{"id":327330,"date":"2015-06-01T07:44:07","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T05:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/poland-christian-muslim-dialogue-in-katowice\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:00:34","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:00:34","slug":"poland-christian-muslim-dialogue-in-katowice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/poland-christian-muslim-dialogue-in-katowice\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland: Christian-Muslim Dialogue in Katowice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20150601-04\"<\/a>In Poland, with its population of 38 million, 90% of whom are Christian, the Muslims are a religious minority. <\/strong>They number 25 thousand, 0.08% of the population. Their presence presence back to the Tartars of the 14th century; then there was the immigration of the second half of the 20th century and the years after the Berlin wall. The recent day of dialogue is inserted amongst three major events in the ongoing dialogue amongst Christians and Muslims in Poland. Father Adam Was, <\/strong>from the Polish Catholic Bishops Conference\u2019s Committee for non-Christian Religions, describes the event: The Day of Islam in the Catholic Church in Poland, <\/strong>instituted in 2000 by the Polish Catholic Bishops Conference at the request of the Mixed Council of Catholics and Muslims, is celebrated each year on June 26; also the Prayer of Peace and Justice in the World, <\/strong>begun in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, promoted by Polish Tartars; and finally \u201cthe unprecedented event,\u201d as described by Mufti Nedal abu Tabaq, the \u201cChristians Amongst Muslims in Poland,\u201d <\/strong>established on May 29, 2015 and begun three years ago by the Muslim League in Poland. Fifty guests were invited to speak at the event, invited by Imam Abdul Jabbar Koubaisy, <\/strong>Director of the Centre and vice-president of the Muslim League in Poland: local civil authorities, representatives from the Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran Churches; representatives from the University of Silesia and from the Jewish Community of Katowice. Focolare president, Maria Voce<\/a>, and co-president Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n<\/a> were the guests of honour. <\/strong> \"20150601-05\"<\/a><\/strong>\u201dInterreligious dialogue <\/a>is a necessary condition for peace in the world, and so it is a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities<\/strong>\u201d (EG, 250), recalled Metropolitan of Katowice, Archbishop Wiktor Skwore, in his message that was ready by Father Tadeusz Czaka\u0144ski, the Metropolitan\u2019s delegate for the dialogue with Islam. And focusing in on the theme of the meeting, he underscored how: the foundation of the entire teaching of Jesus Christ lies in merciful love towards one\u2019s neighbour,\u201d <\/strong>and he wished that this interreligious meeting in Katowice would help all \u201cto live more deeply the mystery of God\u2019s Mercy\u201d and that \u201cit would contribute to a greater openness towards one another, to more efficient cooperation on the ground in caring for the marginalised and oppressed.\u201d Then, in her speech, Maria Voce recalled some passages of the Christian Scriptures <\/strong>that speak of Jesus even before his birth, highlighting his concrete love towards the human person. \u201cIt was this universal love, without reservations that has fascinated everyone who belongs to the Focolare, and it has become our rule of life,\u201d the Focolare president noted. One of Chiara Lubich\u2019s intuitions, which constitutes one of the fundamental points of her spirituality of unity, was the discovery of the Jesus\u2019 commandment par excellence<\/em>: \u2018This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love, to lay down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s friends\u201d (Jn 15:12-13). \u201cLoving in this way is not always easy,\u201d <\/strong>Maria Voce admitted, \u201cat times, or very often this love towards our brother or sister requires sacrifice and fatigue. . . But also here Jesus is the model: he loved to the point of giving his life for us.\u201d In concluding, she expressed her wish that: God, \u201cthe greatest and most merciful, would help us to look upon everyone with the gaze of a brother or sister, with the measure of love that he revealed to us, so that together we can build a world that everyone is waiting for where brotherhood and true peace reign.\u201d While speaking of Jesus Christ, Mufti Nedal Abu Tabaq, <\/strong>who is responsible over all the Imams in Poland, affirmed that in the Koran it is written that \u201cJesus is the sign”. “He was not only miraculously conceived, but he also performed miracles, cured the sick, raised the dead. Each one of us must resuscitate the light in those who suffer (. . .) We are not candles that can burn out; we are the fire that is already come forth from it, and this light is present in every human being, but we must revive it, make it emerge (. . .) in the needs, as Jesus Christ had done (. . .) This is the Jesus whom I love, whom I know, whom I praise.\u201d Common action in favour of interreligious dialogue: <\/strong>the threat against the value of the family and the need, as believers, to protect it; educating children in dialogue: these were a few of the issues that were dealt with in a fraternal dialogue with Maria Voce and Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n, during the second part of the programme. The programme concluded with the Lord\u2019s Prayer recited by Christians and the Dua recited by Muslims. There was a sign of peace, expressed in a handshake or embrace celebrating the fraternal love that was experienced in those hours amongst Christians, Muslims and Jews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 3rd Christians Amongst Muslims Day is held on May 29, 2015, at the Doha Centre for Dialogue and Culture: \u201cIsa bin Marjam\/Jesus Christ \u2013 Brother of each one of us.\u201d Focolare president and co-president, Maria Voce and Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n were also amongst the invited guests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}