In dialogue participants discover 'who the other is,' says archbishop

Published: 2007-12-13

NOTRE DAME, Ind. (CNS) -- Dialogue is "the discovery of who the other is, and who are you in the presence of others," and the absence of dialogue means committing crimes like Cain killing his brother, Abel, according to a Middle East church leader speaking at the University of Notre Dame. In the Middle East, dialogue has been refused, and the rejection of dialogue has resulted in nine wars, each one more devastating than the last, said Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour of Akko, Israel. Another war would be even more devastating and affect the whole world, he warned. "What happens in Gaza and Israel and the West Bank affects us all." The archbishop was the keynote speaker at a recent Notre Dame forum on "The Dialogue of Cultures." Nearly 200 speakers from the United States and several foreign countries came to talk about the cultural divisions in the modern world. Violence brings only violence, and to deny one's enemy the right to speak is to deny the very rights God gave to human beings, Archbishop Chacour told a packed auditorium.

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