An imam urged Canada’s Catholic bishops at their annual plenary assembly to speak out for “moral rights,” while a cardinal counseled the prelates to pursue reforms that make the church “open to all.”
Imam Abdul Hai Patel used brief remarks during a session on interreligious dialogue on 26th September to laud the “historic moment” of a new formal working relationship between Catholic and Muslim leaders.
But Imam Patel told the assembled bishops a key aspect of moving forward in good faith is asserting common moral positions in the face of “anti-faith” forces. Mosque-church dialogue, he said, can be a means to counterbalance those whose assertion of human rights seek to override the moral foundations of both faiths.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle addressed the bishops at the opening of the plenary assembly, held at Kingbridge Conference Centre north of Toronto from 25th-28th September. Speaking via video link from his native Philippines, the cardinal placed the theo-bureaucratic reform of the Roman Curia in the much deeper context of church renewal to rouse evangelisation and revive in Catholics awareness that “every Christian is a missionary disciple” of Christ.
He said the restructuring of the curia according to Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution “Praedicate Evangelium” (“Preach the Gospel”) is intended to promote the essential “missionary conversion of the whole church.”
Picture: CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz