Vatican greets the Buddhists for the feast of Veshak
May 02, 2013: The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has on Thursday
delivered a message to the Buddhists for the feast of Veshak, their most important
festival of the year, in which they commemorate the major events in the life of Buddha.
The message entitled Christians and Buddhists: loving, defending and promoting human
life.
Here below is the text of the message:
Dear Buddhist Friends
1. On
behalf of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, I would like to extend
my heartfelt greetings and good wishes to all of you, as you celebrate the feast of
Vesakh which offers us Christians an occasion to renew our friendly dialogue and close
collaboration with the different traditions that you represent.
2. Pope Francis,
at the very beginning of his ministry, has reaffirmed the necessity of dialogue of
friendship among followers of different religions. He noted that “The Church is […]
conscious of the responsibility which all of us have for our world, for the whole
of creation, which we must love and protect. There is much that we can do to benefit
the poor, the needy and those who suffer, and to favour justice, promote reconciliation
and build peace” (Audience with Representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Communities
and of the Different Religions, 20 March 2013). The Message of the World Day of Peace
in 2013 entitled “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” notes that “The path to the attainment
of the common good and to peace is above all that of respect for human life in all
its many aspects, beginning with its conception, through its development and up to
its natural end. True peacemakers, then, are those who love, defend and promote human
life in all its dimensions, personal, communitarian and transcendent. Life in its
fullness is the height of peace. Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and
crimes against life” (Message for the World Day of Peace in 2013, n. 4).
3. I
wish to voice that the Catholic Church has sincere respect for your noble religious
tradition. Frequently we note a consonance with values expressed also in your religious
books: respect for life, contemplation, silence, simplicity (cf. Verbum Domini, no.
119). Our genuine fraternal dialogue needs to foster what we Buddhists and Christians
have in common especially a shared profound reverence for life.
4. Dear Buddhist
friends, your first precept teaches you to abstain from destroying the life of any
sentient being and it thus prohibits killing oneself and others. The cornerstone of
your ethics lies in loving kindness to all beings. We Christians believe that the
core of Jesus’ moral teaching is twofold; love of God and love of neighbour. Jesus
says: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” And again:
‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Catechism
of the Catholic Church n. 1823).The fifth Christian
Commandment, “You shall
not kill” harmonizes so well with your first precept. Nostra Aetate teaches that “the
Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions” (NA 2).
I think, therefore, that it is urgent for both Buddhists and Christians on the basis
of the genuine patrimony of our religious traditions to create a climate of peace
to love, defend and promote human life.
5. As we all know, in spite of these
noble teachings on the sanctity of human life, evil in different forms contributes
to the dehumanization of the person by mitigating the sense of humanity in individuals
and communities. This tragic situation calls upon us, Buddhists and Christians, to
join hands to unmask the threats to human life and to awaken the ethical consciousness
of our respective followers to generate a spiritual and moral rebirth of individuals
and societies in order to be true peacemakers who love, defend and promote human life
in all its dimensions.
6. Dear Buddhist friends, let us continue to collaborate
with a renewed compassion and fraternity to alleviate the suffering of the human family
by fostering the sacredness of human life. It is in this spirit that I wish you once
again a peaceful and joyful feast of Vesakh.