eaten at this time. 
 
Hanukkah and Advent are festivals of light and have a focus on candles. The hanukkiah, the candelabra used at Hanukkah, has 9 candles.  On each of the eight evenings of the festival a candle is lit from the ninth one which is called a helper or shamash so that by the eighth day of the festival all nine are burning. The tradition is to display these candles at a window to illustrate that the Jewish community can now enjoy religious freedom. Today large hanukkiahs are lit in major cities and public places such as the Scottish Parliament and the White House as an expression of religious freedom and tolerance.
 
The lighting of the candles commemorates the victory of the Maccabees over the forces of a Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes who, in the second century BCE, desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem and forbade Jews to practice their faith. Defeating Antiochus, the Maccabees purified the Temple but found they hadn’t enough oil to light the everlasting lamp. Miraculously the little oil they did have lasted for eight days until replenishments could come. This is the miracle celebrated at Hanukkah with prayers, gifts, family fun and games. It’s a family, happy time to cheer us up on dark winter days – at least in this part of the world.
 
Advent is also a time for the lighting of candles but it looks forward rather than back. It begins the Christian year and is a time of preparation for Christmas. Some people use the time to do some kind of penance in the sense of a discipline to free them from a habit or even an obsession like giving up social media for four weeks. And there are candles. In some homes but in many churches there will be an Advent wreath – a circle of everlasting greenery to symbolise the infinity of God, purple ribbons as a sign of anticipation and waiting and four candles for each of the four Sundays of Advent. Three of them are purple and one pink for Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday in which the opening prayer in worship is Rejoice. It’s now become common for a white candle to be put in the middle of the wreath to symbolise the birth of Jesus at Christmas.
 
What made our party this week so enjoyable was the presence of children. We held the event at the Synagogue just as the pupils from the local Jewish primary school were leaving, having visited the Synagogue to light the Hanukkah candles. Their school is rather a special one as it shares a campus with a local Catholic school. We think it’s the only shared Catholic – Jewish campus in the world and we’re very proud of it. Each school promotes the ethos of their particular faith but the pupils share the playground and are getting to know one another. The Jewish children, though, who told us the story of Hanukkah were not at the school but were two of the home-schooled children of the Rabbi. With great confidence they told us about the Maccabees, the lighting of candles, the gift giving, the eating of doughnuts but what got us all laughing and participating was a game that had us passing little parcels left and right as the words were mentioned in their story – parcels that contained a reward for all of us. And of course we lit four candles for the fourth day of Hanukkah accompanied by the Rabbi’s blessing.
 
It was the head girl and head boy from the Catholic primary who told us about Advent. Telling us that the Advent Wreath helped Christians take time to think about the real meaning of Christmas and reflect on how they could bring God’s light, joy, peace and love into the world today they explained the four candles - the first one representing hope. which is like a light shining in a dark place: the second candle representing peace and reminding us to try to be peacemakers in our schools and homes; the third representing the joy we feel celebrating the birth of Jesus and the fourth one representing the love we share in Jesus and how we try to show this love in the way we treat those around us, not just friends and families but also those less fortunate than ourselves.
 
As you can imagine the children were very well received. I found it very moving to see the children from both faiths participate in our celebration. What a contrast to the enmity that existed between our communities for centuries but has thankfully given way to a new reality. The shared campus offers such hope for the future. Already the children from both   schools have collaborated on helping the homeless, enjoyed a ceilidh together and are now beginning to learn a little about one another’s faith. As one of the children said “we really do enjoy one another’s company and love finding about one another’s faith. In St Clare’s we are always saying we are making memories to last a lifetime but we also think we are making lifelong friends.”  We cannot ask much more than that.
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Connecting Generations

25/11/2018

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I’ve just returned from Evensong in the local Episcopal Church. The congregation was saying goodbye to one of the priests who had spent much of his time involved in interreligious dialogue. The Church was full and present were people from other denomination s and from other faiths.  There was an atmosphere of openness and inclusiveness  in spite of it being a Christian service.  What a difference from times past.  Not only were the congregation open and welcoming but it was obvious how at home those of other faiths felt.  This, I think is a good outcome of the work of interreligious dialogue – to be able to visit one another’s places of worship and to feel at home and welcomed even when not participating in the service.  All places of worship are the House of God and as such are holy and I must say I always feel that as a place where people pray and come with their hopes, fears, worries and joys there is a tangible energy in those I visit.
 
There will have been quite a few visits to places of worship in this last fortnight. In Britain it’s been Interfaith Week with interfaith events across the country. There’s been a great sense of energy within what some people call the interfaith community. It’s been good to realise just how much effort people put into bringing faith communities together, something that doesn’t often reach the press. I was part of a visit to one of our Synagogues with the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church and Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, the Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow. We were, as you would expect, warmly welcomed, told something about the Synagogue and the community before gathering for tea and coffee where there was a real sharing of common concerns. A young journalist joined us and he was quite bowled over by the sight of these religious leaders being so at home with one another.  He couldn’t believe this kind of thing happened – and yet it does all the time.
 
Unlike England we in Scotland have a theme for the week.  This year it was Connecting Generations which became one of the topics discussed at the annual Interfaith Summit with the First Minister.  I was asked to introduce the discussion on Connecting Generations from an elder’s point of view. What I wanted to show was that faith communities do this naturally. So often I go to interfaith events when specially funded project are highlighted. They need a director, often premises, staff, and if funding ends so does the project.  It’s almost as though faith communities are only seen as valuable if they can mount projects for the wider community. This is not possible for all faith communities with limited numbers and resources. But there’s a lot of connecting generations going on. I happened to go to the local Hindu Temple recently and immediately there was a sense of activity – children learning Hindi, a cultural dance class going on, women preparing the food for the community meal after the service and a variety of generations in the prayer hall.
 
With the breakdown of the extended family in the west there are not many places where intergenerational living happens.  Each week, and perhaps more often, faith communities gather and often share a meal together.  At the heart of their life together is celebration – the annual celebrations of festivals which remind the community of their foundational stories and often festivals such as Purim and Christmas have ways of drawing in children and making them enjoyable. But there’s also the regular celebration of life cycle rite so that both young and old participate in births, deaths, marriages, coming of age rituals. It’s healthy to be aware of the pattern of living and ageing and dying as part of the human journey.
 It’s important to the older generation to pass on the traditions that have been precious to them and so education is part of community life. Their desire is to give the younger generation a clear sense of identity, not in the sense of indoctrinating them but in the sense of giving them a foundation from which to reflect and engage with others. There’s been some recent research into Catholic Schools which shows that a clear sense of identity helps young people appreciate, live with, value different faiths. The clearer our own identity, the happier we are with diversity.  
 
A happy, dynamic community is a valuable asset for society at large but of course faith communities do fail. From the press we’re aware of the dark side of religion. Shedding light on this is good and a challenge to communities to reform but even in the normal run of events young people as they leave home and begin study or work often opt out of the community. Sometimes the charge is that the elders speak a language that is irrelevant.  We elders need to be challenged on this. We need to be questioned by young people about what we believe, we need to listen to how young people see and understand the world, we need to assure them of our acceptance as they struggle to make sense of life, we need to seek together for a common language. Young people have a gift for our communities and we and our communities will be the poorer if we don’t listen to them.  
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A Time to Remember

11/11/2018

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Today is Remembrance Sunday, the annual remembrance of all those who have died in the two World and subsequent Wars.  The date is that of Armistice Day, the day that brought to an end the First World War when at the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month 1918 hostilities between Britain and Germany ceased. It had lasted four years and millions had died in the most appalling circumstances.  It’s celebrated every year but this year, remembering as it does the centenary of the cessation of war, it seems to be everywhere. I find it a bit overwhelming. We’ve been celebrating the First World War for four years with numerous television programmes about the war and memorials of every major battle. The wearing of a poppy on this day is traditional but four years ago Paul Cummins and Tom Piper designed a poppy installation at the Tower of London and this seems to have given inspiration to cities, towns, villages, churches to design their own installations.  This year the poppies have been everywhere and I for one find it a bit overpowering.
 
That‘s a very hard thing to say and sounds ungrateful and I am puzzled by my own reaction. Why should I feel uneasy when it’s about thousands of young men who gave up their lives or were conscripted into a war that historians tell us was pointless?  I don’t feel uneasy about them and the personal stories of those who have died are very moving and heart-breaking. There will have been hardly a family in the land that was not affected by the war or lost a family member.
 
My own family was not affected because during both world wars my father and grandfather were employed in reserved occupations.  Nor did the Catholic Church make a lot of remembrance Sunday when I was growing up.  On the whole we don’t have war memorials in Catholic Churches in the way that Presbyterian and Anglican Churches have them.  I wonder why, because Catholics will have died in those wars. Perhaps it’s because Catholics were on the margins of civic society.  It’s not that we didn’t remember because in the Catholic Church November is a month of remembering. It begins with the feast of All Saints and then All Souls when Catholics remember all who have died. There is a tradition in parishes that people are able to write down, perhaps on sheets of paper or in a book of remembrance, the names of all their loved ones who have died and they are all remembered every day at the Eucharist. Among these names there will have been service men and women.
 
In this centenary year there has been an attempt to make the war personal. People have been encouraged to bring photographs of relatives who fought in the war. At the Albert Hall's Festival of Remembrance the most poignant moment was when the families of those  who had lost a family member in military conflict processed on to the central area while  everyone in the Hall, which holds 5,000 people, held before them a photograph of someone who had died in the war. So too at the Cenotaph in London, family members holding photographs of their loved ones marched with military personnel.  This made all the celebrations/ festivals/ memorials/ truly personal. There’s a sense that with time memories of the war will fade and recede into history.  Perhaps this will be the last of such memorials.  It’s important, however, that the personal be not lost.  Literature, film and poetry can help us appreciate the reality but it’s the personal stories that touch the heart.
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This is the case with memorials of the Holocaust. I toured the Holocaust Museum in Washington with the passport of a young woman killed at Auschwitz and have on my wall information of Albert Bulka who perished at Auschwitz aged 4 years old, given out at a Holocaust Service.
 
Remembering is good. It’s not so much keeping alive the past but it makes ever present a reality that is part of our civic life and history. It’s important to remember. We don’t want to  forget the sacrifice of so many nor the horror of war. The refrain is ‘never again’. But it has happened again – over and over again.
 
 So what discomfits me about it?  Well one thing – all the services are predominantly Christian though I notice the prayers omit ‘through Jesus Christ Our Lord’.  But men and women of all faiths were involved in the war effort. Could we not make the services more multicultural and multifaith?
 
There’s also a tinge of glorification in it all - a sense of victory, of conquest. There’s  an acknowledgment that there was a terrible loss of life on both sides of the conflict and prayers for peace but not a rejection of war itself or a commitment to the ways of peace that recognises the need for community, dialogue, negotiation. The European community brought together enemies of old but now it’s breaking down. What we need is a commitment to the human community that seeks the common rather than the national good. We need to be serious about peace but how can we do that when the production and selling of arms is so central to our economy? It makes a mockery of much of the remembering. 
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Anti-semitism

28/10/2018

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Today the world is reeling from another gun massacre in the United States. This time is was at a Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during a Synagogue service where eleven people were killed, including a 93 year old woman. The perpetrator was explicit in his desire to kill all Jews and a former rabbi at the synagogue said he would often have at the back of his mind when conducting a service that such an atrocity could very well happen at any time. In America guns for such atrocities are readily available yet President Trump refuses to see any connection between the gun laws and such shootings. He even suggested that had the Jews in the Synagogue been armed such a think might not have happened. Does he really think that people of faith should go to their places of worship armed against such atrocities? It puts another dimension on religious communities as citadels and fortresses.  The notion of locking themselves into a place of worship is shocking – and yet it happens, even here in Scotland.
 
This incident, the culmination of the worst fears of the Jewish community, will have made Jews throughout the world very nervous and anxious. It’s the worst anti-semitic attack in America but such incidents are not confined to the States and there have been anti- Jewish terrorist attacks throughout Europe. Anti-semitism is one of the evils of our time.
 
It so happens that our local branch of the Council of Christians and Jews had a public event this week on anti-semitism. It’s a topic of public concern in Britain, principally because of the controversy over Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, who is so very pro-Palestinian and not hard enough on the anti-semitism within his party. There is real consternation among Jews and the publicity around it has made many of them insecure about their future in Britain. About 40% of the community have confessed to considering emigration to Israel as the only surety of safety. 7,000 Jews went to Israel in 2015 after the French attacks. 
 
At our meeting we heard how anti-semitic attacks were part and parcel of Jewish life and were often exacerbated after trouble between Israel and Palestine and how synagogues and Jewish events had to be strict on security. Jews feel under threat and one respondent to a consultation on Jews in Scotland admitted to not acknowledging her Jewishness on the census form because “ then they would know where to find me”.  Anti-semitism is an evil, a sin and we Christians have to be aware of our past history in relation to the Jews and how that and our theology has contributed to it.
 
But in saying that, I think understanding and talking about anti-semitism can be difficult. Sometimes our way of expressing ourselves can be interpreted as anti-semitic but not necessarily so. It was suggested, for example, that ‘Christianity is all about supercessionism’ in that it sees itself as the fulfilment of Judaism – is this meant to suggest Christianity is inherently anti- semitic? Does calling the Hebrew scriptures the Old Testament mean discarding them and belittling their importance. At one time I used to use the term ‘ Hebrew Scriptures’ for the Old Testament but not anymore. The Old Testament is very similar to the Hebrew Scriptures and for Christians they are venerable, the foundation of our faith and the significant difference in their order means  that for Christians they reach fulfilment in Jesus which is not so for Judaism.  From where Christians stand to talk of the Old Testament is not in any way to discredit the Hebrew Scriptures or to see them as second class in any way. In interreligious dialogue Christians must be allowed to express themselves and be understood on their own terms.
 
Another example was of a member of the Jewish community feeling attacked because a teacher in a rural school had pointed at her and told her ‘you killed Jesus’.  What am I as a Christian to do with such a remark?  I cannot deny it was made and it certainly expresses a theology that might still be prevalent in some circles. It would now be seen as anti-semitic. What am I to do with those Christians whose theological development belongs to another age and can the Jewish community recognise that for Christians theology develops, that such a remark might not be the dominant one within the Christian community – and certainly not of those engaged in dialogue.
 
Perhaps it gets especially difficult when it comes to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Sometimes criticism of the policies of the State of Israel is seen as denying Israel’s existence to survive and I often hear it asked why Christians are more critical of Israel than they are of other countries. I think the criticisms of other countries might just not be heard by Jews. I sometimes wonder if Jews understand that for Christians Israel is not just one nation among many nor can it be. It is the land of Jesus, it is our Holy Land. We love it and care for it. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem and hear in our scripture readings that Israel is called to be a light to the nations. We care for its future and have a concern for justice and peace within its borders. It must be possible to criticise the policies of a government that many Jews also criticise without it being seen as anti-semitic. Before this happens, however, there is a need for  dialogue.
 
 Anti-semitism is not just something we must abhorand denounce as sinful but something we must also dialogue about. 
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Love Another as Your Own

14/10/2018

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All religions have their saints and martyrs but not many have the complicated procedure that the Catholic Church has for trying to determine the heroic virtue of individuals that allows them to be proclaimed and recognised as saints throughout the Church. This weekend five people were proclaimed saints, including Archbishop Oscar Romero and Pope Paul VI.
 
Archbishop Romero got most publicity because of his commitment to the poor of El Salvador. He was murdered while saying Mass in a convent in San Salvador in 1980 at the hands of a US backed Government death squad. His death resulted in 12 years of civil war and his murderers were never brought to justice. He reminded the death squads that they were killing their own brothers and sisters and that no soldier “is obliged to obey an order against the law of God”. The day before his death he said “ In the name of God, then, and in the name of this suffering people whose laments rise up to heaven each day more tumultuously, I plead with you, I pray you, I order you, in the name of God: Stop the repression.”  It’s no wonder he was murdered. Power and injustice do not face up to Truth.  
 
Paul VI was a more controversial figure because of the encyclical ‘Humanae Vitae’ which forbade the use of artificial methods of contraception at a time when many people in the  Church expected the reverse. But he was a great Pope.  He took the Catholic Church forward  into the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, spoke at the United Nations, visited Jerusalem and began the long process of friendship and reconciliation with the Orthodox Church.  He established the Secretariat for Non-Christian Religions, now called the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.  Dialogue was the hallmark of his pontificate.  For him the Church was not to stand aloof from the world or see itself as separate but to enter into dialogue with it, to love it. As the Pope who promulgated the document, ‘Nostra Aetate’, which began the Church’s journey into the world of interreligious relations,  he is for me a champion of interfaith dialogue.
 
For Paul VI dialogue and love went together.  Engaging in interfaith relations does lead to genuine friendship and love between people of different faiths but recently I was challenged to consider the possibility of loving another’s faith as my own. It came at an event on the Politics of Unity during which we listened to a speech that Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare Movement, had made in Innsbruck in 2001. It was essentially about politics and was addressed to politicians. In this speech Chiara suggested that brotherhood between politicians could be a source of unity and that “we should live brotherhood so well that we reach the point of loving the party of the other as we love our own, knowing that neither party was born by chance, but each as the answer to an historical need within the national community”.

This could be quite a challenge for interfaith practitioners. There’s no doubt that some do love another religion as their own to the extent that they claim dual identity.  Paul Knitter, a Catholic theologian, has written a book, ‘Without Buddhism I couldn’t be a Christian’ setting out how much he has appreciated the wisdom of Buddhism that has illuminated his understanding of Christianity.  I think this could be quite common and I know a number of people who claim it but Knitter has taken the additional step of taking refuge in the Buddha, the Sangha and the Dharma, which would normally make him Buddhist but, at the time of writing his book, he also claimed to be Christian. I don’t think I could do that. I appreciate Buddhist teaching, I can even say that I love it but I couldn’t make that kind of commitment to another. It’s like having a home base in my own religion from which I can relate to others and certainly appreciate aspects of them.  I can feel at home in other faiths but it’s always been a bit like being at my auntie’s – familiar but not quite my own home.
 
There are also some people who would find it hard to say they loved another faith as their own, seeing it as a kind of betrayal.  To love another as our own is to suggest that the other might be as good as, or even better, than our own. It might even suggest approval of aspects of another religion that we don’t like.  As someone once said at an interfaith meeting, surely we all think our own is right and the best.  I’m not sure I do. I know there are truths within my own religion and that it’s been a good force in my life but I also recognise its faults and drawbacks, especially the institutional aspects of it. Sometimes it can be quite a challenge to love it in the face of scandals which within Catholicism seem to be so dominant at the moment.  I have to learn to love my faith in its weaknesses as well as its strengths.  So with another faith, I can recognise its strengths, draw on its wisdom and beauty, appreciate how life-giving it has been to its members and yet not agree with some aspects of it, realising that all religions have institutional aspects that can be oppressive.
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In this way then it's certainly possible to love another faith as I love my own
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    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

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