Togetherness needed around the world

Is the world coming to an end of peaceful living as ISIS and other warring groups in the Middle East grow more and more unfriendly to people of the world who want to live a pleasant and purposeful life? The Muslims are often blamed for stirring up hatred and dislike among people of different religions and from different regions, but Pope Francis had a different opinion after visiting Albania, a Muslim country.

Pope Francis gave his impressions of how most of the people there and elsewhere live. He took a one-day trip to Albania on Sept. 21 and on Sept. 24 he told his general audience in St. Peter’s Square in Rome what he thought about it.

“I could see, with great satisfaction, that the peaceful and fruitful coexistence between  people and communities in Albania belonging to different religions is not only beneficial but is concretely possible and practical. They put it into practice in Albania,” he said.

Look at it this way – maybe all religions, and even atheists, do not believe in the same things, but there are some things they can agree upon to make their common existence possible.

Pope Francis said during his general audience that he wanted to visit a country where people of different religious traditions were peacefully living and working together, despite suffering decades of violent oppression. Prior to then, the people of Albania had suffered many years of violent oppression by an atheistic and heartless regime.

People of all religious beliefs were persecuted between 1944 and 1991 as Albania’s dictator-led government waged a war against religion and became the first officially atheist nation in the world. It is now a freedom-loving country inhabited mostly by Muslims.

The Pope found out that the Albanians had not accepted the doctrine of hatred that its oppressors tried to put into effect there. Today, they are living peacefully and working together.

We certainly have to put these figures together and ascertain that the world is not about to fall apart amidst hatred and the incapacity to accept another person’s beliefs. We need, instead, to guide our futures into a spirit of togetherness by getting people to live happily with one another by exercising their own beliefs while still being a friendly neighbor.

 

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