Important, we hope
Reuters reports the meeting between the Pope and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, an important event whose significance would appear to go beyond mending the controversy of last year:
Pope Benedict and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah held a historic meeting on Tuesday and discussed the situation of minority Christians in the Islamic country where the Vatican wants them to have more freedom. At the first meeting between a Pope and a Saudi monarch, the two also discussed the need for greater collaboration between Christians, Muslims and Jews and prospects for a Middle East peace. They spoke for about 30 minutes in the Pontiff’s private study with the help of interpreters in what both the Vatican and reporters described as a cordial atmosphere.
A Vatican statement said “the presence and hard work of Christians (in Saudi Arabia) was discussed” — seen as a clear reference to the Vatican’s concern over the Christian minority. Vatican sources said before the meeting that they expected the Pope to raise his concern over the situation of Catholics and other Christians in Saudi Arabia. The Vatican wants greater rights for the 1 million Catholics who live in Saudi Arabia, most of them migrant workers who are not allowed to practice their religion in public. They are only allowed to worship in private places, usually homes, and cannot wear signs of their faith in public.
King Abdullah, custodian of Islam’s holiest sites in the cities of Mecca and Medina, wore his traditional white robes. The Vatican said other topics discussed included inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue and “collaboration among Christians, Muslims and Jews for the promotion of peace, justice and spiritual and moral values, especially those which support the family”. The Pope and the king also discussed the Middle East, particularly the need to find “a just solution to the conflicts that afflict the region, in particular the Israeli-Palestinian (conflict)”.
The NYT added:
Marco Politi, the Vatican correspondent for La Repubblica and a biographer of Pope John Paul II, said, “I think it is extraordinarily important that an official communiqué from the Vatican and an important Islamic state like Saudi Arabia mentions ‘cooperation’ between Christians Muslims and Jews — not dialogue but cooperation.”…
The article in the Vatican newspaper seemed to open the door for a new diplomatic initiative toward Islam and the Middle East. It said the meeting with King Adbullah was “of great importance,” noting, “In a world where the boundaries have become day by day more open, dialogue is not a choice but a necessity.”
The article also acknowledged that some weeks ago Pope Benedict had received a letter from 138 Islamic religious leaders from 43 nations, appealing for more dialogue between Christians and Muslims. As the weeks went by with no response, some scholars here had complained that the pope seemed slow to address an important appeal. The Vatican allayed those fears Tuesday.
The meeting represents a triumph of sorts for the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and especially for Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Cardinal Tauran, who previously served the church in Lebanon and Syria, is familiar with the Middle East and has promoted greater contact with Islamic states…In May, the United Arab Emirates became the latest Islamic country to establish diplomatic relations with the Vatican, according to the Vatican paper.
One reason why the Vatican is interested in forging diplomatic relations, or at least greater diplomatic influence, in the Middle East is the presence of significant Roman Catholic populations living in predominantly Muslim countries. Almost all are guest workers from elsewhere. There are 1.5 million Christians in Saudi Arabia, the Vatican noted, the majority of them Catholics from the Philippines.
There is ample cause for cynicism in almost all things. It would be very good indeed if this were not one of those occasions.