Tuesday, August 19, 2014

What's the value of something like this?

"Hundreds attend interreligious prayer for peace in Denver" (CNA, August 19, 2014):
Denver, Colo., Aug 13, 2014 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An estimated 900 people of the three Abrahamic religions packed the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Denver Monday night for an interreligious prayer service for those suffering in the Middle East.

Fr. Andre Mahanna, director Maronite eparchy's interfaith office, opened the service, explaining that the danger of persecution reaches beyond the members of those particular minority groups.

“(The violence) is against all people who believe in God, in culture, in civilization, and in the common good,” he said. “It is against the honest faith that humans are good beings, that what God created … (is) something good.”

Fr. Mahanna then asked all those in attendance to clap their hands as a gesture of solidarity in peace and against the gruesome murders and tortures of recent weeks in the Middle East.

“Let us clap our hands to make a statement … that the sound of our hands joined together in prayer and in true human love are way stronger and more effective and way more powerful than the sounds of the bombs (ISIS) are using to kill every human being on earth, starting in the Middle East.”

Intercessions were then led by religious leaders representing various religions, including Catholic and Orthodox Churches from the Middle East; Protestant and Catholic representatives from Western Christianity; rabbis; and sheikhs and imams.

Following the intercessions were readings from the religions' three holy texts - the Quran, the Pentateuch, and the Gospel - and an address from Archbishop Aquila, who said the test of a true religion is whether it promotes both love of God and of neighbor.
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[Hat tip to L.S.]

4 comments:

Not That Guy said...

"the test of a true religion is whether it promotes both love of God and of neighbor"

So there can be more than one true religion?

Pertinacious Papist said...

I've always thought the the only point of contact the epistemologically self-conscious Catholic has with a likewise aware non-Christian is metaphysical, not epistemological. That is to say, they're both creatures created in God's image. They have that in common. That doesn't necessarily mean they have any common ground at all epistomologically, however.

JM said...

My patience with our Pope is spent. Liberal, prolix platitudes. Demurrals that he is no theologian (!). Bad politics. Unless he is pulling an ex cathedra privilege, I feel no need to pay him attention. And I most certainly will not be perusing an encyclical about ecology, for crying out loud.

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/mullarkey/2014/05/francis-in-wonderland

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/mullarkey/2014/06/misuse-of-prayer

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Religion means bond with God and as it is the case that God established Religion (Bond with Adam and Eve) there has only ever been one religion.

There is only one religion but many false faiths but we aren't supposed to write or say such things because that makes the Mennonites mental