Honduran cardinal fears new religious wars
Mar 29, 2006
Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga has voiced fears about a new outbreak of religious warfare around the world.
(cathnews.com, 23 Mar 2006) Catholic World News reports that in an interview with the Italian newspaper, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa said that he saw an urgent need for "worldwide education in respect, tolerance, and seeing one's neighbour as a brother and not as an enemy."
Racism is an added problem, he said, and the tense situation in the Middle East raises the ugly prospect of "wars of religion."
The dangers of conflict are heightened, the Cardinal said, because "the UN is weaker than ever, and international law itself has been weakened after the preventive war with Iraq."
Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga said it was "terrible" that a convert to Christianity, Abdul Rahman, faces a possible death sentence in an apostasy trial in Afghanistan. "I would like to make an appeal to Muslims to say that one cannot kill in God's name," said the Cardinal. He added that there cannot be "one God for Catholics and another God for Muslims."
It is disquieting, Cardinal Rodriguez said, that economic globalisation is usually seen "in terms of privatisation." That way of thinking, he said, when applied to matters of conscience and religion, can lead to "the privatisation of God."
Honduran cardinal fears new religious wars