The Jubilee was celebrated, but a series of gestures were made to confirm a new chapter in the history of interreligious relations. Forgiveness Day at St. Peter with Pope Wojtyła embracing the cross, while the piercing “Never again!” Was heard. Recalling the tragic pages of history, he also crossed them out. And then the service at the Colosseum to commemorate the old martyrs, also Protestants, also Orthodox, and the new martyrs, today’s martyrs, because the Church was again – as in the beginning – marked with the blood of Christ’s witnesses. Then, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, when John Paul II spiritually united Muslims and Jews in the embrace of love, going from the Dome of the Rock, one of the most holy places in Islam, to the Wailing Wall, where he put a card between the stones asking the Jewish people for forgiveness. Due to its symbolism, it was almost a seal on the long journey taken by the Pope who came precisely from Poland – the tragic, though not guilty epicenter of the Shoah – to bring Jews and Christians closer. Through these events, the Holy Father managed to propose a specific model of coexistence, which – inspired by God’s wisdom, God’s love – could constitute a point of spiritual convergence for all believers, where they could find each other and thus establish a new bond between different religions. Without violating one’s own identity, but finally removing hatred, competition, intolerance and fratricidal conflicts. And by starting cooperation, all together to promote peace between people and nations. Later, unfortunately, the 9/11 attack took place. Much hopes were dashed. Relations with Islam have complicated, and the dialogue that had begun so promising many years earlier in Morocco, in Casablanca, with thousands of young Muslims. Nevertheless, the intuition of Pope Wojtyła remained in the hearts, it remained in the positive experiences that could be experienced. And upon which future religious history may take shape.
With the consent of Fr. Card. Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
Publishing House of St. Stanisław BM. Krakow 2013
