INTER-RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY OPENS IN THE VATICAN

VATICAN CITY, OCT 25, 1999 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, opened the Inter-religious Assembly entitled: "At the Threshold of the Third Millennium: Collaboration between different religions." Taking part in the assembly, which runs from October 25 to 28, are 230 representatives of 19 religions, including Catholicism.

In the first session, the opening speech was given by Theresa Ee-Chooi, president of the International Union of the Catholic Press. She described the religious panorama in today's world and recalled "there is no religious creed that can ever condone such actions as ... burning churches, mosques, synagogues and temples or killing people with machete blows."

She went on, making reference to the possibility of different religions acting together: "It seems as if we have accepted, often unconsciously, inequality as if it were a virtue and poverty as a symptom of indolence. Some years ago, large signs put up around China proclaimed that 'it is good to make money'. No religion teaches such values. Such teaching has nothing to do with us. ... Let us begin to collaborate ... in order to reawaken in all members of our religions our common values of compassion, altruism, sharing and the simple life."

The assembly received a message from Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. He called upon religious leaders to leave behind the "tragic" times in history when killings occurred in the name of religion, and to turn away from religious fanaticism. He urged them "to collaborate so that the principles of tolerance, and respect for the dignity and freedom of conscience of human beings dominate."

Citing the proclamation of the Third Pan-orthodox Conference, held in Switzerland in 1986, the patriarch highlighted what should be the contributions of religion to the world: "the realization of peace, justice, freedom, fraternity and love among peoples, as well as the suppression of racial and other discriminations. ... We repeat this appeal to all religions, as the minimum that must be done for the peaceful coexistence of mankind."

We must, he wrote, "replace the confrontation of religions" with "dialectic and spiritual persuasion ... because our mixed societies - from the point of view of religion - and the great majority of simple people who aspire to universal peace, perceive that the fact of practicing principles of domination by force - formerly accepted by certain religions - would act against the shared peace of people and would make the great cities and multi-religious societies ... true volcanoes."

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