VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Three hundred days after the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip, the cardinal in the heart of the Holy Land said interreligious relations have reached a low point.
The dialogue between religious communities in the Holy Land is “in crisis,” said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem, on August 20 during a lecture at the meeting in Rimini, an annual event of the “Communio e Liberazione” movement.
“Currently, Christians, Jews and Muslims cannot meet, at least not publicly,” he said. “Even at the institutional level, it is difficult to talk to each other.”
The cardinal praised the many documents on interreligious dialogue that have emerged in recent years, especially the Document on Human Fraternity signed in 2019 by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. But he also said that after the war in the Holy Land, we must begin “a new phase” of interreligious dialogue and relations.
“One way or another, the war will end, and it will be a tremendous effort to restore trust from this attitude of mistrust, hatred and deep contempt,” he said.
However, he noted that “interreligious dialogue should be less limited to the ‘elites’ but rather should take place between communities; it must reach the grassroots.”
Religious leaders, he added, have a great responsibility to listen to other religious communities and to represent their own faith. They must also “help their community not to close itself in its own narrative about itself, but to raise its eyes to see and recognize the other.”
Cardinal Pizzaballa also cited a quote from Polish-American Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who said: “No religion is an island.”
“At the moment I have the impression that we are a bit like islands again, looking after ourselves, but we must raise our eyes and understand that we are not islands,” the cardinal said.
He said that while the Christian community in the Holy Land, which makes up less than three percent of the population, is not expected to play a role in resolving the Gaza war, Christians in the region must advocate for the possibility of forgiveness in the public debate, “even if this is not possible at the moment,” because forgiveness “is the only way out of this impasse.”
