Meditation for the Annual Inter-Faith and Ecumenical Prayer Service at the eve of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly by Bishop Gregory John Mansour.

Your Excellency, Mr. Abdulla Shahid, President-elect of the 76th Session of the General Assembly

Distinguished Ambassadors and UN Staff,

Archbishop Caccia, Father Murray, and Faith Leaders,

NGO Representatives,

Fratelli Tutti, as Saint Francis and Pope Francis would say: Brothers (and Sisters) all!

With signs all around us of wars, refugees, covid-19, disregard for religious freedom, increase in totalitarian governments, terrible spoiling of the environment, and much more, it is enough to be depressed!

G.K. Chesterton once received a request to respond to the question “What’s wrong with the world?” He answered, succinctly: “I am.”

How humble and how true. “I am” what’s wrong with the world. But can I also be what’s right with it?

There is indeed a dark side to humanity, but there is also a brighter side as well. I would like to focus on several hopeful signs:

  1. In Christian and Muslim circles, there emerged a literary genre called Mirror for Princes, in which brave men would challenge the prince of the day urging him to more honest and just governance. In a brief but succinct challenge, Ali, the fourth Caliph, wrote this note, presumably addressed to a governor whom he assigned to Egypt:

“Know, O [Prince], that I am sending you to a land where governments, just and unjust, have existed before you. People will look upon your affairs in the same way that you were wont to look upon the affairs of rulers before you. They will speak about you as you were wont to speak about them. So let the dearest of your treasuries be the treasury of righteous action. Control your desire and restrain your soul from what is not lawful, for restraint of the soul means to be fair and just in what it likes and dislikes. Infuse your heart with mercy, love and kindness for your subjects….”

The Caliph makes the subtle point that many problems are caused by bad governance. In our age, especially egregious are the various totalitarian forms of government that trample the rights of the people they are called to serve. Thankfully at the United Nations there is the great and edifying effort to promote good governance, along with the global work to alleviate human trafficking, assist refugees and people on the move, work on Nuclear Disarmament, combat Climate Change and so much more. Your efforts, dear ambassadors, diplomats and co-workers, are in line with the sage advice of the Mirror for Princes.

  1. Another sign of hope is a recent International Religious Freedom Summit, which took place July 13 – 16, 2021 in Washington, D.C. There Christians advocated for afflicted Uyghurs, Hindus and Buddhists for suffering Rohingas, Jews for Yazidis, Muslims for Christians, and together, all advocated for a more robust freedom of conscience, religion and belief. It was a sign of hope to see people of faith advocate so passionately for one another and to call for an end to religious persecution, to condemn blasphemy laws used for discrimination, and to call out regimes that target religious and ethnic minorities.

    We know from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, paragraph 18, that all people have the right to choose their faith, or to have no faith at all, and to practice their faith at home and in the public square. This right is not conceded to us by nations or by governments, but is innate by virtue of being human. Our relationship to God defines who we are as persons and must be understood and respected as even more important than our allegiance to any worldly power or government. As the Mirror for Princes describes, worldly powers and governments come and go, and, although governments certainly are so very important, they are not, and should not be considered to take the place of God. Greater protection of freedom of religion and belief is a buttress against attacks on the dignity of the human person by overreaching governments, groups and individuals, and it is a promising sign for the world that religious believers are defending the rights not merely of their own coreligionists but also the right to believe, or not to believe, of all people.

  1. A third sign of hope, but also a great concern, is the Muslim-Christian experiment that we call Lebanon, which, as a Maronite bishop, is of great concern for me. Although there is great solidarity among the Lebanese people themselves, Muslim and Christian alike, there is also great danger. One hundred years ago, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Maronite Patriarch, at age 76, travelled with his Christian and Muslim countrymen to Versailles to urge allied leaders to carve out Lebanon as a refuge for all believers: Christian, Sunni, Shi’ite, and Druze.

    There is strong support to help this experiment to succeed, but unfortunately, there are also strong and destructive forces working within and from outside to see Lebanon fail. “Lebanon,” Pope John Paul II once said, “is more than a country. [It’s] a message for the East and West”. Dear ambassadors and friends, the Lebanese people people need your support so that Lebanon may continue to serve the world as an inspiring sign of interreligious and political harmony.

  1. A fourth promising indication, yet also a deep concern, is the ongoing pandemic, which has brought us to our knees. In the empty piazza of Saint Peter Basilica, in the pouring rain, Pope Francis pondered whether or not this was a punishment from God. He said honestly, he did not know, but he did discern that it was an invitation from a loving God to a greater solidarity among people.

    We have had to depend on one another more than ever. While we have had many successes, we continue to struggle as to how best to limit its spread and its variants and how to reach all the people of the world fairly with a vaccine. Nonetheless, we find hope in the generosity of international humanitarian aid agencies, as well as from some developed nations, who have been generous to those less fortunate.

  1. A fifth sign is the resolve to protect “our common home”. Last week, Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Justin Welby urged all people of good will to get involved in the care of our planet in anticipation of the international community’s important work this November in Glasgow. The growing consensus that seems to be building on the need for international cooperation to remedy the man-made harm to the earth is inspiring.
  1. Another heartening sign was Pope Francis’ recent visit to Iraq. One of the highlights of the visit was the Pope’s brief but meaningful visit with Ayatolla Ali al-Sistani, following up his visit of a few years ago in Egypt with Grand Imam Ahmad El Tayeb. This cooperation between the Bishop of Rome and Shiite and Sunni leaders holds great promise for a brighter future. The Mirror for Princes speaks not only to civil leaders, but to religious leaders as well.

    Pope Francis also visited Mosul, where genocidal hatred seemed to have succeeded in 2014. There he stood with Muslims, Christians, Yazidis and indeed the whole world, and called for a generous forgiveness and a renewed sense of humanity. Pope Francis was moved by the people who suffered the most in Iraq, and said that they encouraged him to redouble his efforts to forgive, fight for justice, and to work for peace.

  1. The final, and perhaps most important, sign of hope is the increasing respect for the dignity of the human person and his or her inalienable rights in our world today. More and more people work to honor the truth that human life in all its stages is a sacred gift. This is the ground of human dignity, from which flows authentic human rights. If we do not treat each person as an unrepeatable gift, we risk becoming transactional beings, simply a means to an end for governments or anyone else to use or exploit. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, in his stirring book I and Thou, stressed that each person is an “I”, never an “it”, and when we treat others as “it” we diminish our own “I” as well. His endearing point is that each of us is made ultimately for an encounter with God. Thus, the value of the human person is not found exclusively in what one can give, but in the dignity of his or her person.

    The Mirror for Princes is right to urge us to work towards “righteous actions, mercy, love and kindness”, because the truth of our human dignity is worth fighting for. The worldview that “might makes right,” or that there is no such thing as right and wrong, must not prevail. Such an impoverished view of the human person, diminishes the profound meaning of our existence and does irreparable damage to our world.

What is wrong with the world? I am.

But what is also right with the world? Likewise, “I am,” humbly, with help from above and from others.

When I work for justice and fight for peace, when I work to secure the rights and dignity of others, when I promote humanitarian assistance, when I urge the princes of this world to make better decisions, and when I affirm that you, and I, and all people are truly brothers and sisters, I am what’s right with the world.

Dear ambassadors, diplomats and co-workers, people like you continue God’s work on earth. May God strengthen all of us to be what our troubled, but hopeful, world needs us to be: that which is right for the world, that I may say yes “I am”, what’s right with the world, by the grace of God.