Can Vatican II be exported ? | DICI

The interreligious dialogue promoted by the Second Vatican Council is based on principles that sprang from Enlightenment philosophy.  It would be rash, however, to think that the notion of religious freedom is common to all the religions that are supposed to be involved in this dialogue.  To declare that the writings of the Encyclopedists of 18^th-century Europe are the universal and eternal expression of human aspirations is easy to do in Paris or Rome, but not in Tunis or Tripoli.  Unless you make an imam out to be reluctant Voltairean or an unwitting disciple of Rousseau.

Interreligious dialogue is based on the presupposition that Enlightenment ideas are shared by all the inhabitants of the planet, that they make up a common platform allowing them to engage in a fruitful exchange.  But we must not forget that these ideas themselves are very new in the Catholic Church.  They were condemned by the popes until Pius XII.  And it took Vatican II to bring about what Cardinal Joseph Suenens called a “[revolution of] 1789 in the Church”.

Hence, in order for real interreligious dialogue to take place, it is necessary and sufficient for Islam, for example, to adopt the spirit of the conciliar Declaration Dignitatis Humanae on religious freedom.  In plain language, Vatican II must be exported to Cairo !

Father Alain Lorans

via dici.org

As for the "Difficult interreligious dialogue between the Vatican and the University of Cairo", see http://www.dici.org/en/news/difficult-interreligious-dialogue-between-the-vat...