Cardinal Koovakad: Interreligious dialogue can build peace
While Pope Francis appoints Cardinal George Koovakad as the prefect of the Dicastery for interreligious dialogue, the Cardinal of Indian origin speaks to the news of the Vatican of his new role and his mission continues to organize the Pope’s apostolic trips.
By Andrea Tornielli
“I feel surprising, joy and great apprehension for the immense responsibility for succeeding a wise and kind man like Cardinal Ayuso, and a man of deep faith and tireless accidental coarse like Cardinal Tauran.”
These are the feelings expressed by Cardinal Indian origin George Jacob Koovakad, organizer of the Pope’s apostolic visits, receiving Pope Francis’s decision on Friday to appoint it as a prefect of the Dicaster for interreligious dialogue.
Dicastery promotes relations with members and groups of religions not under the Christian name, with the exception of Judaism, which is dicastery to promote Christian unity.
The Holy See press office announced its appointment as a prefect on Friday, January 24, adding that Cardinal Koovakad will retain his current role as papal visits.
In the following interview, Cardinal Koovakad spoke of his first impressions and examples of the popes by promoting interreligious dialogue.
Q: How did you receive this meeting?
Cardinal Koovakad: With immense gratitude to Pope Francis, who, in less than two months, included me unexpectedly at the college of Cardinals, appointed me Archbishop and now entrusted me with a dicastery which was recently led by a wise and good man Like Cardinal Miguel ángel Ayuso Guixot, and before him, a man of deep faith and tireless peace like Cardinal Tauran, until the end of his life.
I admit, thought fills me with great apprehension and a feeling of insufficiency. At the same time, I count strongly on the prayers of all those who continue to dream of a world where religious differences coexist peacefully but become essential elements to build peace between peoples.
I trust the direction of the Holy Father and on the path already judiciously traced by those who preceded me. Above all, I count on the help of Dicastery employees, which I met in recent hours and who have already welcomed me with friendship and made me feel at home.
Q: You were born 51 years ago in Chethipuzha, Kerala. As an Indian, even if you have spent many years far from your country, do you think that interconfessional coexistence is deeply anchored in your identity?
Yes, I was born and I grew up in a multicultural and multi-religious society where all religions are respected and harmony is preserved. Diversity is a wealth!
I like to emphasize that interreligious dialogue in India is traditionally linked to monasticism. As early as 1500, Jesuit Pr. Roberto de Nobili adopted the clothes and customs of the Indian monks, learned local languages and sought to assimilate everything that could be valued in these traditions. Such attempts are not without risks, however, as the Pope teaches us, going out and going forward always has risks.
But what I want to emphasize is this attitude of opening, sympathy and proximity to other traditions. The Christian faith is capable of inculturation: Christians are called upon to be seeds of fraternity for all. This does not mean abandoning your identity, but rather being aware that identity should never be a reason to build walls or discriminate others. Instead, this should always be an opportunity to build bridges.
Interreligious dialogue is not simply a dialogue between religions, but between believers called to testify to the beauty of believing in God and to practice fraternal charity and respect.
Q: One of the responsibilities of your Dicastery is the relationship with the Islamic world. What can you tell us about it?
The Vatican’s second advice marked the start of a new era in relations with other religions, including Islam. I remember that prophetic words and gestures, like those of Saint-Paul VI, who, as a pilgrim in Uganda in 1969, honored the first African Christian martyrs by drawing a parallel which understood Muslim believers in martyrdom that ‘They all suffered under local tribal kings.
Then there are the words of Saint-Jean-Paul II to Muslim youth in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1985, when he said: “We believe in the same God, the only God, the living God, the God who creates Worlds and brings his creatures to perfection. “Sixteen years later, the same pope entered a mosque for the first time, crossing the threshold of the Omeyyade mosque in Damascus during his visit to Syria.
The memory of Pope Benoît XVI praying silently in the Blue Mosque of Istanbul in 2006 remains lively. And how can we not mention the many measures taken by Pope Francis, such as the signature of the document on the human fraternity with the great imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyeb, on February 4, 2019, in Abu Dhabi, followed a follow -up of a year later by the encyclical Fratelli Tutti.
Q: The events you mention are almost all linked to papal apostolic trips, which leads me to connect this to your role in the organization of Pope Francis visits.
Indeed, it is true: the trips of the Holy Father almost always have interreligious dimensions, meetings with authorities of other confessions and moments of fraternity lived. I am thinking of the recent visit to Asia and Oceania last September when Pope Francis blessed the “friendship tunnel” connecting the mosque and the cathedral to Jakarta, Indonesia. I was moved by the gestures of the friendship of the great Imam Nasaruddin Umar.
With the non -apostolic non -CAS and the collaborators of the State Voyages Office of the State Secretariat – which I thank for their work – we had prepared a lot, in dialogue with the Muslim authorities, for the visit to Dubai scheduled for early December 2023 for COP28 On climate change, which was canceled a few days before departure due to the Pope’s convalescence.
I would also like to mention the great experience a few months earlier in Mongolia, where only 1.3% of the population is Christian, as well as apostolic visits to Kazakhstan and Bahrain. The context of the Dicastery for interreligious dialogue is entirely new for me, but I believe that the experience I have acquired and will continue to win at the travel office has been and will remain precious.
Likewise, I hope that my service in non-apostolic non-CAS in Algeria, South Korea and Iran will be useful. I still remember very well images of the pope’s dialogue with the great Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Al-Sistani in Najaf during his historic visit to Iraq in 2021, even if at that time, I was not yet involved in Papal visits.
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