Cardinal Turkson attends conference in Qom, Iran
(Vatican Radio) The President
of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, is in
Iran for a conference on the role of religion in Justice and Peace taking place
at the Centre for the Study of Jurisprudence of Aemer Athar in Qom.
In his talk, Cardinal Turkson
spoke about five building blocks of peace and justice: human dignity, justice,
unity and brotherhood of the human family, common good and the universal
destination of the goods of the earth.
“These five principles, which
promote righteous and peaceful conduct in the world, are distilled from what
the revealed Word of God in the Bible teaches about God, the creator of the
world,” he said.
The full text of
Cardinal Turkson’s remarks are below
The Role of Revealed
Religions
in the Achievement of
Peace and Justice in the World
Qom, Iran, 6 February 2016
THE GLORY OF GOD IS
PEACE AND JUSTICE ON EARTH
Cardinal Peter K.A. Turkson
Excellencies, distinguished
Authorities, Professors and students, dear friends
Introduction:
In the name of Pope Francis,
it is my honour to greet you, also on behalf of the Pontifical Council for
Justice and Peace.
As I stand before you for
this important Conference on the Role of Revealed Religions in the
Achievement of Justice and Peace in the Word,[1] I
cannot help but recall the recent, most historic visit of President Hassan
Rouhani to the Vatican. His meeting with Pope Francis generated new hopes in
the hearts of very many around the world. Since the majority of people living
on our planet profess to be believers, this should spur religions to dialogue
among themselves for the sake of building networks of respect and fraternity,
defending the poor and protecting nature.[2]
Today, we gather in the holy
city of Qom, a spiritual place for Shiite Moslems that goes far back in
history. Qom’s sublime architecture and sculptures splendidly
convey that beauty which
reflects the divine order of creation to which we, as one human family and
servants of God, must and should turn in order to establish peace and justice among
us. To do so would be to repeat precisely what Pope John XXIII once did.
At the height of the Cold War
in the 1960s, Saint John XXIII invited the whole world to reflect with him on
the experience of peace on earth in the life of the human family. His
Encyclical Letter Pacem in terris (1963) was addressed in an
unusual manner: not only to Patriarchs, Bishops, Priests and the Faithful of
the Catholic Church, but also to all people of good will. The
whole world teetered on the brink of nuclear war and groped aimlessly for a
solution. Under these dismal conditions, but intending to be hopeful, Pope John
wrote: “Peace on earth -- which man throughout the ages has longed for and
sought after -- can never be established, never guaranteed, except by the
diligent observance of the divinely established order.”[3]
In this statement, we hear an
echo of the hymn of praise of God with which the Angels greeted the birth of
Jesus: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those
who enjoy His favour” (Lk 2:14). In both instances, peace on earth is
related to God's established order and his favour!
Far back in the Hebrew and
Christian scriptures, in fact very early in the relationship between God and
Abraham, God revealed to Abraham the scope of his call. God’s call consists in
teaching justice and righteousness: "No, for I have chosen him that he
may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord
by doing righteousness and justice…” (Gen 18:19). It takes a prophet,
made privy to God’s plans (Gen 18:17), to teach righteousness and justice on
earth; today this conference invites us to explore the reasons for this under
the theme: The Role of Revealed Religions in the Achievement of Peace
and Justice in the World.
I shall now endeavour to
briefly discuss the foundations of revealed religion that continues to be
crucial to the well-being of the entire human family; and also what it takes
for revealed religion to contribute to peace and justice in the world.
Creation: the Setting of
Man's Vocation to Peace and Justice:
My dear friends, the three
great monotheistic religions, namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all
share a high regard for the forefather Abraham and for their sacred scriptures.
They all also believe in a God who freely manifests Himself, communicating to
us His love, His will, His meaning, even Himself. This divine
self-manifestation is for us revelation; and we first encounter it in the book
of nature (creation), but most especially, at least in the biblical
religions, in the relationship God establishes with man (covenants).[4]
Thus the revelation within
the revealed religions is the source of a theology ormysticism, dealing
with who God is and with man's knowledge of God. It has a corollary: an anthropology (and
an ecology) about the human person and his world, what they are,
where they come from, how human conduct must be (the domain of ethics)
and their purpose or vocation and destiny. The
latter give sense to human history by defining social ethics and ecological
responsibility for the human family.
In all of these revealed
religions, the beginning point of God's self-manifestation outside Himself is
in the act of creation. Thus, in the Koran, Muslims are
reminded of the supremacy of God as creator of all things, and that He created
a world of order and truth. The universe was established withmīzān,
measure, and that everything has its proper place. Humankind was created as khalifah of
the earth, to be its stewards; yet through the fāsād, corruption,
that humans have done to the planet, we have upset the natural order. In a
word, climate degradation caused by man is a sin against ar-Rabb, the Lord and
Sustainer of all things.[5]
In the Bible, creation is
presented both as a system of separations maintained and kept in order and in
orderliness (goodness) by the powerful Word of God, and it is a garden prepared
by God to be the home of humankind. Here too, the irruption of sin disfigures
God's work and plan for humanity, thus setting the scene for God's subsequent
intervention and engagement with humanity and his world in the history
of salvation. The call of Abraham is set in this subsequent phase of
divine engagement with humanity and the world in order to save them.
This is the material that
makes up what Christian call the “Old Testament”; and it is also the source of
knowledge of that divinely established order which brings and
guarantees peace, as Pope St. John XXIII has observed.
Principles for Shared Life
in our Common Home
The divine act of creation,
especially in its presentation in an "account of the beginning" (récit
du commencement), is the origin of what Pope St. John XXIII referred to as
the divinely established order; and it gives rise to concepts and
principles for Christians which are pertinent to our discussion of how revealed
religions can help build peace and justice in
the world.
Human dignity:
To begin with, the accounts
about the creation of man show that, created in the image and likeness of God,
each person, each human being has a dignitas- each one is a unique
gift to the others. This dignity does not, therefore, derive
from the State or any other human institution or any changeable majority
opinion. It is rather to be respected and safeguarded by the State.
Knowing that they are created
and loved by God, people come to understand their own transcendent dignity;
they learn not to be satisfied with only themselves, but to encounter their
neighbour in a network of relationships that are ever authentically human.[6] Men
and women who are made “new” by the love of God are able to change the rules
and the quality of relationships, even transforming social structures. They are
people capable of bringing peace where there is conflict, of building and
nurturing fraternal relationships where there is hatred, of seeking justice
where the exploitation of man by man prevails. Only love is capable of
radically transforming the relationships that men maintain among themselves.[7]
In their transcendent
dignity, men recognize that they are subjects of ahumanism that is
up to the standards of God's plan of love in history, an integral and solidary
humanism capable of creating a new social, economic and political order,
founded on the dignity and freedom of every human person, to be brought about
in peace, justice and solidarity. And this humanism can become
a reality if individual men and women and their communities are able to
cultivate moral and social virtues in themselves and spread them in society.[8] But,
not only are they, in their dignity, created social, and
interdependent with others in human communities; the dignity of human beings
requires that they be free from coercion in those matters which most closely
concern their conscience, especially the matter of religion.
So, how we treat one another,
the earth and its vulnerable creatures is a reflection of what we truly
believe. When the root causes of violence, war and inequality are examined,
what emerges is a grave alienation from ourselves, from others, from creation
and ultimately from God, the source of all life. If the other is not recognized
as equal in dignity and worthy of respect, then something else moves in to fill
the vacuum; and this something is the ego, preoccupation with self, with one’s
own interests and plans, in isolation from others. Such are the attitudes which
stymy peace.
Justice as a relationship
term:
In the beginning, God’s act
of creation establishes a communion with man and his world,
based on the threefold relationship between God and man, among human beings
(man and his fellow man), and between man and his world. The maintenance of
these relationships is also the maintenance of communion with
God and harmony within creation. The disruption of these relationships through
a disregard of or infringement upon God's command, as in the biblical story of
the Fall, leads to a rupture in the life of communion between
God and his creation and disharmony within creation.
When, then, in the Christian
Bible, the story of salvation and redemption is the restoration of the life of communion between
God and his creation through a repair of broken relationships; and when this
repair is referred to in the Christian Bible as reconciliation and justification (making just again), then
the Christian Bible invites us to understand justice in the
context of relationships. Indeed, justice is a relationship
term; and it denotes respect for the demands of the relationship in
which we stand. When we respect the demands of the relationship(s) in
which we stand, then the Bible calls us just (tsadiq andjustice is צדקה). Thus, the pious man, whose worship of
God expresses his respect for his ties with God, is just. Similarly,
the man who maintains good relationship with his neighbours, respecting their
rights, is just. Thus also with creation and the environment.
The opposite conduct, when we
disregard the demands of the relationship in which we stand, is wickedness (רשע). Therefore, the biblical sense of justice,before
it becomes distributive, commutative, restorative etc., is
primarily "relational": respect for the demands of the
relationships in which we stand.This makes for harmony and peace.
The whole of life is about
relationships or the lack of them. When we live and respect the demands of the
relationships in which we stand, we are just, and we act with justice; and
the fruit of justice is peace. Peace is directly related to the quality of
personal and community relationships. To build a more peaceful world, work
needs to be done at the personal level; between individuals, communities and
nations; with creation, and ultimately with God. Everyone contributes to a more
just and less violent society to the extent that we cultivate right and just
relations at every level of our lives.
Unity of the Human Family,
Humanity as a Brotherhood, a Fraternity:
The Bible not only posits a
common origin of the human family in Adam and Eve in the creation story; it
also calls God the Father and origin of all: "Have we not all one
father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one
another…" (Malachi 2:10).
In relation to this
affirmation of the unity of the human family, the story of the birth of Cain
and Abel, as brothers, introduces diversity. As brothers (a-delphos)
from the same womb, Cain and Abel are equal in dignity, as persons; but they
are different in character and occupation.
Male and female God created
us, brother and sister he called us to be. Fraternity – treating each other as
the brothers and sisters that we are – is our true vocation. We are free to
embrace it or reject it. God our Creator has freely made human beings equal in
dignity, but not the same. Each one of us is fully loved, not more or less but
infinitely, fully, uniquely, and unconditionally. Respect for the
dignity of the other is the first sign of acceptance as a brother
or sister.
Since, beside brotherhood, the
Bible offers no other way for the multiplication and growth of the human
family, brotherhood becomes the only form of existence of the
human family in its diversity. Men and women are different, but they are
brothers and sisters.
Any form of aggression and
killing of man is a fratricide. We must watch over each other
as goël (kinsman, redeemer, avenger), and seek each other's
wellbeing in solidarity: in that moral and social attitude,
by which one, with firmness and perseverance commits oneself to the common
good; i.e. to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really
responsible for all”.[9] In
the process, however, we need to ensure that all, including the poorest, can
participate directly in fashioning their common good. This is the important
principle of subsidiarity: and it ensures the participation of all
in the common business of life. A politics of participation rather than mere
membership is the hallmark of subsidiarity.
This attitude challenges all
social barriers that emerge in human societies and serve to isolate and
threaten material wellbeing and social participation. In the light of what the
human family is, as one and as brothers, solidarity,
subsidiarity and participation must become everyone’s true social habits.
Common Good:
The discussion of fraternity
leads seamlessly to another great teaching of the biblical account of creation:
the common good.[10]This
refers to "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either
as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more
easily;"[11] and
it is said to be "common", because only together as a community, and
not simply as isolated individuals, is it possible to enjoy, achieve, and
spread this good. Sometimes, though, the common good is misunderstood to mean simply
the common desires or interests of the multitude. Nothing could be farther from
the truth.Common good is not simply what people happen to want, but
what would be authentically good for people, the social conditions that enable
human flourishing. However, the common good, as important as it is,
is not the greatest good. The ultimate fulfilment of every human person,
created by God, can be found only in God, but the common good helps
groups and individuals to reach this ultimate good. So, if social conditions
are such that people are inhibited or deterred from being able to love God and
neighbour, then thecommon good has not been realized.
Universal Destination of
the Goods of the Earth:
A crucial implication follows
from the above, but most importantly, from the fact that God, in the biblical
account of creation, bestowed the riches of the earth on man and woman,
"created in the image and likeness of God". What follows is that God
has "destined the earth and all it contains for all human beings and all
peoples so that all created things would be shared fairly by all mankind under
the guidance of justice and charity".[12] Because
the goods of the earth are so destined for the use of all, one may actually
describe auniversal right to the goods of the earth. Such a right,
however, does not negate the right to private ownership. It
only invites private ownership to recognize its social function;[13] for,
"the principle of the universal destination of goods is an invitation to
develop an economic vision inspired by moral values that permit people not to
lose sight of the origin or purpose of these goods, so as to bring about a
world of fairness and solidarity…”[14] In
sum, “the universal destination of goods requires a common effort to obtain for
every person and for all peoples the conditions necessary for integral
development, so that everyone can contribute to making a more humane world, ‘in
which the progress of some will no longer be an obstacle to the development of
others, nor a pretext for their enslavement.’”[15]
Summing up:
St. Francis of Assisi once
prayed: “Lord, make me a channel of your peace.” We today pray in this sacred
place of Shiite Islam: “Lord, make us builders of the city of man which
deserves the name Salaam/shalom/pax”. In the above, I have
described five building blocks of peace and justice: human
dignity, justice, unity and brotherhood of the human family, common good and the
universal destination of the goods of the earth. These five
principles, which promote righteous and peaceful conduct in the world, are
distilled from what the revealed Word of God in the Bible teaches about God,
the creator of the world.
The New Testament
Principles of Grace and Love:
But when God created the
world, it was good. Indeed, it was very good! So,
the five building blocks of peace described above were set in
this original goodness of God’s creation and were natural and native to human
conduct: natural and native to human conduct because man was in perfect
communion with God. With the irruption of sin, the alienation of man from God,
the disfiguring of creation and the wounding of the nature of man, these
principles remain; but no longer are they natural and native to man. Sin has
put them beyond the natural and ordinary reach of man, rendering them difficult
to be achieved by man. And this is where revelation in the Biblical religion
continues the divine act of creation with a divine act of redemption:
God’s self-manifestation again in the history of man to save him from sin and
its wounds.
In Christian belief, this divine
act of redemption began already in the Old Testament with the promise
of a Messiah; and it was fulfilled in the New Testament with the coming of
Jesus Christ. This period of revelation in the Bible expresses God’s gratuitous
and prodigal saving action towards undeserving humanity out of His mercy. This
mercy of God, which makes Him come to the help of humanity to save it from sin,
is often described as God’s love in action; and it is, I must
admit, the most difficult part of Christian Biblical revelation for
non-Christians.
Just two examples may
illustrate the point. The Gospel of John says: “God so loved the world that He
gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may
have eternal life” (Jn 3:16); while St. Paul teaches: “But God proves His love
for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
So, this part of Christian
revelation teaches that man is not just a sinner; he is a sinner called by
God’s undeserved favour to experience God’s mercy and salvation. This
undeserved favour of God in the life of man is what Christian revelation calls grace;
and it is what draws man again into a relationship with God. It is what justifies man,
makes man just again before God. And so, we come
to make the same point as above: Justice is a relationship
term. It expresses, first and foremost, the relationship of
communion and harmony, and all that we do to make this happen.
The teaching of the New
Testament revelation, then, is that we fashion and maintain relationships of
communion, friendship and harmony with people – not because they always deserve
it, but because we love them and want to show them the same favour (grace)
God has shown us by forgiving our sins and drawing us back to Himself.
Thus in showcasing, as it
were the love of God, the New Testament is predominantly the revelation of the
mystery of the love of God for sinful humanity, as a sign of the presence of
the Kingdom of God; and it formulatesgrace and love (actions
out of love) as the new ethic of the Kingdom, and the new principle
of human conduct that ensures peace and justice in
the world.
And so, if we were to ask the
question again: “What role does revealed religion play in the
achievement of peace and justice in the world?, we would say that
Christian revelation teaches us to shape the earthly city (world) in unity,
peace and justice by rendering it to some degree an anticipation and a
prefiguration of the Kingdom of God,[16] through
living, by God’s grace, the five principles above, now perfected by the new
ethic of love. This word, love, is Christianity’s ultimate
tool for justice and peace in the world.
In sum, as Pope Benedict XVI
once put it: “The earthly city (of peace andjustice) is
promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an even
greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness (grace and love),
mercy and communion.”[17]
Our global common home:
As a final note, let me
observe that a clear case of the application of the tenets of revealed religion
for peace and justice in the world today is
how we care for our global common home. Care for the earth,
our global common home, is, indeed, a necessary consequence of our common
brotherhood; for our fraternity is now more than ever a global question,
because we inhabit a common home, which is the whole world.
Not only did Pope Francis
publish his Encyclical Letter, Laudato sì', on the care of our common
home, last June. During the summer, several Islamic institutions and
individuals came together (August 2015) to issue an important new document
about the urgent challenges posed by climate change. The Islamic Declaration on
Climate Change[18] is
something Catholics everywhere can welcome and support. Islam’s geographical
spread is vast. It includes major oil-producing countries. It also includes
some of those countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change,
notably low-lying Bangladesh and Indonesia. There is no doubt that the addition
of a strong Muslim voice to the chorus of those demanding a coherent moral
response to the world’s ecological problems would be a huge strategic asset.
As we have observed already,
to build a more peaceful world, work needs to be done at the personal level,
between individuals communities and nations, with creation and ultimately with
God. Everyone contributes to a more just and less violent society to the extent
that we cultivate right and just relations at every level of our lives, including
the earth and our environment.
Already in 1990 and 2010,
Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI applied the tenets of Christian faith to
the ecological issue of care for the environment; and in our own day, Pope
Francis has formulated it in an Encyclical Letter.
Both Pope John Paul II and
Pope Benedict XVI eloquently taught that, rather than simply being
technological, the environmental crisis is fundamentally ethical as well.[19] In
the past mankind was able to overcome perplexing problems through technological
innovation; and facile confidence trusts that it will once again come to our
rescue – thus, business continues ‘as usual’. But now technology is proving
insufficient to compensate for the excesses of the developed world, with their
negative impact on the earth’s ecosystems of the earth. Nor can technology
address the injustices that are perpetrated as a result of environmental
problems. So questions are beginning to be raised from an ethical perspective:
Does the ability to do something actually justify doing it? What is technically
possible may not be ethically justifiable. Instead, a responsible ethics of the
use of the earth’s goods will in turn help to forge solutions that are more
mutual and solidary between peoples, more respectful of the environment, and
therefore more sustainable.
That is why, while climate
change has received its desperately needed attention over the past year, the
Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis is equally emphatic about the social element
of the environmental crisis. Yes, the rising water levels are a huge threat,
but so are the persistent levels of poverty. We are not caring for our common home
when some of our brothers starve unseen in a forgotten room and our sisters
scavenge outside for food scraps in garbage heaps.
If we are to take justice and peace seriously,
we must turn our attention to the workings of everyday economic activity, from
those who bake or harvest before dawn and walk to the town market to sell their
produce, to the analysts and investors in world financial institutions
manipulating huge sums in an instant at their computers. Pope Francis has been
emphatic that all this activity must serve the interests of all peoples:
“Economy, as the very word
indicates, should be the art of achieving a fitting management of our common
home. If we really want to achieve a healthy world economy, what is needed at
this juncture of history is a more efficient way of interacting which, with due
regard for the sovereignty of each nation, ensures the economic well-being of
all countries, not just of a few.”[20]
This teaching derives from
what the Church calls ‘the universal destination of goods’. All created things
are to be shared fairly under the guidance of justice and love: that is,
without excluding or favouring anyone. As Saint John Chrysostom taught: “Not to
share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their
livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs.”[21]Thus
economic efficiency and the promotion of human development in solidarity are
not two separate goals, but one. Careful use of technologies, planning of
labour, distribution of capital and debt, approaches to investment, responsible
handling of human migration, and respect for national sovereignties must all
serve, and not frustrate the origin and purpose of goods in their global
context.
Conclusion
Both of our religious
traditions, Islam and Christianity, have long histories, with immense
contributions to the intellectual and spiritual riches of humankind. It may be
time to see how they, in their own ways, help make our earthly cities
prefigurations of the Kingdom of God. “The majority of people living on our
planet profess to be believers. This should spur religions to dialogue among
themselves for the sake of protecting nature, defending the poor, and building
networks of respect and fraternity... The gravity of the ecological crisis
demands that we all look to the common good, embarking on a path of dialogue
which demands patience, self-discipline and generosity, always keeping in mind
that “realities are greater than ideas ”[22].
As Pope John XXIII implored
in 1963, so may we today gather together, with the richness of our differences
and of our common moral and spiritual principles, to flourish in a common
home within “the divinely established order”.
May God the Almighty and
All-Merciful, who daily inspires generous desires to serve the common good and
achieve justice and peace on earth, grant us abundant grace to live our
commitments fully and bring them to fruition.
+++
[1] I am grateful to Dr. Damian Howard S.J. (London)
and Mr. Robert Czerny (Ottawa) for their contributions to this paper.
[4] Thus, for example in the words of Pope John
XXIII, the “divinely established order” is what it is because of
the coherence with which God endowed it in the very act of his
self-manifestation at creation. In short, at the origin of everything and of
man, is God's gratuitous self-manifestation to us. This may take the form of an
individual and his descendants who are called into a relationship with God, the
history or record of which reveals who God is, who man is and “God purposes
for man”. This is the case of the Biblical religions, which begins
with Abraham, a prophet (Gen 20:7), and his descendants in the TaNaK (Old
Testament), and continues in the New Testament with the disciples of Jesus, Son
of David. In Islam, the belief is that God (Allah) made the content of
the Koran known to the Prophet Mohammed, who recited it to his listeners.
[5]Matthew Livingstone S.J., "Religioni e impegno
per il clima: Tra l’Enciclica «Laudato si’» e la Conferenza di
Parigi"Civiltà Cattolica n° 3973 (9.1.2016)
http://www.laciviltacattolica.it/it/quaderni/articolo/3730/religioni-e-impegno-per-il-clima-tra-lenciclica-%C2%ABlaudato-si?%C2%BB-e-la-conferenza-di-parigi/
[10] In Evangelii Gaudium, in a section
titled “The common good and peace in society” (§§ 217-237), Pope Francis asks
us to place a vision of the common good back at the centre of our human projects.
[18] See the text online at http://islamicclimatedeclaration.org/islamic-declaration-on-global-climate-change/
[19] Seehttp://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace_en.html ,
message of John Paul II for World Day of Peace, 1990, andhttp://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20091208_xliii-world-day-peace_en.html ,
message of Benedict XVI for World Day of Peace, 2010.
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