(Vatican Radio) Faith, and not politics, is at the heart of exchanges between churches
at the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Busan, South Korea,
affirmed the executive secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre.
“This
is what everybody would expect. We would expect that political interests, as usual,
would play the major role here,” said Yusef Daher, who is attending the assembly with
about 10 other Palestinian Christians.
But, he said, Pope Francis’ universal
call for prayer weeks ago brought about a real solidarity among Christians and taught
an important lesson. “Not only political pressure but this spiritual connection with
God and prayer would bring fruit much better than all of our political endeavours,"
he said.
Daher also summarized what speakers from the churches of Egypt and
Syria said regarding Christian persecution in majority-Muslim countries.
“They
are much determined to say, ‘No, it is not a Muslim-Christian issue.’ It is something
between fanaticism and modernism, between secularism and this fanaticism, which has
(shown) its ugly face,” he explained. “We saw this in Egypt and we saw this in Syria.
“What
gives us hope is that evil is becoming clear(er) to everybody and then everybody …will
resist evil,” he continued. “So this is where we are hoping and waiting for the cycle
to go round. And then everybody will have prosperity, freedom and live in peace in
the end.”
According to Daher, his delegation was inspired by the exchanges
with other suffering Christian communities there and given the strength to “go on
with new meaningful initiatives”.
“We have learned a lot — from the Koreans,
from the South Africans, from other struggles here — and we have a direction,” he
said. “And we are strengthened by the Word of God and by the Kairos document.”
“That other peoples have suffered also … And we see that they have survived, and
we will survive, and we will emerge, and we will resurrect with Jesus Christ,” he
said.
Listen to Philippa Hitchen’s full interview with Yusef Daher: