Pope Francis Took Inspiration for the Encyclical Not Only From St. Francis of Assisi but Also From the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Altayyeb
By
Gerard O’Connell
Dec 05,
2020
“I see the
encyclical Fratelli Tutti as a testament of Pope Francis. He’s bringing
together all the things he wanted to say over the last seven years. There’s an
obvious connection with the Human Fraternity document that he signed with the
Grand Imam of al-Azhar Al Sharif on February 4, 2019, in Abu Dhabi,” Cardinal
Michael L. Fitzgerald, M.Afr, told America in this exclusive interview during
his recent visit to Rome where he met the Pope.
Cardinal
Fitzgerald discussed the encyclical and the Human Fraternity document with
America at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in Rome, where
he was once rector. After that assignment, he was called by John Paul II to
work at the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, first as secretary
and then as prefect for four years until Benedict XVI, in an unexpected move,
assigned him as nuncio to Egypt and delegate to the Arab League (2006-2012).
Pope Francis made him cardinal in 2019 and told journalists he did so “as an
act of justice.”
Cardinal
Fitzgerald noted that Francis took inspiration for the encyclical not only from
St. Francis of Assisi but also from the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmad AlTayyeb.
Indeed, “Francis reveals he was ‘stimulated’ — that is the word he uses in
Italian — by the Grand Imam”, the cardinal said. “And that expression caught my
eye, because there is no precedent in Church history for a pope drawing
inspiration from a Muslim in writing an encyclical.” He recalled Francis’s own
words about his and the Imam’s meeting on the Human Fraternity document, which
he mentions eight times in the encyclical: “This was no mere diplomatic
gesture, but a reflection born of dialogue and common commitment.” The cardinal
remarked “all that’s significant”, as is “the fact that a Muslim — Judge Ahmed
Al-Salam — was one of the presenters of Fratelli Tutti at its launch in the
Vatican.”
Pope Francis with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayeb (Vatican Media)
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Similarities
in Human Fraternity and Fratelli Tutti
The
cardinal, who studied in Tunisia and Egypt and worked in South Sudan, Cairo and
Jerusalem, considered it “important” that both the encyclical and the Human
Fraternity document emphasise that “we are all one family, and that this fact
is based on our common origin from God, because God has created all people
together.” He remarked: “This is something that Pope Francis and the Grand Imam
of al-Azhar agree on. This is a theological principle, so they were doing
theology together.”
He recalled
that “the Qur’an does [say] that we all come from one single stock, and we are
all in Adam and the whole of humanity, before actually being created, has
accepted God as God, and Lord. But they have to be reminded about this, and
that’s the whole thrust in Islam. We are all Muslims when we are born because
we have all accepted God as our Lord” but, he remarked, “That doesn’t come in
the encyclical, of course.”
He noted
that “while Muslims refer to God as the Creator God, the Merciful God, they do not
refer to God as Father. They would object to that, because the word ‘father’
for them has a sort of sexual con notation, and so that would not be worthy of
God.” But, he remarked, the fact that Pope Francis and the Grand Imam “were
able to produce this document on human fraternity without referring to God as
father shows that this is fine.”
He drew
attention to the similarities between the Human Fraternity document and
Fratelli Tutti, and noted that while the Pope speaks of a “desensitised” human
conscience in the encyclical, Francis and Al-Tayyeb use the even stronger term
“anaesthetised” in the Abu Dhabi text.
The African
missionary cardinal emphasised that, in the Human Fraternity document, Pope
Francis and the Grand Imam issued “the condemnation of terrorism in all its
forms and expressions.” He said it’s “significant” that Francis quoted those
same words in Fratelli Tutti (paragraph n.283), that make clear that “we should
not support terrorism in any way, neither financially nor by attempts to justify
it in the media.”
The
cardinal added, “I think the fact that the Pope and the Imam are saying things
together is good; it is important because it is noticed.” He said “there are
many, many Muslim leaders who have con demned terrorism, condemned the misuse
of religion to justify violence. Indeed, many Muslim leaders are saying this,
but it is not being taken up by the press. But when the the Pope and the imam
are saying this together, this has more weight, and it is noticed.”
He drew
attention to the fact that “in the Christian world, Pope Francis is not the
head of all Christians. He is the head of the Catholic Church, but he has very
good relations, personal relations, with the leaders of the other Christian
communities and so, by reason of his own personality, he has a wide audience.”
But the imam’s situation is different: “The Grand Imam of al-Azhar doesn’t have
authority over all Muslims, and even among Sunni Muslims (author’s note: over
85 per cent of all Muslims are Sunni) there are some who are critical of
al-Azhar, so I think the fact that the Pope and he are talking together will
give a boost to the voice of the Grand Imam.” He considered it a positive sign
that Dr Mohammad Ali-Shomali, a leading Shiite scholar from Iran who lives in
England, has written positively on the Human Fraternity document in a recent
issue of the journal of PISAI.
A
Friendship That Changed Things
This good
relationship between Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, and indeed
Francis’s positive relationship with the Muslim world in general, began by
emphasising that “the foundation for all this is the Second Vatican Council.
The ground breaking document for this is Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the
Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Pope Paul VI promulgated
this on October 28, 1965. “All the popes
since then have been applying that in their own different ways,” said Cardinal
Fitzgerald.
The
cardinal said, “I felt that John Paul II was far ahead of the Church in
reaching out to people of other religions, including Muslims, and was not
afraid because he was so Catholic. This thing of being open to people of other
religions wouldn’t bring any doubts about his own faith. He’s following his
faith in order to be open.” But, he said, “His successor, Benedict XVI’s
position, was a bit of a withdrawal because he seemed to look at the world from
a European point of view more than a
universal [one].”
On the
other hand, he said, “Pope Francis, by his acts and his speaking as well, is
much more open and, in a sense, is more practical because he works through
gestures, and he works through friendship. We saw this with his Muslim leader
friend from Argentina, Omar Abboud, and the fact that he invited him to
accompany him to the Holy Land and they went to the Western Wall together. All
this is very significant. Francis is building on his own work that he had done
before he became pope, and he’s developed this. As Pope, he hasn’t been afraid
to develop the friendship with Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, and that changes things. It’s not
just a formal relationship and trying to do things together.”
Tracing the
history of their relationship, the cardinal recalled that the Grand Imam
visited the Pope in the Vatican and invited him to an international meeting on
peace in Cairo. Francis accepted and went there in April 2017. Al-Tayyeb
returned to Rome for a meeting organised by the Sant Egidio community in 2018
and asked to meet the Pope again. He was received by Francis together with a
delegation of five people after the general audience on a Wednesday morning in
a small room next to the Paul VI audience hall.
The
cardinal said, “they talked for some time in a rather formal way, and then
Francis asked, ‘do you have a programme? Are you having lunch somewhere?’ They
said they hadn’t arranged anything, so he said, ‘Can I invite you to lunch?’
and then the conversation flowed much more easily. And it was during that lunch
that they suggested writing this common document on Human Fraternity.” The
cardinal recalled that some months after they had signed the text in Abu Dhabi,
they set up the Higher Committee for Human Fraternity in the summer of 2019 to
promote that document. He hailed the establishment of this committee as “in
every respect an advance. It shows we do things together, and we try to do more
things together.” ––America Magazine
Original
Headline: Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar on ‘Fratelli Tutti’
Source: The Herald Malaysia
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/pope-francis-took-inspiration-encyclical/d/123696