Onaiyekan receives Pax Christi peace award

(Vatican Radio) The 2012 Pax Christi International Peace Award was presented on Wednesday to Nigerian Archbishop John Onaiyekan for his tireless efforts in promoting understanding and dialogue in Africa between people of different faiths. Onaiyekan, who has been archbishop of Abuja since 1994, was named last week as one of six Catholic leaders who will be created cardinal in a forthcoming consistory here in the Vatican on November 24^th.
The Co-Presidents of Pax Christi International Marie Dennis, from the U.S and Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg, South Africa, commended Archbishop Onaiyekan for the important role he has played in building bridges between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria and beyond.
The award ceremony took place at the Pax Christi International headquarters in Brussels just days after the latest suicide bomb attack in northern Nigeria killed at least 8 people and injured hundreds more. The attack on a Catholic Church during Mass on Sunday was similar to others claimed by the radical Islamic group Boko Haram.
Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen talked to Archbishop Onaiyekan about the difficulties of promoting dialogue while churches continue to be the target of such attacks…..

Listen:

"Churches attacked but also markets attacked, Christians killed but also Muslims killed and there is a devaluation of human life which is far more serious than the fact that we are attacked as Christians.....

What is most terrible for us is to hear them say they are doing this in the name of God - for us that is impossible to understand, and most Nigerian Muslims too say, no, this is not Islam....

We have common needs of poverty and disease - mosquitos do not distinguish between Christians and Muslims, HIV-AIDS affects both together - and we find that when religious leaders put aside this attitude of 'us against them,' there's plenty of room for working together"