Whenever we talk about lands tormented by decades of wars and violence, sometimes perpetrated in the name of religions, we must do so with sobriety.
This is to say that commenting on Pope Francis’ recent trip to Iraq (5-8 March 2021) can become a pretext for easy criticism if one does not try to enter the complexity of the situation. Therefore, it must be acknowledged that the Roman pope’s call to religious freedom, his appeal to respect for minorities, and his invitation to national conciliation were commendable.
Theological framework
Having said that, the theological framework of his visit cannot be overlooked. The climax of his journey was the address given at the inter-religious meeting at the Plain of Ur. In a very emotional way, his speech was centred on the figure of Abraham as the father of Jews, Christians and Muslims. They are the ‘descendants’ promised by God to Abraham and therefore ‘brothers and sisters’ among them. These three groups are called by God ‘to bear witness to his goodness, to show his paternity through our fraternity’.
All ‘brothers and sisters’
After labouring the point of the shared brotherhood in God and in Abraham, Francis ended with the ‘Prayer of the Children of Abraham’ (recited with the Christian and Muslim representatives present at the meeting) in which Abraham is presented as ‘our common father in faith’, and the prayer is addressed to ‘our God’ without mentioning the name of Jesus Christ, taking for granted God’s fatherhood not as Creator of all things, but as ‘our God’, God of us ‘brothers and sisters’.
For him, speaking about universal fraternity and praying as brothers and sisters to the same God are one and the same. Inter-religious dialogue becomes a spiritual form of unity based on the conviction that all humanity shares faith in the same God.
The Pope’s slippery slope
If we consider all the steps involved in what Francis did, we are faced with an impressive concentration of what the Roman Catholic vision looks like.
There are strong theological implications as far as the doctrine of God is concerned: is the Muslim Allah the same as the Triune God of the Bible? If we are praying as brothers and sisters together, the pope’s answer is yes.
There are evident soteriological consequences: are we all saved regardless of faith in Jesus Christ the incarnate Son of God? If we pray to the same God as brothers and sisters, implying that we are all accepted in His eyes, the pope’s answer is yes even though the language of ‘universal salvation’ is not explicitly used.
There are also missiological overtones: what about the Great Commission to go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel with a view to the conversion of the lost? If we are already brothers and sisters, praying together to the same God, the pope’s answer is that the church’s mission is to make visible and concrete what is already true: no one is really lost and, as human beings, we are already part of God’s family.
A final word on Abraham. What the pope said about the patriarch, the apostle Paul would not have said. For Paul, Abraham is the father of the believers in Jesus Christ (Rom. 4:11-12). For Paul, the descendants of Abraham are the disciples of Jesus Christ from every nation (Rom.4:16-17): his inheritance, in fact, does not follow the biological line of flesh and blood, but is received and transmitted ‘by faith’ in Jesus Christ (Rom. 4:16). Jesus Himself questioned ethnic and cultural appropriations of the common fatherhood of Abraham (John 8:39), saying that Abraham rejoiced in waiting to see the day of the Lord Jesus (John 8:56). Without Jesus, and outside of faith in Jesus Christ, being children of Abraham can be a cultural identity marker, but not the basis for unity in faith and prayer.
