Cardinal Fernández: All religions stand for peace

Vatican News

Sixty years after the Second Vatican Council published the conciliar Declaration Nostra aetate, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, and the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue have published “A Journey of Hope.”

In the following interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Victor Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, speaks about the Church’s desire for dialogue with people of other faiths.

Q: In a world of divisions, wars, and violence, where the religious component is often cited among the causes of conflict, what value and contemporary relevance does the Conciliar Declaration Nostra aetate hold?

Section 9 of the Note recalls a fundamental passage from paragraph 5 of the Declaration Nostra aetate, which states: “We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. […] The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion.”

This is a guideline of the utmost importance for our current context as well. Every religion—and all religions—stands for peace. Never for war. Indeed, it is no coincidence that Pope Leo XIV himself emphatically reaffirmed this same principle in his encyclical Magnifica humanitas, paragraph 223: “[T]hose who use the name of God to legitimize terrorism, violence or war betray His true nature, for to fight in the name of religion means attacking religion itself.

Q: What does it mean, in concrete terms, to “engage in dialogue” today? How can one avoid, on the one hand, the risk of retreating into an insular identity and, on the other, the risk of syncretism?

I would like to recall here what Saint John Paul II used to say regarding dialogue. It is said that, in various private conversations, he emphasized the urgency of combining the strongest sense of identity with the greatest openness to dialogue.

Truly, authentic dialogue is at the same time a form of “proclamation,” since, precisely within the dialogue, each person must clearly show the other their own identity and strive to reveal it in all its beauty and harmony.

All this connects with what is aptly expressed in Dilexit nos, in sections 209 and 210, where [Pope Francis] recalls that the mission of proclaiming the Gospel “requires missionaries who are themselves in love and who, enthralled by Christ, feel bound to share this love that has changed their lives.

They are impatient when time is wasted discussing secondary questions or concentrating on truths and rules, because their greatest concern is to share what they have experienced. They want others to perceive the goodness and beauty of the Beloved through their efforts, however inadequate they may be.”

And in all this, there is no act of proselytism, for “the words of a lover do not disturb others, they do not make demands or oblige, they only lead others to marvel at such love. With immense respect for their freedom and dignity, the lover simply waits for them to inquire about the love that has filled his or her life with such great joy.”

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Q: In Redemptoris missio, Pope John Paul II affirms that dialogue with other religious traditions “is part of the Church’s evangelizing mission.” What does this mean?

At all times, the Church is a sacrament of the immense love God bears for all the men and women of the earth; for this reason, it actively commits itself to proclaiming faith in the Risen Christ and His Gospel, so that a future of peace, fraternity, justice, respect, and love may dawn as soon as possible.

Yet, in truth, there are many obstacles to this “project of a civilization of love”—to use the words of Saint Paul VI, recently adopted by Pope Leo XIV. Indeed, a terrible individualism and an equally pernicious form of self-worship have spread—and continue to spread—leading everyone, to a greater or lesser degree, to withdraw into themselves and to think that others simply do not exist.

In countering this, the Church seeks, on the one hand, to offer a witness of fraternal love when encountering believers of other religious traditions; on the other, it feels a natural desire to engage in dialogue and collaboration with those traditions, enabling every human being to grasp the truth that only those who love their neighbour are truly capable of happiness.