"The Church, the sacrament of God's message in the world, continues Christ's work of dialogue. Her duty is always to proclaim the reign of God, to bring the proclamation of this message into every aspect of human life, and to seek the fulfilment of all things in Christ. The Church is particularly concerned with Man's religious experience, the motivating and leavening agent in his culture. This means that the Church must constantly be involved in dialogue with men of other religions. The Christian finds himself continually evangelizing and being evangelized by his partners in dialogue." (BIRA II: Statement from The 2nd Bishops' Institute for Inter-religious Affairs(Bira II) of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC); 13-20 Nov. 1979)

The teaching of the Church is clear: dialogue with the people of other religions is essential to her mission to proclaim Christ. If the Church encourages us to dialogue with peoples of other religions, how much more with Christians of other denominations?

If dialogue is the way to the Truth why should we fear to dialogue? Yet, we fear. The causes are numerous: ignorance, painfulness of change if we see the truth, bigotry, self-righteousness, pride, etc.. We are slaves to all these factors. We are not free to see the Truth. If we could be more open to Truth in all its fullness, we would be made more free, for Christ said: "Truth will set you free." Freed from these bonds, we are able to see the Truth which generates understanding. Understanding gives birth to Love. From another point of view, it is true that love opens our eyes to be more understanding. St. Augustine said: "Amor dat novos oculus" (Love sees with new eyes).

We are called to love as God loves us - unconditionally. If we truly practice this, we will see the good, the true and the holiness in Christians of other denomination and in people of other religions and we will understand them better. This should lead us to Christ's Truth which will free us from bigotry, from self-righteousness, pride, etc.. As Truth generates deeper love, love opens the path to greater Truth. They interact dialectically in a spiral movement. Therefore, let us not be afraid to dialogue for "perfect love cast out fear" (1 John 4:18) We are called to love and to bear witness to the Truth. Both perfect us as human beings and dialogue is the path to Truth and love.

This chapter acts as a sort of conclusion to the whole book. [Straight to Catholics - Why I believe in What I believe] It ends with what I have stated in the introduction. Having explained to Catholics why we believe in what we believe, we are encouraged by that very faith to reach out to others in dialogue. It is because we have a position and can defend and explain it intelligibly from Revelation and reason that we have no fear, and thus we are able to enter into dialogue with others. We do not talk to others as if we alone have the truth. If we were to do so, it would not be dialogue. It would be monologue, which, I have shown, goes against the nature of being human. Neither do we talk to others as if we have to no conviction. If we were to do so, it would not be dialogue either. It would also be monologue.

This time, it would be the others who would tell us their beliefs whereas we would keep quiet because we would have no conviction. Even if they were to contradict one another, we would accept all because we would have no position from which we could speak. We dialogue with others because we have our convictions, but we know that Truth being bigger than any one or more systems of thought, we can learn more.

BY  HIS  GRACE   BISHOP  PAUL  TAN  CHEE  ING  S.J.

* This small book [Straight to Catholics - Why I believe in What I believe] by His Grace Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing, SJ, is to help Catholic Christians. Catholics have been the target of attacks from many quarters. They have been accused of worshiping three Gods, of worshiping the Virgin Mary, of idol worship, of hiding the Bible truth from people, of placing tradition above the Word of God, etc. Many Catholics with a superficial knowledge of their faith have been confused and feel troubled.

This book tries to tackle the main areas of dispute and clarify the issues with quotes from the Bible, with evidences from the earliest Christian documents, with philosophical arguments and with theological expositions. The book hopes to help Catholics understand their own faith better so that they will neither fear attacks from others nor feel compelled to counter-attack.

Hence, the defense or explanation of why we Catholics believe in what we believe should not cut us off from others. On the contrary, being secure in what we believe, not feeling threatened, we can be then open to dialogue with people of other beliefs. *

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -