Pope Benedict met with members of Germany's Muslim community at the Apostolic Nunziature
in Berlin on Friday. Below we publish the text of his discourse:
Dear Muslim
Friends, I am glad to be able to welcome you here, as the representatives of different
Muslim communities in Germany. From my heart I thank Professor Mouhanad Khorchide
for his kind greeting. His words show me what a climate of respect and trust has
grown up between the Catholic Church and the Muslim communities in Germany.
Berlin
is a good place for a meeting like this, not only because the oldest mosque on German
territory is located here, but also because Berlin has the largest Muslim population
of all the cities in Germany. From the 1970s onwards, the presence of numerous
Muslim families has increasingly become a distinguishing mark of this country. Constant
effort is needed in order to foster better mutual acquaintance and understanding.
Not only is this important for peaceful coexistence, but also for the contribution
that each can make towards building up the common good in this society. Many Muslims
attribute great importance to the religious dimension of life. At times this is thought
provocative in a society that tends to marginalize religion or at most to assign it
a place among the individual’s personal choices.
The Catholic Church firmly
advocates that due recognition be given to the public dimension of religious adherence.
In an overwhelmingly pluralist society, this demand is not unimportant. Care must
be taken to guarantee that others are always treated with respect. Mutual respect
grows only on the basis of agreement on certain inalienable values that are proper
to human nature, in particular the inviolable dignity of every single person. Such
agreement does not limit the expression of individual religions; on the contrary,
it allows each person to bear witness explicitly to what he believes, not avoiding
comparison with others. In Germany – as in many other countries, not only Western
ones – this common frame of reference is articulated by the Constitution, whose juridical
content is binding on every citizen, whether he belong to a faith community or not.
Naturally,
discussion over the best formulation of principles like freedom of public worship
is vast and open-ended, yet it is significant that the Basic Law expresses them in
a way that is still valid today at a distance of over sixty years (cf. Art. 4:2).
In this law we find above all the common ethos that lies at the heart of human coexistence
and that also in a certain way pervades the apparently formal rules of operation of
the institutions of democratic life.
We could ask ourselves how such a text
– drawn up in a radically different historical epoch, that is to say in an almost
uniformly Christian cultural situation – is also suited to present-day Germany, situated
as it is within a globalized world and marked as it is by a remarkable degree of pluralism
in the area of religious belief.
The reason for this seems to me to lie in
the fact that the fathers of the Basic Law at that important moment were fully conscious
of the need to find particularly solid ground with which all citizens would be able
to identify. In seeking this, they did not prescind from their own religious beliefs;
indeed for many of them, the real source of inspiration was the Christian vision of
man. But they knew they had to engage with the followers of other religions and none:
common ground was found in the recognition of some inalienable rights that are proper
to human nature and precede every positive formulation. In this way, an essentially
homogeneous society laid the foundations that we today consider valid for a markedly
pluralistic world, foundations that actually point out the evident limits of pluralism:
it is inconceivable, in fact, that a society could survive in the long term without
consensus on fundamental ethical values.
Dear friends, on the basis of what
I have outlined here, it seems to me that there can be fruitful collaboration between
Christians and Muslims. In the process, we help to build a society that differs in
many respects from what we brought with us from the past. As believers, setting out
from our respective convictions, we can offer an important witness in many key areas
of life in society. I am thinking, for example, of the protection of the family based
on marriage, respect for life in every phase of its natural course or the promotion
of greater social justice.
This is another reason why I think it important
to hold a day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world,
as we plan to do on 27 October next, twenty-five years after the historic meeting
in Assisi led by my predecessor, Blessed Pope John Paul II. Through this gathering,
we wish to express, with simplicity, that we believers have a special contribution
to make towards building a better world, while acknowledging that if our actions are
to be effective, we need to grow in dialogue and mutual esteem. With these sentiments
I renew my sincere greetings and I thank you for this meeting, which has greatly enriched
my visit to my homeland. Thank you for your attention!