Dialogue Can't Allow Relativism, Says Cardinal Kasper

ROME, NOV. 22, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Walter Kasper says there is only one dialogue: that of «love and truth.»

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The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity expresses this in the prologue of his book «Non Ho Perduto Nessuno. Comunione, Dialogo Ecumenico, Evangelizzazione» (I Have Lost No One: Communion, Ecumenical Dialogue, Evangelization), published in Italy by EDB.

In the book, the cardinal states that «unity and communion among cultures, religions and churches are only possible on the path of dialogue and reciprocal respect.»

«Dialogue,» he asserts, «represents neither a substitution nor an opposition to the fundamental commandment of evangelization, which the Church received from her Lord and which marks her identity.

«The greatest temptation at present is, in fact, that of pursuing communion and peace through the relativization of the claims of truth of religions, in particular, of Christianity.»

Cardinal Kasper, 72, says that the «attempt to establish communion among people without coming to an agreement on fundamental values and truths — on which it rests — represents a pure illusion which can have no consistency in the long run.»

The German-born prelate also addresses such decisive topics as ecumenical spirituality and «Europe’s spiritual drama.»

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