A CATHOLIC VIEW OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE IN THE TIME OF POPE FRANCIS

Abstract

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) drew the attention of Catholics to human dignity of non-Christian believers who have right to their religious identity. After the Council Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI established and supported the Pontifical Council for Interreligious dialogue with the task to study other religions as they perceive themselves and to organize friendly encounters with their representatives. Pope Francis, elected on 13 March 2013, brought into his ministry the experience of a Church leader in South America. This is why in his teaching documents, encounters and discourses he points out the social role of religion (Evangelii Gaudium, nos 176-258), the need for preserving environment as our common home (Laudato si, 199-245) and special pastoral care of couples in mixed marriages as believers who can practice interreligious dialogue by persevering in their religious affiliation (Amoris Laetitia, 247-248). On his apostolic journeys to Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Egypt he met representatives of civil authorities and Muslim religious leaders. Sheikh of Al-Azhar Ahmed Al Tayeb gave him the opportunity to address the Muslim participants at the Peace Conference in Cairo on 28 April 2017. Pope Francis’s acts and speeches can inspire Religious Education teachers in Bosnia and Herzegovina to develop respective religious identities in their students by preserving shared values and introducing them to universal ethics.