CCEE: FINAL RELEASE ON ISLAM MEETING - June 2011

Yes to an “appropriate” formation of imams by creating Chairs of Islamic theology in the European universities and yet to the teaching of the Islamic religion as well in public schools. This was stated by the delegates of the Bishops Conferences for Relations with Muslims in Europe, in a final press release disclosed today, at the end of a work meeting which, on the initiative of Ccee (Council of European Bishops Conferences), took place in Turin from May 31st to June 2nd. “The Church follows with interest – the release states – the expectations and initiatives arising within the heart of the Muslim communities aimed at providing their own religious leaders – imams, teachers – with an appropriate theological and cultural formation to carry out their religious role effectively in a European context; the Church hopes that such initiatives – including the establishment of Chairs of Islamic Theology in Universities in countries where theology is a discipline present in the university system – can be organised, with the right adaptations, according to the legal framework of the relations existing between State and Church. In this perspective the Church views positively that denominational religious education in the state school can include other religious traditions as well, including Islam, holding to the requirements provided for in the different States for the pursuit of such a purpose”.

Europe “can promote the birth of an Islam more purely and typically religious than political”. Because of this, the Catholic Church follows with “interest” and “special attention” “the dynamics of the inclusion of residents and citizens of the Muslim religion into the European context, both at individual and community levels”. This is written in the final release, disclosed today by the Council of European Bishops Conferences, at the end of the second meeting of the European delegates for Relations with Muslims, which ended in Turin yesterday. “It is a complex process not lacking in ambiguities – the delegates write in the release – from which emerges the challenge – which becomes reality – of the gradual inculturation of Islam in Europe, with the subsequent manifestation of its more truly religious and moral dimension, rather than its political one. All the cultural and theological initiatives which are an expression of what is described as “theology of inculturation”, are followed with great interest since they open and strengthen processes of positive participation in European social and cultural life, in a pluralist context, open to inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue”.

A call to overcome “the categories of “fear” and “hostility” towards Islam. This was made by the delegates for Relations with Muslims in Europe, in a release disclosed this morning by the Council of European Bishops Conferences at the end of a three-day meeting in Turin. The delegates offered a critical assessment of the term “Islamophobia”, used to interpret the reactions of hostility towards Islam present in European society, preferring to use rather the categories “fear” and “hostility”. While confirming the Church’s commitment to overcoming such reactions which lead to intolerance, they exhort Muslims to develop positive and sincere relations in the different contexts so as to rebut such interpretations”. And they add that “Christians and Muslims are called to take on three challenges: the challenge of identity (to know and accept who and what we are); the challenge of otherness (our differences must not lead to hatred, but should be considered a source of mutual enrichment); the challenge of sincerity, which implies manifesting one’s own faith without imposing it in a pluralist context and in a perspective of dialogue”.

© www.agensir.it - june 3th 2011

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