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“The world needs peace. Although religious faith sometimes may show its ugly side in prejudices and fundamentalism, it is undoubtedly the main source of compassion and peace.”
One of the fruits of extensive work on dialogue, carried out by Christians and Muslims, and motivated by goodwill, is the Muslim-Christian Center near the Great Mosque of Quiapo in Manila, one of the commercial districts of the capital. It was opened during the holy month of Ramadan 2011. Called the Golden Mosque, because of its towering golden dome, it is the main center of Islamic activities in Manila and is a benchmark for all Muslim Filipinos coming from the south, where there is a substantial minority of 6 million Muslims. Quiapo is also the district where the famous Church of the Black Nazarene (due to its black statue of Jesus) is situated, and the destination of pilgrimages from all over the country. The initiative to establish a center for dialogue became successful, thanks to the efforts of Fr. Clemente Ignacio, parish priest of Quiapo, the Catholic missionaries and other Muslim leaders who have made the Quiapo area a place of dialogue and cooperation between Muslims and Christians.
Fifty years after the adoption of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 12 million people remain without citizenship, most of them living in Asia, according to the UN refugee agency.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the historic meeting that took place in Assisi (Italy) on 27 October 1986 (see picture), a day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world will take place this month. Pope Benedict XVI invited fellow Christians from different denominations, representatives of the world’s religious traditions and, in some sense, all men and women of goodwill, to join once again a pilgrimage to the home of Saint Francis.
The present crisis in the country is a call for the Church to introspect and repent, said Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore (photo at right). In a pastoral letter, Archbishop Moras, who is also the president of the Karnataka Regional Catholic Bishops’ Council, urged people to join hands to dialogue and work towards making India and the Church free of corruption.
It opens its doors right in the middle of the Arab spring. And this is not a mere coincidence. For the past few weeks at Madaba – a Jordanian city 35 kilometers from Amman – registrations are open in a new Catholic University of the Middle East, strongly desired by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem whose jurisdiction includes the Catholics of Jordan. It was Benedict XVI himself, during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in May 2009, who laid the cornerstone of this new university. In these two years, it has been called “American University of Madaba,” in the name of a partnership with the University of New Hampshire which has strongly committed itself to supporting the initiative. But it remains a university that is fully recognized by Jordan, whose High Council for Education in 2005 assigned to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem the license to open its own university. This project has now become a reality: this month the courses of the first academic year will begin in the already completed wing of a large campus that, once totally finished, will accommodate up to 8,000 students.
It is a graphic demonstration of the sickening, symbiotic relationship between hunger and conflict and highlights food supply problems from Somalia to India to Spain. A new map of food security risk around the world is, in some ways, depressingly familiar. Sub-Saharan Africa leaps out as the place where the most people fear for their next meal, while the rich world has more to fear from obesity. But there’s plenty of salutary reminders and fascinating detail, like India’s food problems and the vulnerability of Spain.
We live in a time of high anxiety. Despite the world’s unprecedented total wealth, there is vast insecurity, unrest, and dissatisfaction. In the United States, a large majority of Americans believe that the country is “on the wrong track.” Pessimism has soared. The same is true in many other places.
Corruption has increased over the last three years, say six out of 10 people around the world. And one in four people reports paying bribes last year, according to the findings of the 2010 Global Corruption Barometer, a Transparency International survey. These are indeed bad news: corruption undermines confidence, democracy and is a source of social turmoil; and it affects mainly the poorest.
If India’s powerful central government that rules over the destinies of 1.2 billion people quails before Anna Hazare, a slight 74-year-old man, it is because he is armed with a weapon that has rarely failed in this country – extreme renunciation through a fast-unto-death. His battle: fighting the omnipresent corruption.
