Dialogue with the Jews is imperativeOn January 17, on the eve of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Day of Judaism was celebrated. This year’s initiatives were centered on the words from the Book of Genesis: “So God created man to his own image, in the image of God he created him; man and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). Established by Polish Bishops in 1997, the Day of Judaism is devoted to the development of Christian-Jewish dialogue. According to Father p. Janusz Salamon SJ, director of Poland’s Centre for Culture and Dialogue, “celebrating the Day of Judaism becomes meaningful only when our daily actions and words testify to the fact that we consider the Jews as our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the same God”. Father Salamon pointed out that “our attitude towards the representatives of other religions and cultures doesn’t acquire significance in the pragmatic need to reach an agreement”, since the dialogue “is imperative for Christian faithful; it is a deep part of our faith”. “First and foremost it’s a dialogue within ourselves”, Father Salamon explained. According to data made known by the President of Poland’s Jewish Communities, Piotr Kadlcik, there are approximately 20 thousand Jews living in Poland.Christian unity: the “sine qua non” conditionThe Polish Church is deeply committed in the development of ecumenical dialogue and in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, said Msgr. Alfons Nossol, President of the Council for Ecumenism of Poland’s episcopacy. “There are Churches where during the Eucharistic celebration, homilies are pronounced by the ministers of other confessions. There is wide interest over the fact that in recent year the Week of Prayer is preceded by the Day of Judaism and is concluded by the Day on Islam. Also the fact of having included these two religions in ecumenical dialogue is exceptional in the Universal Church. It is worthwhile remembering that all Theology Faculties in Poland have chairs on ecumenism and there are a number of ecumenical institutes”. Msgr. Nossol believes that “dialogue is a sine qua non condition of Catholicism. Those who don’t adopt the method of dialogue aren’t fully Catholic. Since there is increasing sensitivity for this attitude, dialogue has increasing possibilities of becoming ever more authentic and ecumenical”.At the end of the Week a Day devoted to IslamThe Polish Church will be devoting January 26, marking the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity celebrations, to the dialogue with Islam, promoted this year for the eighth time by the Commission for Dialogue with non-Christian Religions operating at the Polish Bishops Conference. This year’s topic will focus on “Peace in both religious traditions”. In the year 2000, Poland’s Bishops Conference was the first in the world to indicate that the day following the conclusion of the week of prayer for Christian unity would be the day of Islam. For this year’s Day, the Joint Catholic-Muslim Commission solemnly declared: “The Day of Islam represents an occasion to focus our attention upon the political, economic and ethnic background of the conflicts between faithful of the two major monotheistic communities”. The co-Presidents of the Commission, Selim Chazbijewicz representing Islam, and Zdzislaw Bielecki representing Catholicism, regretfully remarked that “this background is still ignored and underestimated by the media. In this framework, those Poles participating with determination in the Day of Islam, despite the many problems and obstacles along the difficult road towards dialogue, deserve our admiration. Obstacles encountered in out daily lives involve different issues such as the social and economic situation of the Muslim diaspora in Europe, the conflict in the Middle East, the fights in Darfur, the tensions between the U.S. and Iran or the cancellation of the Paris-Dakar rally for fear of acts of terrorism. Before these worrisome events, we wish that the constant development of Muslim-Christian dialogue along with the achievement of world peace may be sustained by initiatives such as the Day of Islam celebrated in Poland”.
