My dear Readers, we would like to share with you our own experience and not an academic sharing. I am going to support my short and friendly reflection with some quotations from the Holy See. Thanks be to God for the opportunity given to make this sort of experience. I repeat again that it is my own experience. Therefore, do not take it as negative aspect. Rather this experience has to be a point of reflection for our evangelization. In the Encyclical Letter, “FIDES ET RATIO”, of September 15, 1998, of the Sovereign Pontiff, John Paul II, it is said “ (…) the question of the relationship with cultures calls for particular attention, which cannot however claim to be exhaustive. From the time the Gospel was first preached, the Church has known the process of encounter and engagement with cultures. Christ's mandate to his disciples to go out everywhere, “even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), in order to pass on the truth which he had revealed, led the Christian community to recognize from the first the universality of its message and the difficulties created by cultural differences. A passage of Saint Paul's letter to the Christians of Ephesus helps us to understand how the early community responded to the problem. The Apostle writes: “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the wall of hostility” (2:13-14).”(No. 70)
I am in the end of one year of my presence in my second appointed mission in Ethiopia. Our mission is called ROPI. It is just situated in southern part of the Country, at 320km from the Capital City, Addis Ababa. While living, I have been reflecting daily on the way of our evangelization in the mission. Firstly, we have chapels where we celebrate Holy Masses. Then, I can appreciate whatever we have in the mission as social work, such as water project, and schools. In our area, the majority of the people are Muslims. There are also Orthodox and Protestants. I realize that people, even some religious priests are not ready and capable to open to the new faces of the mission, such as evangelization of the culture. The culture seems to be considered the height of all. For us from other countries, there is a risk of being a little bit confused. We realize that interreligious dialogue with Muslims is very far to be fulfilled, even impossible. Not because there is a jam between them and us but due to our “blind faith” of ignoring them. Our way of thinking seems to be more archaic than recent. We are only capable to deal with Orthodox. The Episcopal Conference of Ethiopia is always supporting such a dialogue with other religious confessions. But in the mind of our Christians and of some religious priests, the interreligious dialogue with the Muslims does not exist. It is a dream. Please, here is my little and exhilarating experience. In our village of Ropi, most of the shops, abattoirs, belong to the Muslims. There is not any Catholic who has an abattoir. Imagine my dear Readers; I cannot buy a kilo of meat from the Muslims. If I do it, there is word such as “no respect of the culture”. Then, I have to do more than 25km by car to buy a kilo of meat. Let us use our reason, mind and intelligence as religious people. I realize that there are some other people who are taking advantage of that kind of “blind faith” without reflecting to make their comment or to gossip/utter slander against others wherever they are, saying there is no respect of the culture. If the culture is above all; which place are we giving to Jesus-Christ? With Jesus-Christ, all the people are one. We do not only need to study Islamology for making interreligious dialogue. We have to use our intelligence. Faith and reason go together. We are called to use our reason for evangelizing and not only getting refuge to a kind of “blind faith”. The Pope John Paul II said: “In the light of this text, we reflect further to see how the Gentiles were transformed once they had embraced the faith. With the richness of the salvation brought by Christ, the walls separating the different cultures collapsed. God's promise in Christ now became a universal offer: no longer limited to one particular people, its language and its customs, but extended to all as a heritage from which each might freely draw. From their different locations and traditions all are called in Christ to share in the unity of the family of God's children. It is Christ who enables the two peoples to become “one”. Those who were “far off” have come “near”, thanks to the newness brought by the Paschal Mystery. Jesus destroys the walls of division and creates unity in a new and unsurpassed way through our sharing in his mystery. This unity is so deep that the Church can say with Saint Paul: “You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are saints and members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19).” (FIDES ET RATIO, No. 70).
After many months of reflection, we finally made up our mind to put in writing and to share our little experience. Nowadays, wherever we are, we have to be capable to open ourselves to the new faces of the mission. With respect of the people, as missionaries and Good News preachers, we have to make our Christians to understand the importance of interreligious dialogue. To do it, we firstly need to be informed. Then, we can be capable to teach the Christians. Let us read magazines, articles in our Website, several messages of the Pope, to be informed. Lack of reading is making most of us ignorant and our way of doing mission seems to be the same wherever we are. That is contrary to the current way of doing mission. The Holy See through several writings, visits, shows how much the interreligious dialogue is very important. But some of us are still in the very old, archaic and informal way of doing mission without opening to the new faces of the mission. We need to come out from the “blind faith”. I personally encourage those ones who have already overcome that reality. Our responsibility cannot be limited only to the celebration of the Masses, but also to teach the Christians the recommendation of the Universal Church, such as interreligious dialogue with other confessions. Faith and reason mutually support each other. “The Church remains profoundly convinced that faith and reason “mutually support each other”; (122) each influences the other, as they offer to each other a purifying critique and a stimulus to pursue the search for deeper understanding.” (No. 100).
