(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue released a Message
on Thursday, addressed to Buddhists as they prepare to mark the feast of Vesakh, which
recalls the "enlightenment" of prince Siddhartha Gautama, founder of the religion.
The theme of the Message is Buddhists and Christians: together fostering fraternity.
Below, please find the official English text of the Message. Listen:
Buddhists
and Christians: Together Fostering Fraternity
MESSAGE FOR THE FEAST OF
VESAKH 2014
Vatican City
Dear Buddhist Friends,
In
the name of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, we wish to once again
extend to all of you, throughout the world, our heartfelt best wishes on the occasion
of Vesakh.
Our cordial greetings this year are inspired
by Pope Francis’ Message for the World Day of Peace 2014, entitled Fraternity, the
Foundation and Pathway to Peace. There, Pope Francis observes that “fraternity is
an essential human quality, for we are relational beings. A lively awareness of our
relatedness helps us to look upon and to treat each person as a true sister or brother;
without fraternity it is impossible to build a just society and a solid and lasting
peace…” (n. 1).
Dear friends, your religious tradition
inspires the conviction that friendly relations, dialogue, the sharing of gifts, and
the respectful and harmonious exchange of views lead to attitudes of kindness and
love which in turn generate authentic and fraternal relationships. You are also convinced
that the root of all evil is the ignorance and misunderstanding born of greed and
hatred, which in turn destroy the bonds of fraternity. Unfortunately, “daily acts
of selfishness, which are at the root of so many wars and so much injustice”, prevent
us from seeing others “as beings made for reciprocity, for communion and self-giving”
(Message for World Day of Peace 2014, n. 2). Such selfishness inevitably leads to
seeing others as a threat.
As Buddhists and Christians,
we live in a world all too often torn apart by oppression, selfishness, tribalism,
ethnic rivalry, violence and religious fundamentalism, a world where the “other” is
treated as an inferior, a non-person, or someone to be feared and eliminated if possible.
Yet, we are called, in a spirit of cooperation with other pilgrims and with people
of good will, to respect and to defend our shared humanity in a variety of socio-economic,
political and religious contexts. Drawing upon our different religious convictions,
we are called especially to be outspoken in denouncing all those social ills which
damage fraternity; to be healers who enable others to grow in selfless generosity,
and to be reconcilers who break down the walls of division and foster genuine brotherhood
between individuals and groups in society.
Our world
today is witnessing a growing sense of our common humanity and a global quest for
a more just, peaceful and fraternal world. But the fulfilment of these hopes depends
on a recognition of universal values. We hope that interreligious dialogue will contribute,
in the recognition of the fundamental principles of universal ethics, to fostering
a renewed and deepened sense of unity and fraternity among all the members of the
human family. Indeed, “each one of us is called to be an artisan of peace, by uniting
and not dividing, by extinguishing hatred and not holding on to it, by opening paths
to dialogue and not by constructing new walls! Let us dialogue and meet each other
in order to establish a culture of dialogue in the world, a culture of encounter!”
(Pope Francis, To Participants in the International Meeting for Peace, Sponsored by
the Community of "Sant' Egidio", 30 September 2013).
Dear
friends, to build a world of fraternity, it is vitally important that we join forces
to educate people, particularly the young, to seek fraternity, to live in fraternity
and to dare to build fraternity. We pray that your celebration of Vesakh will be an
occasion to rediscover and promote fraternity anew, especially in our divided societies.
Once again allow us to express our heartfelt greetings and to wish all
of you a Happy Feast of Vesakh.