“Let’s learn to live together, let’s be workers for peace.” These are the words of Roselyne Hamel, uttered at the funeral of her brother, Fr Jacques Hamel, at Rouen Cathedral recently. Eighty-eight-year-old Fr Jacques, assistant parish priest in the small town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, was murdered by two 19-year-old ISIS sympathisers while he said Mass on 26 July.
Pope Francis told reporters on a flight back to Rome from World Youth Day in Poland: “I think it is not right to identify Islam with terrorism. It is not right and it is not true.” The fact is that most of the 1.6 billion Muslims (about 22 per cent of the world’s population) in our world are peace-loving people. It is significant that hundreds of Muslims attended Fr Jacques’ funeral and Masses in Italy and France as a show of solidarity and love for Christians.
You will have read reports in our media about the Trinidadian, Shane Crawford, who, in his alleged interview in ISIS’ magazine Dabiq calls for “Christian disbelievers” to be destroyed. Listening to CNC3’s interview with the mother of Shane Crawford, it appears that her son was disaffected. Accompanying Asha Javeed’s article in the Express on Nov 21, 2015, there was a photograph of a few Trinidadian ISIS ‘fighters’. She said: “They come from all walks of life. . .a scholar, a lifeguard, a boxer, a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer. She estimated that about 100 Muslims from Trinidad have travelled to Syria and Iraq to support ISIS.
Although we many never know why each person joins ISIS, a March 2015 report of a study by researchers from Lebanon-based Quantum Communications, may be of some assistance. Patrick Tucker reported that the researchers collected televised interviews with 49 ISIS fighters “some in custody, some who had defected, and some who were still in the fight. They analysed the fighters’ statements using a psycho-contextual analytical technique developed by Canadian psychologist Marisa Zavalloni to divine the motivational forces and personal characteristics of the subjects. . . .they grouped the fighters into nine categories, based on the reasons they gave for joining ISIS or other extremist groups. . .the fighters’ motivations tended to vary by their country of origin.”
Read Tucker’s article at: www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/why-people-join-isis/419685 to find out more about each of the following nine categories: status seekers, identity seekers, revenge seekers, redemption seekers, responsibility seekers, thrill seekers, ideology seekers, justice seekers, death seekers.
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Pope Paul VI instituted the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) on Pentecost Sunday, 1964. Inter alia, it has responsibility “to promote mutual understanding, respect and collaboration between Catholics and the followers of other religious traditions.”
During Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the US in April 2008, he attended an interfaith gathering at the John Paul II Cultural Institute in Washington, DC, to speak with members of several faiths, including American Muslim leaders. He said: “The higher goal of inter-religious dialogue requires a clear exposition of our respective religious tenets. . . . May the followers of all religions stand together in defending and promoting life and religious freedom everywhere. By giving ourselves generously to this sacred task – through dialogue and countless small acts of love, understanding and compassion – we can be instruments of peace for the whole human family” (http://www.acommonword.com/catholic-muslim-dialogue-improving-says-muslim-leader/).
And, on April 22, 2015, the PCID issued a statement stating that: “Interreligious dialogue with the Muslim community must be strengthened given ‘the barbarism underway’ by terrorists claiming to be Muslims. . .the vast majority of Muslims do not recognise themselves in the barbarism underway. . . . The council cited Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI in saying that the use of religion to justify violence must be condemned. Lamenting that ‘religion is often associated with violence’ today, the council said people of faith must instead demonstrate that ‘religions are called to be heralds of peace and not of violence’.
“The proper response, the council said, is a ‘strengthening of fraternity and dialogue. To continue dialoguing, even when you experience persecution, can become a sign of hope. We must have the courage to review the quality life in the family, the ways religion and history are taught, the content of the sermons in our places of worship,’ the council suggested. The family and education are ‘the keys’ that will create a world ‘based on reciprocal respect and fraternity’” (www.ncronline.org).
Pope Francis has reminded us that the world is thirsty for peace and that we must believe “in a new humanity”. Remember his Lenten message – let us become islands of mercy in a sea of indifference. Followers of Jesus are required to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. We all share a common humanity. Let us never let violence for our neighbour fill our hearts.
