For the past few months, I have been passionately committing myself to a very arduous subject matter, which can no longer be postponed or eluded, namely "the dialogue with cultures and religions".

To consider this theme is difficult for various motives. I think of the past years, which were, sometimes, filled with multiple and complex discussions, starting from the document Dominus Jesus in the year 2000, and the controversial reaction it arouse. For instance, I think also of other problematic aspects followed by similar theological controversies; I think of the document Ecclesia De Eucaristia, 17^th April 2003, and the post-synod Apostolic Exhortation: Ecclesia in Europa, 28^th  June 2003.

I can't ignore the external controversies, which question the Church herself, like the multicultural issue, the conflict among civilisations and, in particular, the relation with the Islamic civilisation;  I think of the inter-religious conflicts, the re-birth of new States, of the local and national ethnocentric realities, as well as of fundamentalism at various levels.

However, there are also motives of consoling trust and hopes. On this regard, I read a passage from a well known newspaper, which expresses the experience of fraternal communion, understood as a positive result, after the encounter of Cardinal Walter Kasper with the patriarch Alexis II. "In the city of Jaroslav,  a small Catholic community collaborates with the orthodox local bishop  in the recuperation of the drug addicted". The same thing happens in the city of Petersburg.

Another consoling note is given by a project amply wanted and supported by the Patriarch Alexis, in collaboration with other Patriarchs. For the past few years, a serious cultural formative programme has gone on being elaborated for the cultural-formative iter of the Orthodox seminarians in Russia, realised with the collaboration of several Catholic theologians.

As far as the thorny problem of "proselytising " is concerned,  Cardinal Kasper guarantees that, after the encounter with the Patriarch Alexis, an agreement has been found to face it with a joint commission. made up of members appointed both by the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Bishops, along with the representative of the Pontifical Council.

The present relations between the Chaldean Church and the Assyria Oriental Church are also positive, due to the finding of a very old Eucharistic amphora, though it does not contain the narration of the Eucharistic institution. They are liturgical traditions of the old churches before Chalcedony.

It is a matter of orientations for the admission to the Eucharist, between the Chaldean Church and the oriental Church of Assyria.  The document is of a pastoral character, but it is of a fundamental and unique importance for its theological and ecumenical reflexes.

It is, therefore, a hope which guides and urges us: by sticking to knotty positions among single and particularly doctrinal positions, we risk of not putting ourselves before the Word of God with the attitude of reciprocal conversion.  Because, according to the teaching or experience, often it is not the question of theological problems, but of knowing how to create progressively new relations and  how to base the dialogue on new terms.

The first rule of the ecumenical and inter-religious,  as well as inter-cultural dialogue, has its foundation on the Biblical reflection, which does not leave any alibi with its regard,  "Anyone who has will be given more; anyone who has not, will be deprived also of what he has"  (Mk 4,25; Lk 19,26).

He who does not possess a deep religious knowledge, who is deprived of references to his own religious and cultural roots, elaborated and deepened both at personal and scientific level, runs the risk of reducing, in dialogue, also the minimum he has: he feels disoriented, confused and lost.

On the contrary, he who grows, harmonically anchored to his own religious identity, will experience to be enriched, listened to, understood, welcomed by the other, because the other has given him the right of existing, by welcoming him in love.

Martin Buber affirms, "Every true life is an encounter".

The first rule is, therefore, that of growing dynamically and progressively within ourselves. In this picture of reference, the dialogue will neither be risky nor improvised. Each one of us must cultivate the dialogue. This depends on the degree of the received cultural formation without going beyond: it is didactically and psychologically dangerous to bypass the limits … above all because the properly theoretic dialogue demands always a new deepening.

Second rule: to distinguish between dialogue with religions and dialogue with religious men and, naturally, with the theology of religions, is decisive. They are three different aspects and realities.

The first place belongs to the dialogue with men and women religious, with a deeply lived experience, because its conduction is seen easier. In fact, it opens to persons who have their own specific history and biography, their own religious configuration, which cannot be defined by pre-fixed  abstract schemes, but by a concrete daily life.  The dialogue with religions, instead, has its own specific parameters. It is at a plan different from that of the previous one: its is always more abstract and develops at a higher level with the representatives of the different religions.

They are useful encounters and deepening, because they possess an intrinsic validity with a  common "quid" which crosses all the religions, a sense of the Absolute for the solution of the anthropological problems of humanity, the deep meaning of life, the research of the truth and salvation (Nostra aetate, no.2).

The dialogue under this aspect is always possible and useful, but it is not the only way.

In the theological reflection, actually, the most lively debate is, instead, the one relative to the theology of religions, because it develops around vital knots: like soteriology, Christ-centrism. How do these knots stand before other religions? Here is the problem.

It is, therefore, a theology aiming at deepening whether, how and how much there is a global saving value, as Vatican II affirms, namely: rays of religious truth sown in the heart and mind of men, or in the rites and culture of the peoples. We know that not all is negative, that there are partial truths of the salvation whose author Christ is and which calls all men to salvation (Lumen Gentium, no. 17; Gaudium et Spes, no 22; Ad Gentes, no.9).

Even more different is the dialogue, which develops among religious persons who want to seek in every religion the partial truths they contain. We find written nowhere that a religious system, qua talis, has only some truths and does not know obscure, difficult and, sometimes, unsurmountable passages,  because the religions have been born historically and have a spcific historical journey.

The third rule: the dialogue has its foundation in the Baptism of Christ, in the grace deriving from it.  Therefore, unity must be attained: it is an obligation. If we are divided, we remain still in the sin, because divisions are there due to our sins and our infidelity.

The dialogue is not only a human exigency, but also a necessity of Christian life, because it involves the whole life of the individual Christians and of the  churches. John Paul II develops this concept wisely in the Encyclical  Ut unum sint, "The dialogue is not a mere exchange of ideas; it is, somehow and always an exchange of gifts".  The Pope speaks even of a "synergy" , namely of co-operation between prayer and dialogue (see no.33).

This is why the dialogue exists when each of the partners really thinks of the other, or of others, "in their life of presence and in their way of being,  turning to them with the intention of establishing a lively reciprocity with them" (M. Buber, La vita in dialogo, p. 125).

Personal and communitarian conversion and asceticism are important for a deepened dialogue, because the ecumenical way is not true and does not progress where conversion is missing, "True ecumenism does not exist without interior conversion" (Ut unum sint no.15).

Moreover, John Paul II moves further when he conjugates the maturity of the ecumenical dialogue with the growth of reciprocal common prayer and, at the same time,  if it answers the examination of conscience with the assumption of specific responsibilities (see ibidem no.34).

The fourth rule: the dialogue among the cultures is profitable in the measure in which it has acquired a living and deep awareness of one's own interiority, of the specific lived interior life and of one's own identity. This condition is necessary among partners in dialogue at their respective cultural levels, otherwise it is dangerous and the quantitative level of the interest falls.

It is the logical consequence and application of the first rule,  expressed with extreme clarity by the evangelical word, "Anyone who has will be given more; anyone who has not will be deprived even of what he has".

The interiority sphere is over-cultural, it develops beyond the cultural logic, thus introducing us to the question of encounter, even when the languages are different or contra-opposed . When the interior experience is similar, the barriers created by the human language fall and the dialogue becomes easier, unfolding itself in spontaneity and freedom.

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The awareness of one's own interior life is acquired the a triple journey of conversion: moral conversion, religious conversion and intellectual conversion.

The moral conversion is born when we live the dimension of a deep awareness that the good outbids all personal and communitarian interests; anyhow, never giving in to any compromise. The good is the only absolutely winning choice.

The religious conversion matures when there is the awareness that God must be loved before all else, beyond any project: He precedes every person and occupies the primacy of love, without reserves or limits. God is the object of total love, pre-cultural or super-cultural, therefore He is not the property of any specific culture.

The cultures have their own ways and are very different in the way of narrating or speaking of God: many times also in the expression of his ethical and religious message. Every religion, instead, can acquire the awareness that God has to be loved above all things.

The intellectual conversion follows a journey marked by difficulty, because the truth, qua talis, is not what happens immediately in the phenomenon before me: it is not what I see, what I touch, feel and experience,  but the synthesis or the end of an interior process of verification, hypothesis, judgements, confrontations, evaluations, research, exchanges and deepening. Therefore, it is a course which cannot be seen, cannot be heard or measured, but has a specific interior dimension, it is within, it is an integral part of my deep being: it is born from the experience of things. This is what the apostle Paul states with extreme lucidity, "Since what we aim for is not visible, but invisible. Visible things are transitory, but the invisible things eternal" (2Co.4,18).

These rules have no pretext at scientific level, even less they presume to show specific and detailed courses; the only chance, if ever, is that of having grown to maturity of reflection and to the experience of encounters, which have enriched the ecumenical journey during these years.

Perhaps somebody may find them useful and may enrich them of more lucky experiences. What I want to do for the time being is to add a marginal note to the theme of dialogue among Christians and Hebrews, as well as to the dialogue with Islam, etc.

The dialogue with the Hebrews, instead, in the West happens at different levels:

At the level of daily dialogue, - The collaboration among Christians and Hebrews is not only possible, but it must also happen to solve the serious problems of the world, like hunger, injustices, violence, etc- In the social field collaboration remains open,  since both of them have the same values and the same objectives in common.

At humanitarian level  many cases of concrete collaboration are in action: this is a noble example to be extended also to other fields.

The archaeological researches in the Holy Land is another very extended area in which the Christians and Hebrews can meet in dialogue for an exchange of information.

At the level of theological reflection, the Church is strongly solicited to integrate her past history, to admit her own faults so that the thing can serenely  be faced. This, however, does not mean that the catholicity is expected to abandon the reflection elaborated  by the Fathers of the Church or her own Tradition, only to rediscover the Hebrew tradition.

It means to recognise that some Fathers of the Church had already started to dialogue with the Hebrews. It suffices to remember Justin, Origenes, Jerome, Origenes is a witness of the dialogue opened through a critical reading of the sacred texts.

At liturgical level, the reading of Old Testament Texts is already going on in the Christian assemblies; while the Hebrews have proposed a midrash reading of the Old Testament and, the Christian have always understood the Old Testament as a type of what would happen with the coming of Jesus. Their reading has articulated at typological and Christlogical level.

Reflecting on the mystery of Israel, the Fathers of the Church loved to refer to the Biblical image of the explorers sent by Moses to the land of Canaan. Once reached the valley of Escol, the explorers cut a branch with several clusters of grapes. Because of their enormous dimension, "two men carried them away on a pole" (Nb13, 23).

The Father of the church recognised in the pole the cross on which Christ was nailed, the branch of a new life;  in the two men, who carried the pole on their shoulders, they saw the image of Church in those who follow and the image of Israel in those who precede. Both move towards the same end, bound by the same hope, but the first, though leading the way, don't see the clusters of grapes, nor the Church, while the Church that follows can see the elderly brother in the light of the Crucified.

The Church's missionary and evangelisation journey consists in walking together, sharing the same fatigue of announcing to the world the icon of the suffering servant, the Saviour, "We have been saved by his wounds".

To walk means not to delay, not to stop, but to proceed, to go ahead.  The concept of reconciliation in a dynamic becoming, not of complete reconciliation, goes beyond the boundary according to which the Church has taken the place of Israel in the plan of salvation. As far as they keep the faith of their fathers and carry the name of God to the world, the Hebrews remain witnesse to the election and the promises of God.

God is faithful in his promises. The covenant, therefore, will not be revoked, even if it is not totally complete and realised.

The Church, who is not the kigdom, remains the people of God in the covenant born from the blood of Christ, a covenant open also to the pagans and to the Hebrews. A unique plan of salvation exists in the diversity of the covenant: from the covenant with Noah to the covenant with Abraham up to the one born for ever in the redemption of Christ.

We understand the reason why there is only a fundamental structure of the dialogue between God and his people, called to give a response of love to the Lord of the covenant, "for he is the peace between us, He who has made the two into one entity" (Eph2, 14).

Christ has created in himself one only new man, making peace with the near and far away. In the far ones we read the pagans, in the near ones Israel.

To be an authentic way of dialogue, the way of reconciliation cannot admit a loss of identity by the Christians: their task is to present to the Hebrews their brother Jesus,  whom they did not recognise in his first coming, but whom they will welcome in his glorious and definitive coming.

At spirituality level: A further level of dialogue can be born from the spirituality with the known characteristics of adoration and silence.

Judaism and Christianism  are solicited to contribute and to live, with their own specific wisdom traditions, as if they were inhabited by the adoring and orating silence and at the same time full of compassion for their brothers and sisters. If lived together, these aspects appear to be fundamental and infuse peace, serenity in the heart of many men and women.

The joint Hebrew-Christian communiqué, issued after the meeting in Jerusalem, June 2002 (Tammuz 5762), and in Grottaferrata-Roma, February 2003 (Sdhvat 5763), was interesting and eloquent. In it they discussed the importance of the basic teaching of the Scriptures in the contemporary society, for the education of the new generations.

The declaration of the Holy See in condemning violence against innocent people and in denouncing the ever returning anti-Semitism push, was unanimously appreciated.

"To attack persons in localities of prayer is not only cruel, but also coward and incompatible with human criteria …. the sacred name of God must never be utilised to encourage violence or terrorism, to promote hatred or exclusion".

The basic teaching of the Holy Scriptures leads to a landing of faith in the unique Creator and Guide of the universe, who created the human beings to his image, giving the free will to them. The entire humanity is, like this, the unique family whose members are harmonically and mutually responsible.

We live in th unique immense global village which has reached technological and scientific  progresses never known before. The challenge is to use wisely every progress for the common good, at the service of all, in thanksgiving to God, never for malefic ends or instruments of curse.

The challenge of giving voice and value to the diffusion of faith, in our contemporary world, demands living testimonies of justice, of charity, of tolerance, as the prophet Micah announces, "You have already been told what is right and what Yahweh wants of you. Only this, to do what is right, to love loyalty and to walk humbly with our God" (Mi. 6, 8).

The responsible religious and the educators have the duty to instruct their community to the commitment of the beginning and growth of peace, together with the research of the common well-being. Every child of Abraham, as every believer, must ban the weapons of war and destruction from the earth: "Turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it" (Ps. 34, 15).

At present we can't but share the sorrow of those who suffer in the Holy Land, both individually and in the families or communities. Hope, with prayer, must be the most convincing proof for the end of trials and tribulations on earth, considered by all men to be holy.

To encounter the Muslims?

In the document, To encounter the Muslims, of the Committee "Islam in Europe", the members of the Episcopal Council of Europe (CCEE) and the Conference of the Churches in Europe (KEN), during the year 2003, propose to the Churches a reflection and a way of behaviour to encounter the Muslims.

Rich in Biblical references, the text starts from the need of considering the presence of the Muslims in our Western secularised society which seeks its own cultural and religious roots, as a "sign of our time through which God questions us".

It defines our time as "a favourable time for the fact that even the Christians "don't want anymore that religion be a cause of war and new divisions".

In this reference picture, always remaining "audacious and prudent in the Spirit",  the document shows phases of the behaviour to be acquired and to be adopted, according to the context and the demands of testimony", in a world, which is no longer limited to a village, a city and a nation.

            In the journey of humanity towards the common Father, who does not reject any of his children, the knotty point is the Gospel's call, which invites the Christian to take the first step, by being always ready to extend a helping hand (see Mt 18,21).

To synthesise, we suggest to keep always seven points, or stimuli in mind, to live well one's own identity of creature.

• Forgiveness is born the moment we become aware of our historical wounds.

• Learning how to consider the other with the eyes of God and to love him with the heart of God.

• Expressing our values in the effort of listening to the other who narrates his history.

• Acknowledging our past faults.

• Fraternity grows with our desire of being brothers and sisters, acknowledging our similarities and differences.

• Giving reason for the hope that we have (1Pt 3,15),

• Favouring peace and justice in diversity and reciprocal respect.