The Cardinal standing with His Eminence Mehmet Ali Sengul (Photo: David Schutz)

The Asia-Pacific Centre for Inter-religious Dialogue, launched at Australian Catholic University Melbourne in August, is ‘a timely and hopeful initiative - indeed a sacred trust’. These were the words of Cormac Cardinal Murphy- O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster and a leading Catholic voice in establishing dialogue as a secure basis for peace. The Cardinal, who also visited Brisbane and Sydney, has specialised in Catholic- Muslim relations and continuously stressed the vital principle of ‘sacred hospitality’. The late Dr Zaki Badawi famously appealed to him for help in drawing on the Catholic experience in assisting Muslims to become comfortable British citizens.

A packed gathering at ACU’s St Patrick Campus in Fitzroy saw the unveiling of a plaque by both Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor and His Eminence Mehmet Ali Sengul, who represented the world renowned Turkish Muslim scholar His Excellency M. Fethullah Gülen. The latter had suggested to Pope John Paul II in 1998 that they found a joint university in Urfa, Turkey. Instead, three centres for interfaith dialogue have been opened: Georgetown in Washington, DC; John Carroll in Cleveland, Ohio; and the Gregorian in Rome.

Fethullah Gülen sent a message for this new interfaith initiative with ACU, calling it ‘a beautiful development’. The Vice-Chancellor of ACU, Professor Peter Sheean AO, signed a joint declaration of intent with Mr Orhan Cicek, executive administrator of the Australian Intercultural Society (AIS). As read by Assoc. Professor Raymond Canning, inaugural Director, Asia-Pacific Centre for Inter-religious Dialogue, the declaration of intent states: Grateful for the strong and harmonious working relationship that has been built up between the two in relation to various projects since the year 2000, Australian Catholic University and the Australian Intercultural Society now intend to formalise this relationship in the context of the University’s newly launched Asia-Pacific Centre for Inter-Religious Dialogue by moving towards the establishment of the Fetullah Gülen Chair in Islamic Studies.

Through the Centre and the University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Fetullah Gülen Chair will provide a functional link between the Australian Intercultural Society and the University, particularly in relation to research in Islamic Studies and Interreligious Dialogue. It is envisaged that the creation of the Chair will foster leading edge and nationally and internationally competitive research in Islamic Studies and Inter-religious Dialogue, which will inform the growth of these academic disciplines, as well as related education, practice and policy, in ways that will be beneficial both to the AIS and the University.

In his address, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor set out to discern afresh the signs of the times, especially as experienced by young people. He suggested this was a time for very acute listening, for ‘young people are more in touch with the changing temper of our times than we are’. It follows that they have a crucial part to play in the dialogue between the Church and the modern world. Institutions that only a generation ago inspired almost unquestioning trust - royalty, the Church, academic institutions - are now, perhaps properly, the subject of scrutiny and suspicion.

Parliamentary democracy, long regarded as a serious, progressive model for the expression of political views and the making of laws, is now seen as tainted by corruption, self-interest and the politics of money. Science, once seen as driven solely by disinterested research to understand the natural world and harness it for the common good, is increasingly perceived as driven by business for the discovery and development of profitable technologies. So economic interests, technological progress and new markets are destroying the traditional milieu, which includes the Church, religion and the family. We now talk about a culture increasingly dominated by choice, personal preference and immediacy.

‘It seems to me that the problem of post-modern times is not the absence of religion,’ the Cardinal said, ‘but the mixing of different elements from various religious traditions and the rapid consumption of those elements, almost like fast-food. In such a context, our Church, with her choices of how to direct one’s life, seems no longer to have a monopoly. However, curiously, I do not regard the post-modern period as totally negative and it may, in a sense, be liberating us.’

‘So what is it like to be a young person in one of these contemporary societies today? The glib answer is pretty good…but the prospects are not uniformly positive across Europe and, I suspect, in Australia, with a yawning social divide between rich and poor, the advertising culture aimed deliberately at the very youngest customers and the natural urge to want more than you have.’

‘The so-called individualisation of society means that the individual has a more open attitude towards traditional ties, seeing himself not only as subject to outside pressures but, thanks to the modern experience of freedom, recognising that he can write his own biography and live his own lifestyle, free from outside influences. Traditional values may not necessarily be devalued, but they have lost their exclusivity.’

‘If I have in any way accurately read the text of our times, I want to indicate the ways in which, in our Catholic faith, we can reach out to young people, enrich them and be enriched by them,’ the Cardinal continued. ‘They are engaged in their search in three ways… they are seeking anew the Living God but don’t always know where to go; they are seeking to belong, seeking community; and I believe our young people are seeking the poor and how they may reach out to those in most need. Prayer, community and service to others are the age-old means by which all of us, especially young people, seek and find the Kingdom of God here on earth.’

‘I see the Church in future being a prophetic sign of fraternal communion, a kind of home’ the cardinal concluded. ‘People are nourished and fed in their communities, communities which swim against the current: against individualism, relativism and avoiding the question of truth. So I am not all pessimistic about the future, but rather full of hope.’