(ANSAmed) - ROME- ''There aren't any negotiations able to
achieve peace, the conditions don't exist in Israel or in the
PNA. The UN needs to send a clear signal, and place the city of
Jerusalem under its administration, giving this administration
an equal interreligious commission able to represent the
symbolic aspects of the ongoing conflict.''
Paolo Dall'Oglio, a Roman Jesuit who has dedicated his life
to engaging Islam and the restoration of the ancient monastery
of Mar Musa in the Syrian desert, knows the Middle East very
well. And this is also why he insists on putting forward a
solution for the status of Jerusalem, an insurmountable obstacle
in any mediation attempt in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
the internationalisation of the holy city sacred to the three
monotheistic religions that diplomatic failures and the
expansion of the Israeli settlements seem to have relegated to a
mere pipe dream.
Dall'Oglio lived in the region for decades, from his studies
in Beirut to the foundation of the monastic community of Mar
Musa, an open community in which dialogue and acceptance are the
founding principles. Bending down to enter through the tiny door
dug out of rock is like entering a separate micro universe,
where the days follow the rhythms of work, prayer, social life
and meditation far from the external world. But Dall'Oglio's
mind, which this community shaped and supported - even during
the severe examination of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
its Faith, led at the time by the current Pope Benedict XVI, who
in 2006 approved it - is the mind of an activist.
''Choosing the Israeli point of view,'' he underlined, while
speaking with ANSAmed, ''means forgetting that for Islam, the
city of Jerusalem has an essential eschatological value in the
possibile future manifestation of the 'Mahdi' (Messiah in Islam,
editor's note), the return of Jesus, the son of Mary and the
victory over the Antichrist.'' But Jerusalem, he continued, ''is
also a symbolic place for at least two-thirds of humanity, for
all those who identify with one of the Abrahamic religions''.
Therefore, if the international community does not decide to
stop ''the rapid Zionist appropriation of the Holy City of
Jerusalem and of the other Arab and Palestinian territories,
peace is unimaginable''.
But the religious world must also do its part: ''a
reinterpretation of our Jewish, Christian and Muslim sacred
texts is needed,'' he urged, for a future in which the different
religions reconcile with each other ''through reciprocal
recognition''. There is little time remaining, because at this
point, the people of the Middle East ''are on the verge of
exploding''.
Nonetheless, Dall'Oglio does not speak as a politician. He is
a religious man who has dedicated his life to what he defines
''inculturation'' into the context of Islam, which also means an
opening to the conscience of others, overcoming barriers of
identity, but without losing one's own roots, while even
enriching them.
In 1982, he discovered the medieval monastery of Mar Musa
(Saint Moses the Abyssinian) among the rocks of the Nebek
desert: an abandoned place, but also a site of worship for the
local Christian and Muslim population. He was fascinated by the
coloured frescoes in the small church, which he succeeded in
restoring with the help of the Syrian government, the local
church and Syrian, Italian and European volunteers. In this
church, which people enter shoeless and where the devout pray on
carpets, the liturgy is professed in Arabic and Syriac (the
Semitic language closest to the Aramaic spoken by Jesus) - God
is referred to as Allah, as he is in the mosques. The valley
that surrounds Mar Musa is an environmentally, culturally and
religiously protected area. However this status recently has
been inexplicably abolished by the Ministry of Agriculture, said
Dall'Oglio, who is still awaiting a response from officials.
As for the role of the community in interreligious dialogue,
it was given the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation award
in 2006, and Dall'Oglio was conferred an honorary degree in 2009
by the Louvain University. Two books tell its story: 'Mar Musa'
by Guyonne de Montjou (Edizioni Paoline 2008) and 'Amoreoux de
l'Islam, croyant en Jesus' by Dall'Oglio and Eglantine
Gabaix-Hiale, prefaced by Regis Debray (Les Editions de
l'Atelier, 2009). (ANSAmed).
