JOHN CARDINAL ONAIYEKAN RfP

RELIGIONS FOR PEACE: 10TH WORLD ASSEMBLY

Lindau – Germany: August 19th – 23rd, 2019

Welcome Address by Co-Moderator, +John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Catholic Archbishop of Abuja – Nigeria..

 

Introduction:

The theme of this assembly has been very carefully chosen and formulated, after an extensive consultation among the Religions for Peace (RfP) family, and deep reflection by the Assembly Preparatory Committee. The main theme is:

Caring for our Common Future – Advancing Shared Well-being. 

For the purposes of the working of this assembly, this general theme has been broken into FIVE specific tasks, that will be addressed in five relevant commissions. In this brief “Welcome Address”, in my position as a co-Moderator of RfP, at this formal opening ceremony, I would like to draw our attention to the general theme of the assembly, as mentioned above.

 

1. Events and developments around us in the last decade or so have shown that our human community is at a critical cross road. Our future can no longer be taken for granted. Our theme makes the serious point that this future would depend on how we address the shared well-being of all and of everyone.

 

2. We have good reasons to welcome the fact that humanity has made great progress in science and technology, putting tremendousknowledge and power in human hands, more than ever before in remembered human history. The great decision is how we deploy this great power. Shall we use it to achieve our shared well-being, or to destroy ourselves, putting an end to human civilization as we now know it? We cannot postpone for too long the decision to either live in peace and thrive, or allow the logic of war and selfish domination to consume us all. This calls for radical change of conviction and attitudes on many fronts.

 

3. First, on the political front, the ambitions of great nations and empires must give way to a global community of shared well-being of the human family. It is pertinent to note that even today, the history of many nations is still eulogizing war mongers and violent “terrorists” of the past, praised as national heroes and accorded the title “Great”. Can we imagine what this is saying to the younger generation, dreaming of a peaceful future? But this is not just a matter of past history. Even today, are we not still measuring the greatness of nations by military prowess, which often translates into economic domination and exploitation of others?

 

4. In this necessary change of heart, all other stake-holders must be involved: civil society, the business community, the industrial world, professions and the academia, everyone must play its respective role. In this assembly, we are focusing on the role of the religious communities.

 

5. In this assembly, we have a convocation of a large number of participants of men, women and youth of almost all faith communities in the world. They validly represent the over 85 % of the human race that claim to be religious. It is significant that among those gathered here are also authoritative leaders of many important faith communities on the planet earth. But perhaps even more significant is the fact that we all share a strong conviction that religion must always be for peace, never be allowed to be used to justify conflict, violence and killing. That is what has brought us here together: Religions for Peace.

 

6. We in the RfP family believe firmly that religion has great potentials to build peace, resolve and transform conflicts. We pursue this, armed with our strongly held and commonly shared spiritual values of faith in the God of Peace, sincere commitment tojustice and solidarity among men and women, and care and concern for the weak,the voiceless and the helpless, wherever they may be.

 

7. But we are also awfully aware that we can effectively achieve this noble objective if weare:

a. faithful to our ideals, as mentioned above,

and b. seek peace and harmony within the diversities of expressions of faith in the same God, and thus become a model of a reconciled humanity. This stresses the importance of both interfaith and intra-faith mutual understanding and good relations.

8. This has been the focus and objective of RfPin its 50 years of existence and steady growth. It is also the major focus of this 10thassembly.

 

9. At this assembly, we see a good opportunity to reach out to other stake-holders with whom we share deep concern for the future of humanity: “Caring for our common future”. In particular, we hope to focus on civil authorities at all levels, whose policiesand actions often determine what happens to our world. We hope to continue to seek ever better channels of communication and more effective strategies for collaboration at national, regional and global levels.  We need joint action to address the challenges facing us all. The generous partnership and assistance of the German government in the hosting of this assembly is an eloquent example of such a collaboration. For this, we are indeed very grateful.

 

Conclusion:

In a world so riddled with bad news, this gathering of religions for peace is a good news that the media must not fail to highlight. We need to sustain the hope that peace is not only desirable and necessary for the survival of our human family, but also possible and achievable, with sincere good will among men and women, and with the grace and assistance of God, the Almighty Father and Lord of Peace.