One hundred years ago, in India, Sree Narayana Guru gathered representatives of all religions in his ashram to live brotherly relationships. The pontiff stated that “Our religious traditions are ways to defeat the culture of individualism, exclusion, indifference and violence.”
Vatican City () – Dialogue between religions has ancient roots in the heart of Asia. Pope Francis demonstrated this again yesterday when he received in audience at the Vatican the participants of a meeting organized by the Indian foundation Sree Narayana Guru, an association that continues the work of a great Hindu leader who had the intuition a century ago to do that representatives of different religions would meet in his ashram.
That meeting – organized in 1923, at a time when Kerala was shaken by serious tensions between religious groups – has become a tradition that is repeated every year and on the occasion of the centenary, in collaboration with the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, The idea of also taking it to the Vatican was born. The event offered the opportunity to rediscover the figure of Sree Narayana Guru (1856-1928), a great Hindu religious personality who dedicated his life to the struggle to overcome the caste system. In 1925 Gandhi visited his ashram and was impressed by the place where Dalit children studied the Upanishads along with everyone else. And from that moment on, the issue of caste became an important element of his political proposal.
“Sree Narayana Guru – said Pope Francis in the audience in the Vatican to the participants in the interreligious meeting organized by the foundation – dedicated his life to promoting social and religious rescue with his clear message that all human beings, regardless of their ethnicity or their religious and cultural traditions, they are members of the only human family. He insisted that there should be no discrimination against anyone, in any way and at any level. His message is very timely for our world today, when we witness increasing cases of intolerance and hatred between people and nations. Unfortunately, manifestations of discrimination and exclusion, tensions and violence based on differences in ethnic or social origin, race, color, language and religion are a daily experience for many people and communities, especially among the poor, the defenseless and those without They have a voice.”
Pope Francis highlighted the closeness of Sree Narayana Guru’s message to the Abu Dhabi Document of 2019 and the recent Istiqlal Declaration, which was disseminated in September during his trip to Indonesia, documents that he signed with representatives of the Muslim world, which put the fraternity at the center of interreligious dialogue. “All religions – reflected the pontiff – teach the fundamental truth that, as children of the only God, we must love and honor each other, respect diversity and differences in a spirit of fraternity and inclusion, caring for each other, as well as like the earth, our common home. Failure to comply with the noble teachings of religions is one of the causes of the difficult situation in which the world finds itself today. Our contemporaries – he added – will rediscover the value of the high teachings of religious traditions only if we strive to live them and cultivate fraternal and friendly relations with everyone, with the sole objective of strengthening unity in diversity, ensuring harmonious coexistence among differences. and be operators of peace, despite the difficulties and challenges that we must face.” In this way – he concluded – we will be able to “contribute to defeating the culture of individualism, exclusion, indifference and violence that unfortunately is spreading”.
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