Cardinal Lehmann has the world's applause

for a speech on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. (Source link now lost)

It was a great day for Bad Kreuznach. In the overcrowded Pauluskirche Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Bishop of Mainz and chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, gave a high profile speech about the dialogue of the three world religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

The more than three billion adherents of these religious communities-more than half the world's population-derive their belief in a single God from Abraham, the patriarch of Israel.

"Abraham and his sons-How many roads lead to God?"
was the subject of the fascinating evening, which was followed by a debate.

Representatives from politics and the economy, among other people, the Minister of State Ingolf Deubel, and high ecclesiastical dignitaries came to this meeting of the organ building association of the Pauluskirche in Bad Kreuznach.

Host Werner Fuchs, chairman of the association executive, described Cardinal Lehmann in his welcoming speech as the "personification of a Christianity open to the world." In a time when many people were looking for guidance, when at the Frankfurt Book Fair books on new age religion have never been so popular, it was a sign of ecumenism that dignitaries of German Catholicism could come into a church that had just celebrated 450 years of the Reformation in Bad Kreuznach.

After long sustained applause of the many hundreds in the church, the Cardinal is a visibly good mood, took the lectern. He stressed that there is "no alternative to dialogue between Catholics and Protestants". None of his working weeks were without meetings with representatives of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The focus of his presentation was the relationship between the three great faiths, who all depend on the Patriarch Abraham in Arabic, Ibrahim.

Cardinal Lehmann said in Bad Kreuznach repeatedly that Christians, Jews and Muslims in their dialogue should not be lead by the policies of the day but should mutually recognise themselves as equal partners. There seeking to understand on such questions as: What is man? Where does he come from? What is the way? What is the path to true happiness? Is there a "life beyond death"? What is the last untold secret of human existence "? You should set your sights on what the three religions have in common and about this not only talk but also negotiate.

The Cardinal called religious freedom a human right and "rule of the contemporary coexistence of different cultures." Within every religious community, also is found the will to renew and also to reform.

In the discussion that ensued, the focal points were the coexistence of people of different faiths, worries about the strangeness of Islam in everyday life and the future of Catholic kindergartens (which the Cardinal wants to find out how to preserve) and on to ecumenism.

During a reception in the Bonhoeffer House, Cardinal Karl Lehmann signed the “Iron Book” of the city (a guest book which all visiting dignitaries sign).

Jesus with the Book of the Gospels.

Far better than to enter Eternal Life

than the Iron Book

More of the crowd-pleasing Cardinal at Carnival.