AUDIENCE WITH THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ACCREDITED TO THE HOLY SEE ADDRESS OF POPE FRANCIS
Sala Regia Friday, 22 March 2013
One of the titles of the Bishop of Rome is Pontiff, that is, a builder of bridges with God and between people. My wish is that the dialogue between us should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be welcomed and embraced! My own origins impel me to work for the building of bridges. As you know, my family is of Italian origin; and so this dialogue between places and cultures a great distance apart matters greatly to me, this dialogue between one end of the world and the other, which today are growing ever closer, more interdependent, more in need of opportunities to meet and to create real spaces of authentic fraternity.
In this work, the role of religion is fundamental. It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God. But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish true links with God, while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam. At the Mass marking the beginning of my ministry, I greatly appreciated the presence of so many civil and religious leaders from the Islamic world. And it is also important to intensify outreach to non-believers, so that the differences which divide and hurt us may never prevail, but rather the desire to build true links of friendship between all peoples, despite their diversity.
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Francis' job is to spread and defend the faith, not go all buddy-buddy with a murderous cult whose one goal is dominance over all other religions and peoples. Islam thinks the Vatican would make a lovely mosque.
I truly fear the Lord, who says "Thou shall have no other gods before me," and do not want to be standing next to anybody who would accept that "Allah" is the God of Abraham.
I have read, but cannot verify, that there are millons of conversions from Islam to Christianity every year, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. I do not know that this is actually true: it might be sheer hype. But if you have a missionary desire in your heart to share faith in Jesus --- well, how can you talk to people if you're not on speaking terms with them?
I mean this very seriously. There's a University student in my city who is an aspiring Muslim rapper. I've followed his career just a bit because his father was by sons' soccer coach. Take a look at the video he released:
I Believe in Jesus - Mo Sabri (YouTube Link)
It's no great shakes musically, and ---well, here are the lyrics, which run along extremely shallow lines of "It's nice to be nice and Jesus was nice" --- that's not the point--- the point is, if you wanted to help Mo Sabri grow in understanding the real Jesus, what would you do?
He needs to leap from being a naive Muslim rapper to having a mature faith in Jesus Christ as God and Savior. True?
So what would be more productive? To say "I hate your murderous cult and I think the final solution is gonna be nuking Mecca"? Or would you make a better start by saying, "What does a Muslim like you find so attractive about Jesus?" and hope that a serious, friendly give-and-take about real Christian truth could plant seeds of doubt in his head about Islam.
Pope Francis' job is in the Gospel-spreading business. We know what approach he takes in diplomacy (which is by no means infallible: there are no miraculous claims made about papal diplomacy) -- and we also know the approach he took with the majority-Muslim boys and girls at the Youth Detention Center in Rome.
In the same circumstances --- if your job were the spread of the Gospel --- what approach would you take?