The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has sent a message to the Sikh community as it celebrates one of Sikhism’s most sacred festivals marking the birth of the first Guru – Guru Nanak.
The message, written by Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, focuses on family life and encourages Christians and Sikhs to “rise to the challenges and to contribute towards protecting and promoting families as centres of deep humanity”
Cardinal Tauran looks to the shared virtues and values that make both communities of believers mutually respectful and “genuinely human” but warns:
“A lack of [these values] would result in a rise in individualistic, egoistic and consumerist tendencies whereby indifference gets globalized. The rapid spreading of these tendencies among the members of families renders individuals poor in terms of ‘humanness’ and makes the humanization process difficult, adversely affecting thus cohesion, cooperation and co-existence within families and in the society.”
The President of the Vatican Council for Interreligious Dialogue concludes with a challenge:
“May we Christians and Sikhs, therefore, join hands with all believers and people of goodwill in order to nurture ‘true family spirit’ and to promote effective humanization. Pope Francis’ appeal to us is: ‘…let us care for our families, true schools for the future. Let us care for our families, true spaces of freedom. Let us care for families, true centres of humanity’1”
. Wishing you all a happy Prakash Diwas of Guru Nanak Dev Ji!”
1 ”
Meeting with Families, Cathedral of Our Lady of Assumption, Santiago, Cuba, 22 September, 2015.
The full message from the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue can be found below or to the right of this article.
cbcew.org.uk/interreligious-dialogue-prayer-resources
Prayer resources to help us explore and appreciate the riches in our tradition and those of others.
