Vatican urges "culture of acceptance", cautions relations with Muslims
Vatican City (AsiaNews) Legal provisions and measures are not enough to solve immigrants' problems. Fears and prejudice must be overcome in a more or less conscious way, through a "culture of acceptance" that is particularly required of Christians. This is what was written in "Erga migrantes caritas Christi'', composed by the Vatican Council for Migrants, signed May 1 by the pope and made public today.
The Vatican document gives special attention to problems regarding the growing number of persons of various religious and cultures who emigrate across the world, a phenomenon that also regards affluence of non-Catholic Christians but especially the rapidly growing Muslim population.
However, the Vatican document asks faithful to make a general consideration: to distinguish Islamic doctrine, religious practices and morality from their own, differentiating that which is held in common from that which is not. Such a process requires an open mind and calls for dialog, which is no easy thing, the Vatican said.
If belief in one God, charity and prayer unite two faiths, there are some "differences of opinion" for which the Holy See has urged great caution against mixed marriages between Christians and Muslims. The Vatican also believes that is not alright to allow Christian religious buildings to be shared by Islamic believers for their own services, as Msgr. Michael L. Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialog, told AsiaNews concerning the incorrect nature of allowing the Muslim community in Cordoba, Spain to use the town's cathedral for prayer.
According to the same document, while the Vatican encourages Christians to welcome immigrants of other religious backgrounds (especially Muslims), it insists on not sharing religious buildings for worship of other religious faiths. Yet at the same time the Vatican says it's possible for such places to be used for meetings and gatherings with other members of other religious faiths.
Meanwhile it is hoped that the Islamic population will have "a growing level of conscious, one that is absolutely necessary for respecting basic freedoms, inalienable human rights, equal dignity between men and women, for fostering democratic principles of government and a healthy secular state."
These seem to be some of the reasons why the Vatican document exhorts particular caution against mixed marriages, above all in cases in which a Catholic woman is engaged to a Muslim man. The document says that the couple must be properly educated on the implications involved on raising children, since for Muslim father his children per force belong to the Islamic tradition. Similar attention must be given to discussing a woman's civil rights in Islamic culture.
The Vatican document urged Catholic schools enrolling boys and girls from other faiths not to give up "their particular mission and Christian-orientated education."
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