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May 8 , 2006 • VOL. 44, NO. 9 • Oakland, CA
Interfaith leaders
link arms, ideas,
and prayer to foster world peace
WASHINGTON
(CNS) -- Turbaned imams, rabbis with prayer shawls draped over their shoulders
and black-robed cardinals linked arms and ideas as they closed an international
meeting dedicated to prayers and discussions on peace.
“Fundamentalism is the childhood disease of all religions and cultures,
for it imprisons people in a culture of enmity,” said the final
statement signed by the 100 religious leaders after they each lit a candle
on a tripled-tiered candelabrum set on the floor of an outdoor stage.
“Humanity is not made better by violence and terror, but by faith
and love,” said the statement, drafted April 27 at the closing of
the 2006 International Prayer for Peace meeting held at Georgetown University
in Washington.
The first to sign the statement was Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick,
who lit the top candle on the candelabrum. The last, who signed it to
a standing ovation, was Andrea Riccardi, head of the Rome-based Sant’Egidio
Community, a Catholic lay group and the chief organizer of the event.
Prior to the closing ceremony, the religious leaders gathered to pray
according to their own faith traditions at eight sites on and around the
university campus.
While Christians heard the Sermon on the Mount in a Catholic Church, Sikhs
sat cross-legged on a campus lawn and sang: “O Lord! Bless us abundantly
with rain and water; ridding us of pain. Please ferry us across the ocean
of life.”
In one room, Muslims, men in the front and women in the back, knelt on
prayers rugs and touched their foreheads to the rugs invoking Allah as
the giver of peace. In another room, Jews, men and women separated by
a row of potted plants, sang: “Blessed are you, O Lord, who blessed
your people, Israel, with peace.”
Religious leaders walk -- some hand in hand -- toward Georgetown University at the close of the International Prayer for Peace in Washington D.C., April 27. Representatives of various faith communities, brought together by the lay Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio, gathered for two days of discussion on religion and culture on the 20th anniversary of a similar gathering convened by Pope John Paul II in Assisi.
CNS PHOTO/NANCY WIECHEC
