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OO RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHBC RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDE RUEHDF RUEHDH RUEHFL
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DE RUEHROV #0095/01 2571410
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O P 141410Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY VATICAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1154
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNISL/ISLAMIC COLLECTIVE
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 0025
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO PRIORITY 0008
RUEHROV/AMEMBASSY VATICAN 1192

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 VATICAN 000095 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL SOCI PGOV KIRF VT PL
SUBJECT: INTERFAITH DIATRIBES TURN TO DIALOGUE IN KRAKOW AT ANNUAL 
SANT'EGIDIO CONFERENCE 
 
VATICAN 00000095  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  At the 22nd edition of an annual interfaith 
dialogue to promote peace, held this year in Krakow with 
thousands of observers, hundreds of senior religious and 
political leaders expressed great agreement on themes like food 
security.  They also engaged in some interfaith sniping, until 
organizers from the Community of Sant'Egidio -- a Catholic lay 
movement -- took participants to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau. 
The horror of those camps refocused participants on the theme of 
the conference and facilitated a dramatic closing ceremony at 
which religious leaders gave political leaders an exhortation 
for peace (text at paragraph 11).  The event set the stage for 
next year's interfaith encounter in Barcelona.  Embassy Vatican 
will follow up with many of the participants in coming months to 
continue the dialogue in smaller venues.  End Summary. 
 
 
 
Big Event Draws Lots of Big Names 
 
--------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶2. (U) From September 6-8, the Community of Sant'Egidio - a 
Catholic lay movement with 50,000 active members worldwide - 
held its 22nd annual interfaith prayer for peace conference in 
Krakow, Poland.  The event drew nearly 3,000 Sant'Egidio 
volunteers from across Europe, and around 270 "special guests." 
The latter included political luminaries like European 
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, former IMF Director 
Michel Camdessus, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, the President of 
Montenegro, the Foreign Ministers of Malta and Poland, and 
legislators and diplomats from across Europe.  Even more 
importantly for the purposes of interfaith communication, there 
were scores of senior religious leaders from around the world, 
including 11 active and retired Catholic Cardinals, American 
Cardinal McCarrick among them; the Chief Rabbis of Poland and 
Israel; Muslim leaders from Indonesia, India, Egypt, Morocco, 
Turkey, Lebanon, Ivory Coast, and Qatar; Hindu swamis, Buddhist 
monks, Othodox archbishops of various congregations, leaders of 
most Protestant communities, and more.  The Sant'Egidio 
leadership was especially delighted, they told Embassy Vatican 
DCM, to welcome Joshua duBois, head of the White House Office of 
Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. 
 
 
 
¶3.  (U) The theme for the conference this year was "Seventy 
Years after World War II: Faiths and Cultures in Dialogue." 
Organizers made much of both the 70th anniversary of the 
invasion of Poland by Germany and Russia during WWII, and of its 
20th anniversary of liberation from Communism.  Speakers 
frequently cited Krakow native Pope John Paul II and his 
dedication to interfaith communications -- as evidenced by his 
convocation in Assisi, Italy of the first major interreligious 
encounter for peace in 1986.  Pope Benedict XVI delivered his 
own personal message to participants, live via satellite, on the 
conference's first day. 
 
 
 
Leaders Find Common Ground But Nurse Antagonisms 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
 
 
¶4.  (U) There was substantial agreement between participants on 
a range of uncontroversial topics, and even on a few 
less-than-unanimous themes.  EU Commission President Barroso, 
for example, drew enthusiastic applause for his opening speech 
(one of many during the uninterrupted three-hour opening 
ceremony) that called for the developed world to fulfill its 
commitments to poor countries and meet the Millennium 
Development Goals.  He also made politically timely references 
to the need to provide for food security, improve education in 
the third world, and address climate change.  He noted the need 
to link security and development, and end weapons proliferation. 
 Although he called for better regulation of markets in 
"over-powerful states," he tempered that statement by saying the 
world needs globalization now more than ever to recover from the 
effects of the financial crisis.  (Comment:  Barroso's speech 
was coherent and carefully balanced, striking all the right 
notes for a man who wants another term in his job.   End Comment) 
 
 
 
¶5.  (U) Nevertheless, this interfaith encounter saw more than 
 
VATICAN 00000095  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
its share of religious prejudice and chauvinism.  At the opening 
ceremony, attended by close to 2,000 people in a huge hall and a 
spillover room with closed circuit coverage, the Rector of 
Cairo's Al-Azar University had choice words for Europe and the 
United States (both cited specifically) about its treatment of 
Muslims.  "The problem with interfaith dialogue does not lie in 
Islam," he began, then added, "but in the West's treatments of 
Muslims as inferiors."  After continuing in that vein for some 
time, he called for an end to the oppression of Palestinians, 
before finally commending Pope John Paul II for his outreach to 
people of other faiths.  (The opening ceremony also had a 
humorous moment, when in the presence of so many European 
big-shots and right after Barroso's speech, the Choir of a 
Polish Basilica sang an enthusiastic rendition of "I Want to Be 
in America" from West Side Story.) 
 
 
 
¶6.  (U) Day two of the conference brought more pointed 
recriminations between people of different faiths.  At a panel 
discussion on "Market Society, religions and the Challenge of 
Materialism," Mohammed Sammak Raoundi, political advisor to the 
Grand Mufti of Lebanon, deviated from prepared remarks to launch 
into a tirade.  He denounced the killing of Muslims in the wars 
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, particularly decrying the 
use of unmanned drones.  Raoundi said the wars were being fought 
solely for oil and other resources, and that terrorism was just 
a "response to the selfish materialism of the West."   The 
moderator cut him off with a (mild) rebuke, and turned the floor 
over to Swami Shantatmananda of the Ramakrishna Mission in New 
Delhi.  Not to be outdone, the Swami decried British 
colonialism, which he said had destroyed the spiritual wellbeing 
of India. 
 
 
 
¶7.  (U) Not all the day's panels were so lively, and panelists 
did find many bases for substantial agreement throughout the 
day, such as opposition to the death penalty.  Katherine 
Marshall, a senior U.S. advisor at the World Bank and one of 
very few women speakers at the conference, delivered moving 
remarks on how ending poverty and providing for food security 
should be a spiritual - not just political -- quest for leaders 
in the developed world.  She called for better information to 
track financial and economic trends, focused dialogue on topics 
like fighting corruption, and action on shared priorities like 
ending human trafficking.  Nevertheless, it was clear throughout 
the day that, despite 22 years of such events, much still 
divided the participants. 
 
 
 
Revisiting Atrocities Refocuses Participants 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶8.  (U) On day three, however, Sant'Egidio organizers put 
together a deeply moving series of events that ended the 
interreligious sniping.  As their first order of business, they 
suggested that conference participants fast or at least reduce 
their food intake, in order to empathize with Muslim 
participants who were still fasting for Ramadan.  Many 
participants took up the suggestion, which became increasingly 
meaningful at the first event of the day: private guided tours, 
in eight languages, of the Auschwitz camp.  The visit to the 
site of Nazi atrocities had a salutary effect - most 
participants were too horrified to speak much.  A stop at the 
nearby Birkenau death camp came next.  Participants needed no 
words at all there, marching silently for twenty minutes along 
the train tracks that carried so many millions to their deaths. 
A poignant ceremony, which included a powerful speech by an 
Auschwitz survivor and recitation of the Jewish prayer for 
mourners, ended the visit.  The evening brought individual 
prayer services for different faith communities and a colorful 
closing ceremony where religious leaders delivered a message of 
peace to political leaders (text follows at paragraph 11). 
 
 
 
¶9.  (U) Also at the closing ceremony, organizers announced that 
next year's peace conference will be held in Barcelona, Spain. 
It will be hard to top the drama of Poland, but the Cardinal of 
Barcelona beamed as he announced that participants will finally 
see the Sacred Family Church completely finished, after over 100 
years of construction. 
 
 
VATICAN 00000095  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
 
 
Comment: Need to Keep Up the Dialogue 
 
------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Religious leaders clearly had difficulty reaching 
consensus at this event.  Still, the most important thing about 
the gathering is not consensus in the final document (which is 
generally so broad that it would be hard for participants to 
disagree about them) but the organizers' success in bringing so 
many influential leaders together at all.  Sant'Egidio presented 
the leaders with a unique opportunity to preview and test 
different approaches to the challenging world of interfaith 
dialogue and its practical application to the promotion of 
peace.  It also offered religious leaders the opportunity to 
substantially engage each other on the margins of the meeting, 
away from the constraints that they may have at home.  It is 
perhaps because they are risking criticism at home --attending a 
meeting organized by a Catholic movement and with the 
participation of representatives of different beliefs and 
non-believers -- that some posturing during the public events 
was inevitable.  At the end of the day, Sant'Egidio provided a 
free and flexible platform to kick off substantial dialogue that 
would be hard to replicate in capitals or at the UN in New York 
or Geneva.  It's also clear that Sant'Egidio is a master at 
organizing such events, and in drawing the maximum drama out of 
them. Over the coming year, Embassy Vatican will reach out to 
many of the conference participants - and other partners in 
interfaith discussions - to continue these discussions in more 
intimate settings.  (This cable was prepared by Embassy Vatican, 
and coordinated with ConGen Krakow.)  End Comment. 
 
 
 
Text of Interfaith Message of Peace 
 
----------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶11.  (U) Following is the text of the message religious leaders 
passed to politicians and diplomats at the closing ceremony: 
 
 
 
Men and women of different religions, we convened in the ancient 
city of Cracow, seventy years after the outbreak of World War 
II, to pray, to dialogue with each other, to foster a spiritual 
humanism of peace. 
 
 
We pay tribute to the memory of John Paul II, a son of this 
land. He was a master of dialogue and a tenacious witness of the 
holiness of peace, capable of providing the world with a vision 
even in difficult times: it is the spirit of Assisi. 
 
 
That very spirit has blown through a number of peaceful changes 
that took place in the world. It blew in 1989, twenty years ago, 
when Poland and other Eastern European countries were restored 
to freedom. In September 1989 men and women of different 
religions, gathered in Warsaw by the Community of Sant'Egidio, 
firmly stated their love for peace: "War never again!"  We have 
remained faithful to this spirit even when many people, in 
recent years, maintained that violence and war can solve 
problems and conflicts in our world. 
 
 
The bitter lesson of World War II has often been forgotten, 
though it was a tremendous tragedy in human history.  We went as 
pilgrims to Auschwitz, aware of the abyss into which humankind 
had fallen.  We needed to come back here, into the abyss of 
evil, to better understand the heart of history!  Such immense 
pain cannot be forgotten! 
 
 
We need to look at the pains and sorrows of our world: people at 
war, poverty, the horror of terrorism, the many victims of 
hatred.  Here, we heeded the plea of many people who suffer. 
Entire peoples are hostage to war and poverty, and many are 
forced to leave their homes.  Many have just vanished, were 
kidnapped or lack a secure life. 
 
 
Our world is disoriented by the crisis of a market that believed 
 
VATICAN 00000095  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
it was almighty, and by an often faceless and soulless 
globalization.  Globalization is a unique opportunity, yet the 
world has often preferred to live it as a clash of civilisations 
and religions.  There can be no peace when dialogue between 
peoples is extinguished.  No human being, no people, is ever an 
island! 
 
 
Regardless of their differences, our religious traditions 
strongly testify that a world with no spirit will never be 
human. They show us the path to return to God, the source of 
peace. 
 
 
Spirit and dialogue will give courage to our globalized world! A 
world without dialogue will be enslaved by hatred and fear for 
the other.  Religions do not want war and do not want to be used 
for war.  To speak of war in the name of God is blasphemous.  No 
war is ever holy.  Humanity is always defeated by violence and 
terror. 
 
 
Spirit and dialogue show the way to live together in peace.  We 
have discovered, even more clearly, that dialogue delivers from 
fear and distrust. It is an alternative to war.  It does not 
weaken anyone's identity but enables us to rediscover the best 
of ourselves and of the others.  Nothing is lost with dialogue! 
Dialogue writes a better history, while conflict opens up 
abysses. Dialogue is the art of living together.  Dialogue is 
the gift we want to make to this 21st century. 
 
 
Let us start afresh from the memory of World War II, from the 
prophecy of John Paul II, and be pilgrims of peace.  With 
patience and courage, let us give shape to a new era of 
dialogue, uniting together in peace those who hate and ignore 
each other, all peoples, and all humankind.  May God grant the 
entire world, every man and every woman, the wonderful gift of 
peace! 
 
 
 
End text. 
NOYES