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Religious Violence

30/5/2016

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I've been reflecting on religious violence this week. I had been asked to do something on war and peace in world religions at the Ignatian Spirituality Centre in Glasgow and it was a good chance for me to clarify my thinking. I always feel uneasy when religious people try to suggest that violence carried out in the name of religion is an abuse of religion, or is really politics and nothing to do with religion.  It always seems to me that this is a refusal to face up to the dark side of religion.  I'm with Professor Perry Schmidt-Leukel when he says that religion could not be abused if it didn't contain within it the seeds of violence and the possibilty of abuse. It's an important topic for interreligious dialogue and our current world situation demands we think about it and talk about it, difficult though that may be. Whatever we do we musn't sweep it under the carpet or deny its reality.

There's plenty of evidence of religion being implicated in violent conflicts throughout the world. The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance list 25 instances where religion is at least implicated in violence. There's a growth in religious nationalism  involving religions that have usually been associated with peace - Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, Hindu nationalism in India, Islamic nationalism in the so-called Islamic State and plenty of examples of Christian nationalism throughout history in what was Christendom, a state that no longer exists though some religious people would like to reinstate it. I fear this kind of nationalism as it idenitifies national identity with one faith and leaves others as marginalised and excluded. In his recent visit to Scotland Cardinal Bo spoke of the need to give Hindus, Muslims and Christians the same rights as the majority Buddhist community. They need to be respected as part of society but can they be truly integrated until everyone is seen as a citizen with the right to their own faith but sharing a common civic identity - something I have come to appreciate here in Scotland since the reinstatement of the Scottish Parliament.  This demands, I think, a secular society, not in the sense of being anti-religious but in the sense of respecting diversity and giving an equal voice to all no matter what their beliefs. I'm not so sure there's been an instance of a religious society where the minority were not marginalised even if treated well. I've just come back from Spain where there is much evidence of the Golden Age of Islam, often described as a time when Jews and Christians flourished under Muslim rule. This is true of course but Jews and Christians were not treated as equal citizens but given dhimmi status, whereby they had to pay a special tax and had certain positions closed to them.  This idea of majority and minority citizens holds within it the seeds of discontent and the sense of the majority religion being superior to the others, something that can erupt in violence, particularly if the majority religion wants to impose its discourse and beliefs on the others and not recognise the legitimacy of their faith.  

It's hard for religions not to have a sense of superiority.  They all believe they have the truth, that this truth is beneficial for the well-being of human beings and have a desire to tell people about it and hopefully convert them. I'm not too sure that I know of a religion that's not missionary, even though some would assert strongly that they're not proselytising. The corollary of believing your faith has a universal truth is the notion that other's truth is not quite up to scratch. This becomes particularly dangerous when our truth is absolutised to the extent that we want to impose it on others who then become infidels or heretics , who have to be converted, punished or executed. And there's plenty of evidence in history of this being the case. Even Thomas Aqinas, a saint of the Catholic Church and a great theolgian thought it legitimate to kill heretics - to stop them leading people astray and thus sending them to hell. A question in the old catechism, which I was brought up on, stated 'what does if profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul'.  There's a sense in religions that our eternal destiny is much more important than our human life, though how we live out our human life affects our eternal destiny.  Just last week one of the readings at Mass was from Mark's gospel where it said "if anyone puts a stumbling block before one of these little ones ... it would be better if a great millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea" Then there's the Bhagavad Gita where the Lord Krishna admonishes Arjuna for his fear of engaging in warfare with members of his family and encourages him to do his duty as a warrior and engage in battle.  

For me religions are implicated in violence and it's possible to find justification within religion for engaging in violence - even if this justification is based on literal interpretations of scripture.  This of course is not the whole of religion and religions are as implicated in peace as they are in violence, if not more so,  but I think we deny the violent side of religion to our peril. Patrick Hederman has written a book called "Kissing the Dark" in which he suggests the clergy abuse in Ireland was the result of suppressing the negative, the sinful, the seedy side of life and pretending everything was perfect. To deny the dark side of religion is to give it power over us. There is good religion but there is also bad religion and we should not be afraid to name it.  There is a great diversity within all religions and those elements that perpetrate violence in the name of religion are not representative of the whole faith.  But at the heart of all religions there is a pearl of great price - a wisdom which does have a universal message and can be life-giving. Sometimes religious institutions obscure it and sometimes they reveal it. it's up to believers to seek that pearl, cultivate it and witness to the force for good that religion could be in our world.

​ I'm reminded of a story. A father tells his child that within each of us lives a dove and a hawk, sometimes struggling with one another. The child asks, which one will win and his father says, the one we feed.

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Spanish Holiday

22/5/2016

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  I'm in Spain this week though not exactly on holiday. I've come to Salamanca with a team from Missio, Scotland to do some work with the students preparing to enter the seminary in Rome this coming September. I've been responsible for the input on interreligious dialogue which has given some time for exploring the town and neighbourhood. There's no where like Spain for getting a sense of Christendom.

Yesterday we visited Avila, the home of Saint Teresa  of Avila, a great saint and mystic and one of only three women recognised as Doctors of the Catholic Church. She's an interesting character. She was born in 1515 and grew up at a time of great turmoil and political unrest. The Protestant Reformation was underway and Spain was enjoying the wealth and prestige which came from the New World discovered by Columbus not too long before. The Inquisition was underway. Jews and Muslims had been expelled unless they converted to Catholicism  in an attempt to unify the country under one faith.

Teresa was a child with a romantic, adventurous and perhaps pious imagination as the  story of her setting off with her brother to become a martyr under the Moors shows.  She entered the convent of the Incarnation in the valley under the walls of the city and lived there for over twenty years. It wasn't a hard or strict life and dissatisfaction with that and growing mystical experiences led her to reform the Carmelite order which she did,founding what are now called Discalced Carmelite monasteries throughout Spain and doing so in spite of great opposition and the threat of the Inquistion. I know Carmelites back home in Scotland and they are the most amazing and joyful women I know but the Carmelite monastery of the  Incarnation that Teresa joined and the first one she founded in Avila seemed rather dismal and off-putting though the monastery of the Incarnation does have a waiting list to join - something unlikely to be found elsewhere.  It's an enclosed way of life, disciplined with the 
sisters living a hidden life and praying together seven times a day but in the case of the Spanish convents doing so from behind an iron grille so that you don't see them. It's a hard life, I think, but one that Teresa herself only lived sporadically as she spent much of her time travelling to new foundations. She was accused of being a gadabout and suffered greatly from opposition and bad conditions but perhaps her passionate nature needed this outlet  and she certainly felt called by God to do it. 

The idea of enclosure and only meeting friends and family from behind a grille is an interesting one. It was set up to protect communities of women  and it's been suggested that the grille and enclosure might be influenced by the

 seclusion of women in wealthy Muslim homes and palaces. While religions sometimes like to think they are dicrete entitites they have all grown up in contexts where they have influenced one another and are perhaps more eclectic than they think. It could be that the Muslim prayer of five times a day is influenced by the Christian tradition of liturgical prayers said by priests and monastics regularly throughout the day at set hours. And in turn the Christian prayers are likely to be a continuation of the Jewish practice of reciting prayers at certain hours of the day or night.  We are a mixture of traditions and this might be the case with our genes as well as our religions.  I read recently that our genes can hold traumas that happened to our ancestors.  What happens if our ancestors followed another religion. Perhaps we hold those loyalties within us. Teresa of Avila's grandfather was Jewish for example, though today we in the Catholic Church are happy to acknowledge our familial relationship with Judaism.. 

Medieval Spain was a melting pot of religion. For 300 years, from 8th century until 11th Spain was under Muslim rule and the Arabic influence in architecture and art is clearly seen today. It's sometimes called a Golden Age because Muslims, Jews and Christiand lived together, the arts flourished as did learning and philosophy. There was freedom of religon  and
a certain inclusiveness though even in this Golden Age Christians and Jews had what is known as dhimmi status. This meant thay they had to pay higher taxes than their Mulim counterparts and were banned  from holding positions of power over Muslims. But there does seem to have been a peaceful co-existence which for Jews was much more positive than it was in Christian Europe. It all came to an end with Isabella and Ferdinand and their desire for a Catholic kingdom which resulted not just in suspicion but in outright hostility to Judaism and Islam.  Jews and Muslims were expelled unless they converted and people even became suspicious of these converts' fidelity to their new faith - something which gave rise to the Spanish  Inquisition.  

Something of this hostility was evident in some of the art work we say this week. In Salamanca cathedral two pictures captured my interest. One was of the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus between a Jew and a Christian. It was entitled Virgin of Truth and the story goes that in a dispute between a Christian and Jew Mary nodded in the direction of the Christian! Much more sinister was a picture of Jesus being tempted by the devil who looked like a pilgrim apart from the horns and cloven hoofs. What was really disconcerting was the fact that the devil was carrying Islamic prayer beads.  Hopefully we have moved on from those days but somehow this energy of conflict, coexistence and suspicion is like a ghost that still lingers. It's up to us which one we develop.

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An Overseas Visitor

12/5/2016

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PictureCardinal Bo and Archbishop Conti with members of the Jewish community
 We have been entertaining Cardinal Bo of Myanmar/Burma in Scotland this week. The Cardinal particularly wanted to visit Scotland and to have an interfaith dimension to his visit. Mayanmar is on the cusp of a new democratic future but ethnic and religious conflict is in danger of marring its future. The majority ethnic group, the Burmans  are Buddhist while the majority of other faiths, principally Christians, Hindus and Muslim belong to minority ethnic groups.  Religious and ethnic violence has been part of life for decades but the country is now looking to interreligious harmony to show a way forward.  Aung San Suu Chi has indicated peaceful co-existence between the majority Burmans and the other ethnic groups is a priority for her new government and  World Religions for Peace is working with religious leaders to faciltate this.  Recently they took a delegation to Japan to consult on the way forward and learn from the Japanese experience. 

Cardinal Bo was impressed by what he saw in Scotland.  He met leaders from the main religious faiths and was speaker and guest at a civic reception hosted by Glasgow City Council.  He was particularly struck  by the obvious firm friendships that there were among those of us of different faiths and he commented on it a number of times. We are, of course, a small nation and those of us involved in interfaith are a small select group so we do know one another well. It's these friendships which have allowed interfaith to flourish in our country and it would seem to me that friendship is the essence of what interfaith is all about.  Sometimes people want interfaith relations to focus simply on common social action, what's commonly calleld side by side activity, suggesting that the more face to face kind of activity is a wast of time and non-productive. But friendship allows discussion of difficult questions. It allows us to face up to questions of religious freedom, inequality, injustice, prejudice, discrimination. It allows us to listen to one another's stories and to realise that behind our differences we have a common humanity with the same fears and concerns, the same joys and hopes. It allows us to believe in one another and to refuse to stop talking when the way forward gets tough, as it does. Without significant interfaith friendships I doubt interfaith relations would have reached the positive stage we have at present.  

​It was noticeable at the civic reception for Cardinal Bo that those of different faiths expressed their commitment to interfaith, their pride in the good work that's being done and gave some positive signs of hope. One was the laying of the foundation stone of a Jewish primary school and a Catholic school in the campus that is to be shared by both schools. This might well be the first of its kind and while each school will have its own ethos the potential for shared work and projects is great. Both communities are very proud of this initiative. The cardinal wanted to hear of initiatives such as these and has even suggested bringing an interfaith delegation to visit us here in Scotland and find out more.

Myanmar has a long way to go on its interfaith journey and hopefully the new government under Aung Suu Chi will support that but I wonder if something more than harmony between ethnic groups is needed.  Could it be that there needs to be a new sense of national identity which includes diverse ethinic and religious identities? At present there is a growing Buddhist nationalism which of its very nature is exclusive of all others, even the Rakhine Buddhist community.  I don't  think it does any nation  any favours to identify too much with a particular religions. It's hard for a religious society to be truly inclusive of all. I'm much more in favour of secular societies where everyone is bound together by a civic identity which encouages all citizens to work together for the common good of their country.


A few years ago the Scottish Government produced a report called Belief in Dialogue. As the title suggests the Government believes  in dialogue but it also believes in dialogue between beliefs - between those with religious beliefs and those with non-religious beliefs.  The report is a Good Practice Guide but underlying all the practical ideas is a vision of society.  It sees Scottish society as secular, not in an anti-religious way but in a way which respects the freedom of all to practice their beliefs and to engage in civic processes. It recognises how important beliefs are as an element of a person's identity, that all people living in Scotland have the right to their own beliefs and values and to be respected as part of diversity of Scotland, that we are all inter-connected and inter-dependent and need to listen to each other for the common good. This report reflects the growing sense of civic identity that has been part of Scotland since the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. I appreciate this idea of civic identity as a focus of unity while appreciating and respecting differences of religion, ethnicity and culture. I hope Myanmar can discover something of this. Certainly Cardinal Bo returns to his country with a copy of the report.  Here's hoping it's useful.

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From Russia with Love

4/5/2016

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When I was growing up we prayed every Sunday for the conversion of Russia.  This was in the dark days when atheism and communism were seen as the enemy and feared by the universal Church.  Well our prayers seem to have worked. I have just returned from a trip to Moscow and St Petersburgh and religion is very much to the fore - not just magnificent cathedrals that are tourist attractions but also churches and cathedrals that have a constant stream of believers.  The coming and going in these churches reminded me of Hindu temples where people go for what's known as darshan - a glimpse of the divine which is beyond words and explanations.  The opening of the ikonostasis, the ikon screen gives a similar glimpse into the mystery of God. Easter within the Orthodox Church was a month later than the Western Church and in many of the cathedrals we visited people (all women it must be said) were cleaning and preparing the church for Easter, intent on their duties, self-contained and focussed in spite of all the busyness and  photography  taking place around them. In the midst of a busy world they were a still centre. 

Russia was not at all what I expected though I didn't realise I had expectations. Subconsciously I must have thought of it as an eastern bloc country because I was surprised to find how much  Moscow and St Petersburg are thriving, cosmopolitan, capitalist cities with a very European feel to them, though there wasn't much public evidence of diverse cultures.  Cathedrals and palaces were ostentatiously rich with marvellous frescoes and heavily laden  gold hangings and decoration.  The wealth of the Romanovs was on display everywhere and it was easy to see how this and an autocratic approach to the majority of the populations kept in servitude and treated like slaves  would lead to revolution. But the wealth we were looking at was not the Romanov's. That had been destroyed during the war if not in communist times. What we were looking at was new wealth - the recent restoration of all the magnificence of Imperial times. One cathedral had been totally restored in something like 100 days by 35 artists working day and night. The famous amber room in Catherine the Great's Palace at Peterhof has been totally rebuilt with money provided by President Putin - so much money spent on gold and ostentation. No doubt the cost will be recouped through tourism - 5 million Chinese alone last year and 8 million expected this year but would the money have been better spent on infrastructure and social services. I actually found it all a bit intimidating.  Russia is asserting its place in the world, reclaiming a history and power that goes beyond Soviet and communist times. It's almost as though those days are a hiccup in Russia's history as it show cases itself to the world with a wealth that no longer belongs to one family but to the nation.  The display of wealth was to me as menacing as the display of the powerful weapons which will make up the processions on May 9th as Russians celebrate the end of the Second World War. 

Russia of course is the home of the Bolshoi, of culture and art and one of the joys of the trip was the visit to the Hermitage. Particularly thrilling for me were the Rembrandts, especially the Return of the Prodigal Son.  This is a picture I have loved for a long time and used oftern in reflection days and prayers. To see the original was a great joy and I was able to sit with it for sometime.  While doing this a group of thse 8 million Chinese tourists were being shown round.  The guide was obviously telling them the story of the Prodigal Son. I couldn't understand a word of course but he entered so much into the story that it was easy to follow and he got a good applause when he finished.  I'm sure such good story telling would brighten up many a Church service. One disappointment was not seeing  Rublev's ikon of the Trinity,  another favourite painting of mine.  Unfortunately I took it for granted it was in the Hermitage, only to discover it was in fact in Moscow and I had missed it! Perhaps a reason for returning?

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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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