Bridging the chasm between the faiths

WHO IS Bishop Michael Fitzgerald? For six months pundits have struggled to find an answer to this perplexing question. Ever since a Sunday newspaper, in a moment of prophetic fervour, hailed him as the Vatican's favourite to succeed Cardinal Hume as Archbishop of Westminster, the hunt has been on to supply him with a clear identity and coherent set of opinions.
On the face it. the answer seemed quite simple: Bishop Fitzgerald is the most senior Englishman in the Roman Curia. A White Father. A missionary. An expert on Islam. But then things began to get difficult. What exactly is he like? Where has he been for the past 62 years? What is his view of the Church and the world? Beyond the bare facts, the information was scant. Few English Churchmen knew him and those that did didn't know him well. The most that could be said about him was that he was, to borrow Churchill's memorable phrase, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma".
hi an attempt to answer the riddle, I met Bishop Fitzgerald in December. He was making a flying visit to England, combining a seminar on interfaith relations with a visit to his relatives in the North West. The bishop is a frequent traveller. Once or twice a month he leaves his desk at the Vatican for a trip to an exotic location, generally in the Muslim world. In 1998 alone, he visited Iran, Bosnia, Kenya and the Holy Land (twice).
Despite his important role as secretary to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and his jet-set lifestyle, Bishop Fitzgerald is a gentle and unassuming figure. Dressed on the day we meet in a dull black suit and V-neck sweater topped by a pendulous silver pectoral cross. he has a diplomatic and reserved manner. He sits with a straight back, his piercing, slightly mystical blue eyes staring ahead at the wall.
Bishop Fitzgerald has a humility that veers towards self-deprecation. He began by explaining that the only reason he was made a bishop was because it "helps in relations with other bish cps" and "gives a certain degree of importance to the work we are doing". This work, (which he describes dryly as "my function"), is keeping open the Vatican's channels of communication with the world's great religions.
Despite his job title, Bishop Fitzgerald's work is not strictly secretarial. While he begins most mornings by sorting and replying to the Council's mail, he spends a lot of time receiving visitors, who range from students to local bishops to leaders of other faiths. He spends his afternoons writing articles for theological journals or sitting on one of a host of Vatican committees to which he belongs (for Ill igrants, culture. Latin America and the Jubilee). In the evenings he may give a talk on interfaith dialogue, or attend a diplomatic soiree "There are many, many invitations," he said, a little ruefully.
Bishop Fitzgerald grew up in the West Midlands during the war. The son of Irish parents who were both doctors, he knew from an early age that he wanted to be a missionary and a priest. At the age of the 23, he was ordained a member of the Society of Missionaries of Africa, better known as the White Fathers, and was sent to study theology in Rome. His interest in other religions, particularly Islam, was evident from early on. After graduating from the Gregorian University, he studied Arabic at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He went from there to the Vatican's Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, where he spent a decade, interrupted by a two-year secondment to Uganda. In 1978, he finally left the Institute to work among the Catholics of Haifa Jedida in Sudan. Two years later, he left the civil warwracked state to work on the General Council of the White Fathers. In 1987, he was given his present job and in 1992, Pope John Paul II ordained him bishop.
So, a very distinguished career. But what exactly has Bishop Fitzgerald been working at for the past three decades? The answer, of course, is the clunky neologism "intentligious dialogue". But what exactly is it? And what is it aiming at?
"At one level I think it's to establish mutual understanding and harmony so that members of different communities can live in peace together," Bishop Fitzgerald said, in his implausible blend of Black Country, North African and Roman accents. "This means overcoming prejudice, establishing a deeper understanding of one another.
"At another level. I think that dialogue is a process in which we are opening ourselves to God. Not only us, not only the partner in dialogue, but also ourselves.
"There is this idea that we are on a journey together and we are helping one another in this journey. The end of the journey is in the hands of God, really."
He believes that interfaith dialogue is often confused in people's minds with ecumenism. "It should be distinguished from ecumenism. Ecumenism is really aiming at the unity of belief and practice, though respecting different traditions. We can never hope to achieve that in interreligious dialogue."
Nor can interfaith dialogue produce the slew of common statements and agreed documents relished by ecumenists. "We can make statements together," he said. "But these will be more often on social problems, on our attitudes towards different questions, rather than on matters of belief."
This is not, Bishop Fitzgerald emphasised, a source of frustration. Talking to other faiths is less about the aims, and more about the journey. "I suppose that we should be more 'target-oriented'," he added wryly. "If we were in this country, I would have to be."
But what happens when dialogue goes wrong? When Christians and Muslims distrust, or even hate and kill each other? "In a sense you always have to be ready to start again. Sometimes there are setbacks, when conflict breaks out and confidence breaks down and you have to start all over again."
Bishop Fitzgerald's time in Sudan, and his lifelong interest in Islam, have given him an insight into the motives for conflict between Christians and Muslims. "I think that when we look at the conflicts, they are generally not religious conflicts," he said. "They have other motivations. It may be a question of land or power, maybe economics. But religion is often brought in as a factor, as a motivating factor. `We are different and we are struggling against these other people'."
Religion, he said, is often portrayed by its critics as a cause of conflict. But if lived out faithfully, it can be the solution. "Religion can become a factor of harmony rather than disharmony and of promoting reconciliation, but this requires, in a sense, a constant conversion, which is not easy.
"We had an inter-religious assembly in the Vatican at the end of October and in the final message that was given this came out very strongly, that religion should not be used to promote violence. We appealed to the leaders of the world not to abuse religion, not to manipulate religion, but in fact to allow religion to have its true place in society."
The Vatican, he said, does not intervene directly in local conflicts, but uses its Islamic contacts to assist the search for peace. Bishop Fitzgerald himself has helped to open two important lines of communication with the Muslim world. Through the blandly-titled Liaison Committee with Islamic organisations, founded in 1995, and the Liaison Committee with the world's oldest Islamic university, Al Azhar, founded in Cairo in 1998, the Church now has the ear of the world's foremost Islamic authorities.
Bishop Fitzgerald believes gious council, bringing together the divided city's religious leaders, and met Christians and Muslims attempting to find common theological ground.
BUT CAN dialogue really influence conflicts? Isn't it, as a Lebanese bishop recently argued, "limited to a certain elite", while the mass of Muslim people are often controlled by religious leaders who are more at home in politics than in theological thought? Bishop Fitzgerald believes that the Vatican can combine friendly contacts with the Muslim world, with outspoken condemnation of the violation of human rights. "We have to see that to be consistent with your principles is not against the spirit of dialogue."
The Muslim world, however, is no longer confined to its Asian and African heartlands, but also extends to Europe. How does Bishop Fitzgerald view what some see as the "Islamisation" of Europe?
"I really see it as a challenge to the Church. It is a fact that Muslims are increasing. First they were seen as a rather tran
sicnt group, but now they are settled, they are communities and they are here to stay. So we have to come to terms with that.
"I think that we see that many Muslims are practising their religion and many Muslims want to see that their religious views have an impact on society. Perhaps this is a challenge to us Christians to take our religion more seriously and I would like to see it in that way. I don't think we should be afraid. What I am afraid of are the Christians who are not really Christians.
"I think though that even here [in England' interreligjous dialogue is important; that you bring people together, you don't allow the lines to be hardened, you cross over borders, that you go out to meet the other, or that you bring people together in a different place so that they can meet together. Here it seems to me very important that the religious leaders should know one another, so that when tensions arise they know whom to address. If you know somebody, you can voice your concern to that person much more easily than if you don't know them." This seems to be the heart of Bishop Fitzgerald's personal philosophy. He believes we have a duty to befriend others and "to understand people as they want to be understood themselves". He believes that ancient prejudices can be overcome by seeing tradition as a living tradition that can respond to the challenges of the future. "Sometimes we judge things, as they were 20 or 30 years ago and we don't realise that they have changed."
Openness to others. Openness to change. This is the spirit Bishop Fitzgerald would bring to Westminster.