Pope Francis urged religious leaders to “unmask the violence” masquerading as holy and condemn religiously inspired hatred as an idolatrous caricature of God, during his visit to Egypt last Friday.
“No act of violence can be perpetrated in the name of God, for it would profane his name,” the Pope told Muslim and Christian leaders at a peace conference attended by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople.
The Pope began his two-day visit to Cairo by speaking at a gathering organised by Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, regarded as Sunni Islam’s highest institute of learning.
He told reporters on the papal flight from Rome that the trip was significant because he was invited by the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II, and Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak of Alexandria.
Having invitations from these four leaders showed it was “a trip of unity and fraternity” that would be “quite, quite intense”, he said.
Greeted with a standing ovation and a few scattered shouts of “viva il papa” (“long live the Pope”), Francis later addressed conference participants by saying “Peace be with you” in Arabic. He gave a 23-minute talk highlighting Egypt’s “glorious history” as a land of civilisation, wisdom and faith in God. Small olive branches symbolising peace were among the greenery adorning the podium.
Religious leaders had a duty to respect everyone’s religious identity and have “the courage to accept differences”, he said in a talk that was interrupted by applause several times.
Those who belonged to a different culture or religion “should not be seen or treated as enemies, but rather welcomed as fellow-travellers”.
Religion needed to take its sacred and essential place in the world as a reminder of the “great questions about the meaning of life” and humanity’s ultimate calling. “We are not meant to spend all of our energies on the uncertain and shifting affairs of this world, but to journey towards the absolute,” he said.
He emphasised that religion “is not a problem, but a part of the solution” because it helps people lift their hearts towards God “in order to learn how to build the city of man”.
Egypt is the land where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, which include “Thou shalt not kill”, the Pope added. God “exhorts us to reject the way of violence as the necessary condition for every earthly covenant”.
“Violence is the negation of every authentic religious expression,” he said. “As religious leaders, we are called, therefore, to unmask the violence that masquerades as purported sanctity and is based more on the ‘absolutising’ of selfishness than on authentic openness to the absolute.
“We have an obligation to denounce violations of human dignity and human rights, to expose attempts to justify every form of hatred in the name of religion and to condemn these attempts as idolatrous caricatures of God.” God is holy, the Pope said, and “he is the God of peace”.
He asked everyone at the Al-Azhar conference to say “once more, a firm and clear ‘No!’ to every form of violence, vengeance and hatred carried out in the name of religion or in the name of God”.
The Pope and Sheikh el-Tayeb embraced after the sheikh gave his introductory address, which emphasised that only false notions of religion lead to violence. The grand imam expressed gratitude for the Pope’s remarks in which he rejected the association of Islam with terror.
The sheikh began his speech by asking the audience to stand for a minute’s silence to commemorate the victims of terrorism in Egypt and globally.
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