Quoted below in its entirety is an article entitled Vatican's message to Buddhists on Vesakh published on April 22, 2017 by Vatican Radio [1]:
The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on Saturday, issued a message on the occasion of the Buddhist feast of Vesakh on the theme ‘Christians and Buddhists: Walking Together on the Path of Nonviolence’.
The Message signed by Council President, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Council Secretary, Fr Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, MCCJ emphasizes the urgent need to promote a culture of peace and nonviolence as both these values were promoted by Jesus Christ and the Buddha.
The text reiterates how Jesus walked the path of nonviolence to the very end, to the cross and calls his followers today to embrace his teaching about nonviolence. Buddha also heralded the same message and encouraged all to overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth.
Therefore the message calls for a common enterprise, to study the causes of violence, combat violence and to pray for world peace while walking together on the path of nonviolence.
The full text of the message is here below:
MESSAGE FOR THE FEAST OF VESAKH 2017
Dear Buddhist Friends,
1. In the name of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, we extend our warmest greetings and prayerful good wishes on the occasion of Vesakh. May this feast bring joy and peace to all of you, to your families, communities and nations.
2. We wish to reflect this year on the urgent need to promote a culture of peace and nonviolence. Religion is increasingly at the fore in our world today, though at times in opposing ways. While many religious believers are committed to promoting peace, there are those who exploit religion to justify their acts of violence and hatred. We see healing and reconciliation offered to victims of violence, but also attempts to erase every trace and memory of the “other”; there is the emergence of global religious cooperation, but also politicization of religion; and, there is an awareness of endemic poverty and world hunger, yet the deplorable arms race continues. This situation requires a call to nonviolence, a rejection of violence in all its forms.
3. Jesus Christ and the Buddha were promotors of nonviolence as well as peacemakers. As Pope Francis writes, “Jesus himself lived in violent times. Yet, he taught that the true battlefield, where violence and peace meet, is the human heart: for ‘it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come’ (Mk 7:21)” (2017 Message for the World Day of Peace, Non-Violence: A Style of Politics for Peace, no. 3). He further emphasises that “Jesus marked out the path of nonviolence. He walked that path to the very end, to the cross, whereby he became our peace and put an end to hostility (cf. Eph 2:14-16)” (ibid.). Accordingly, “to be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing his teaching about nonviolence” (ibid.).
4. Dear friends, your founder, the Buddha also heralded a message of nonviolence and peace. He encouraged all to “Overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth.” (Dhammapada, no. XVII, 3). He taught further that “Victory begets enmity; the defeated dwell in pain. Happily the peaceful live, discarding both victory and defeat.” (ibid. XV, 5). Therefore, he noted that the self-conquest is greater than the conquest of others: “Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, yet he indeed is the noblest victor who conquers himself” (ibid, VIII, 4).
5. In spite of these noble teachings, many of our societies grapple with the impact of past and present wounds caused by violence and conflicts. This phenomenon includes domestic violence, as well as economic, social, cultural and psychological violence, and violence against the environment, our common home. Sadly, violence begets other social evils, and so “the choice of nonviolence as a style of life is increasingly demanded in the exercise of responsibility at every level […] ” (Address of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Occasion of the Presentation of the Letters of Credence, 15 December 2016).
6. Though we recognize the uniqueness of our two religions, to which we remain committed, we agree that violence comes forth from the human heart, and that personal evils lead to structural evils. We are therefore called to a common enterprise: to study the causes of violence: to teach our respective followers to combat evil within their hearts; to liberate both victims and perpetrators of violence from evil; to bring evil to light and challenge those who foment violence; to form the hearts and minds of all, especially of children, to love and live in peace with everyone and with the environment; to teach that there is no peace without justice, and no true justice without forgiveness; to invite all to work together in preventing conflicts and rebuilding broken societies; to urge the media to avoid and counter hate speech, and biased and provocative reporting; to encourage educational reforms to prevent the distortion and misinterpretation of history and of scriptural texts; and to pray for world peace while walking together on the path of nonviolence.
7. Dear friends, may we actively dedicate ourselves to promoting within our families, and social, political, civil and religious institutions a new style of living where violence is rejected and the human person is respected. It is in this spirit that we wish you once again a peaceful and joyful feast of Vesakh! [Emphasis original.]
Vatican City
Cardinal Jean-Louis Taura
President
Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, MCCJ
Secretary
As a Catholic (the not-so-devout kind), this blogger is touched by the Vatican's message above to the Buddhists because he grew up with his grandmother on his father's side who was a devout Buddhist who loved him very much, who looked after him, even though he has parents who also cared, and still cares, for his well-being.
He recalls participating in the many different kinds of Buddhist festivals his grandmother had put together at home throughout the year because they were so different from his routine life which was secular and because it was fun for him. He never quite understood why she on certain occasions had so many dishes cooked and placed on the dinner table with tiny cups of wine so that either the spirit of the ancestors or Buddha would come to visit, to drink and eat. They never did drink the wine or eat the food, as it turned out, but the family did eat the food, some cold, some re-heated, but the wine would be poured back into the bottle to be used the next time. As a boy, he would check out what was put out on the table. More than once over the years, he had thought of sitting in the empty chairs around it but on second thought, he was afraid that he would sit on a spirit, so he would just walk around behind them as he run his hand over back of the chairs, looking at everything.
Of the many festivals, the one he was most fascinated by but never participated in, mainly because nobody else did except for grandmother, was this one day when a certain god was being remembered. It was probably the fire god and the rule was not to eat anything that was cooked by fire, or had been refrigerated. While the rest of the family ate regular food that had come out of the refrigerator and cooked, grandmother would eat only fruit that was purchased fresh at the market. The other reason the future blogger did not join his grandmother was because he would be too hungry and was not disciplined enough to fast from hot meals and eat only farm-fresh fruits for the day.
The blogger's grandmother had taught him many things but nothing that he could recall today with particularity except one thing that she had said to him one time. Maybe this blogger told her, maybe she just knew that this blogger was gravitated toward God, even though he was not baptized until after high school and did not attend Mass growing up.
On this difference in beliefs, she said that God and Buddha were different, that his beliefs were not the same as her beliefs. How she knew this continues to mystify this blogger. She certainly had not learned it from books because she did not read or had she likely heard it from others because she was a homebody.
To this day, this blogger wonders where kind, loving and devout Buddhists go when their lives end, where his Buddhist grandmother is, even though he had previously seen her in his mind's eye looking down at him from Heaven, happy and smiling, many years after her passing. Could there still be a chance for souls in the realm of spirits to say yes to God, and be permitted to enter Purgatory for a cleansing of sins, a process every sinner would have to go through, and enter Heaven? Or is there a separate Heaven for those who during their earthly lives did not have faith in the one true God and the Son of God but instead believed in gods of goodness from another religion and lived their lives practicing goodness?
Was grandmother right when she said God and Buddha are different? On this point, she had to be correct. This blogger remembers feeling sad when he heard that, for he wondered in his heart if they would ever meet after their lives had ended.
To this day, this blogger does not know. He only knows that God loves him, and he thinks that God also loves those whom he loves and prays for, and he prays for many, some of whom he had never met but had crossed his path or he had crossed theirs. He also thinks that God's love is a broad and magnanimous love, un-confining and non-calculating, otherwise he would not be called to know God with parents who are non-overtly religious and a grandmother who was Buddhist. And if he can be called to know God, anyone can be called, even spirits who had left their flesh, for all have been created by God. A call from God is only an invitation; whether to accept the invitation with love is an individual's choice, not God's. If grandmother in her spirit had heard God's call, she would have instinctively accepted God's invitation with love. In addition, this blogger also thinks that those living can by their prayers aid those in spirit to hear God's call, to give them a chance to say yes to God.
[1] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/04/22/vaticans_message_to_buddhists_on_vesakh/1307347
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