Don’t We All Worship The Same God?

My Dad is Catholic and my Mother is Protestant. They were married in 1946 when interfaith marriages were not that common. They are still married some 68 years later, each still faithful to their own Churches. I remember growing up and the whole family (2 brothers and 2 sisters) going to church together on Sundays. My Mother believed very strongly that we should go to church as a family but she still wanted to maintain her own roots of faith. So she would go with us to the Catholic Church one Sunday and to her own on the next. It made for a strong faith filled family all of whom still are very involved in their churches (2 Protestant and 3 Catholic). There were several families near our Minnesota farm and neighboring towns that we visited on Friday or Saturday nights. Most of them were Protestant but I do remember playing church with them with me using Neccos as communion wafers to distribute to our Protestant friends. As a result I was very comfortable being involved ecumenically with other religions.

I find it hard to understand why there is so much bitterness and polarization between religions today, even within religions. It becomes a “us vs. them” state of affairs. Don’t we all worship the same God, whether Jewish, Catholic or Muslim. And yet over the centuries, wars have been fought in the name of religion, so called “Holy Wars”. There was the Roman persecutions in the first centuries; the Crusades with Catholics against Islam; there are the wars during the Holy Roman Empire pitting the Protestants against the Catholics; the Inquisitions in the 1200 to 1500’s; there is the colonialism period where Catholicism was forced on the indigenous people. In the more modern era we have the terrible Holocaust of World War II, the conflicts in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants; the Bosnian War in the 1990’s pitting the Muslim’s, Catholics, and Orthodox, one against the other; and the current conflicts in the Middle East Africa with Islamic jihadists killing in the name of God those infidels who do not agree with them, even those within their own religion. The list could go on.



Killing in the name of God???? How can that be? Even factions within our own Catholicism set themselves as rivals, one against another. Why can’t we talk and come to agreement on what truths there are that we all share and believe in instead of focusing on the differences.

I am heartened by the actions of Pope Francis as he made it clear that an ecumenical revival is high on his agenda. He said “It is not possible to establish true links with God while ignoring other people. I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam.” On his trip to the Holy Land, he took along his close friends from Argentina, a Jewish rabbi and an Islamic leader. While there he invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres to come to the Vatican for an interfaith prayer service. He has met with Eastern Orthodox leaders as well. Pope Francis recently had an audience with two controversial TV preachers from the United States in an effort to work toward tearing down the ‘walls of division’ between Catholics and Protestants. In his efforts he has urged people promote religious dialogue as a catalyst for efforts to build peace. "Dialogue", he said, "should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister."

I give two examples from my own family of how I think things could be. In 1964, my Dad was selected as Grand Knight for the Knights of Columbus. It so happened that my uncle was selected as Worshipful Master for the Masons that same year. Those two groups do not normally talk to each other let alone go to each other’s meeting. They got together and decided to give a talk about each of their own organizations to the other at each other’s meeting.

The second example is my parents 50th wedding anniversary. On Sunday morning at 8:30, all the protestants from my Mother’s side and the all the Catholics from my Father’s side went to the morning service at my Mother’s church. The pastor there used my parents as an example of the love that interfaith marriages should possess. Then at 10:30, all the Catholics form my Father’s side and all the Protestants from my Mother’s side went to the Catholic Mass. The pastor there also used my parents as an example of how to live the Gospel. It so happens that the pastor of my Mother’s church and the Catholic pastor are best of friends and they get together almost daily for lunch together. Isn't that the way we should live and threat people from other faith traditions, with openness and love for the same God and Lord Jesus Christ that we profess.