Seeing Beyond Our Boundaries

Inter-religious dialogue is not a subject that has many interested fans. It's a very difficult area of discussion. Pope Francis has shown great interest and followed by action. In Fratelli Tutti, he has confirmed the teaching of Vatican II:  "The Church esteems the ways in which God works in other religions and rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions." He  also has repeated the words of Pope John Paul II:  "If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people."

In the Eyes of the Believer of the Catholic Times a professor of Media Communication explains the need for dialogue between all of the human family if we are to continue to live on this 'little pale blue dot'  called earth.

The rich and the poor, powerful and common people,  Asians and Westerners, the sad and joyful, regardless of situation, everyone on Earth is now suffering the same three calamities: climate crisis, fake news, and COVID-19 Pandemic, experienced on a daily basis since the new millennium.

What can we do to save life and the earth? In the face of these questions, people first began to reflect on their own civilization and realized  that "everything in the world is connected to each other, all is one.
 

The writer brings to mind the words of Carl Sagan. Before Voyager 1 left the solar system in 1990, it had taken pictures of the Earth in outer space 6 billion kilometers away from Earth and transmitted them. Carl Sagan, who participated in the space planning at this time, said that the Earth in the picture was a 'pale blue dot'.
 

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."

"This picture emphasizes that we should be kind to each other and that it is our duty to cherish our only home, the pale blue dot."
 

People have learned that once they overcome these disasters a great change in hope and a new normal will settle in human society.

Humanity is facing a great turning point of civilization in many ways. For example, science and technology are rapidly developing, and people have come to specifically plan for  the cultivation of crops on the moon.

In this great transition, people have to overcome the disasters they have caused themselves, and as Carl Sagan said, it is becoming clear that being kind to each other is the key. In other words, kindness comes from peacekeeping such as mutual understanding, respect, cooperation, and solidarity. This naturally requires efforts in many fields such as politics, economy, science, and technology, but especially in pursuit of the absoluteness of truth, it is important to awaken religion that is prone to being exclusive.
 

Hans Küng, a renowned theologian who passed away this year, emphasized this during his lifetime. "There is no world peace without inter-religious peace."

All religions in the world try to monopolize absolute and final truths, but now we have to learn and help each other through dialogue, he said. "Based on the common ethics of world religion to treat others as we want to be treated by others, let's now contribute to global peace by practicing global ethics." Each religion must cross the boundaries of 'me'.

However, it is not easy to cross the boundaries. This is because we have to reform and change ourselves first. For example, the Korean Catholic Church should correct its unique clergy-centeredness, male supremacy or bureaucracy, and materialism, which is leaning day by day toward neoliberalism.

He also thinks the laity have a lot to reflect on. The so-called "hard-working believers" are obsessed with exclusive supremacy over other religions or devote their efforts to maintaining their old customs by closing their eyes to the signs of the times. The 2nd Vatican Council, which revolutionized the horizon beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church itself, was already 60 years ago, but many don't accept the changes that have come.

Pope Francis says we need to overcome the narrowness of the  boundaries we have made for ourselves. "Let us dream, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all."