South Bend, USA - People who believe that religion can be used to bring people together instead of dividing them need to make their voices heard, speakers at a University of Notre Dame forum said Thursday.
“The loudest religious voices, whether they’re Muslim voices, Christian voices, whatever, the loudest voices are the people who advocate divisiveness, conflict, differences,” said John C. Danforth, a former U.S. senator, former U.N. ambassador and an ordained Episcopal minister. “The people who believe that religion has entirely different meaning have been strangely silent. I think that it is really time for them to speak out.”
Danforth spoke at a Notre Dame forum called, “Why God? Understanding Religion and Enacting Faith in a Plural World,” part of the inaugural ceremonies of the Rev. John I. Jenkins, the university’s new president.
Danforth said there needs to be a major discussion throughout the world on whether the purpose of religion is to bring people together or to separate them.
Naomi Chazan, a former deputy speaker of Israel’s parliament and a proponent of Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives, said one of her biggest religious concerns is fundamentalism, no matter the religion.
“Because fundamentalists have all the answers to all the question,” she said. “That terrifies me, and I think that should terrify everybody.”
The speakers said that despite those concerns, religion and politics can coexist.
“The basis on what we are building faith of course we can differ in faith, because faith has a common language in humanity and the common good. This is why politics exists,” said Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, who had been considered a leading candidate to become pope. “We are trying to develop a world where we can understand each other, (have) respect for everyone and then try to build together something better.”
Rodriguez said people need to learn to follow their conscience and work together to improve the lives of everyone.
“The right answer is how can we as human beings respect each other and help each other through solidarity,” he said.
Chazan agreed, saying: “Every injustice that exists on Earth everyone of us is responsible for. And if we can’t take responsibility to correct these injustices from hunger to violence then we are at fault, not the Lord.”
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the New York-based American Sufi Muslim Association, whose aim is to foster an American-Muslim identity, was asked whether all the problems he’s seen in the world have ever caused him a crisis of faith.
“I’ve had more of a crisis in faith in men than in a faith in God,” he said.
Former NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw, who moderated the event, asked Rodriguez about a report that the Vatican will soon issue a document that will signal that homosexuals are unwelcome in Roman Catholic seminaries even if they are celibate.
Rodriguez, who said he was unaware of the document, said the church cannot discriminate against gays, but gays know how to follow Christ if they want. He also said not everyone is qualified to be a priest. He compared it to a person who is afraid of flying being unable to be a pilot or a person who is afraid of blood being unable to be a surgeon.
“The Catholic priesthood is not for the people who are oriented in that direction,” he said.