To the Representatives of the Muslim Community (20 February 1981)

On 20 February 1981, the Holy Father met with members of Muslim communities at the Davao Airport in the Philippines, urging them to work together with their Christian brothers to build a more fraternal society, since “Muslims and Christians are really traveling in the same boat.”

Dear brothers, 

It is always a pleasure for me to meet members of Muslim communities on my travels and to extend my personal greetings and those of all their Christian brothers and sisters around the world. 

1. I deliberately address you as brothers: it is certain that we are because we are members of the same human family whose efforts – whether men realize it or not – aim at God and at the truth that comes from him. But we are especially brothers in God who created us and whom we seek to reach, each in his own way, through faith, prayer, worship, fidelity to his law and submission to his will. 

But aren't you above all brothers of the Christians of this great country due to the ties of nationality, history, geography, culture and hope for a better future, a future that you are building together? Isn't it fair to think that, in the Philippines, Muslims and Christians are really traveling in the same boat, through good fortune and bad luck, and that in the storms that are befalling the world, the safety of each individual depends on the efforts and cooperation of all? 

Let me elaborate a little on this last point. 

2. I address you as the spiritual head of the Catholic Church which has no power in the political field. I can only transmit to you Jesus' teaching and word: "Blessed are the peacemakers" He says in the Gospel, "for they will be called children of God" ( Mt 5:9). In another passage he says: “Whatever you want men to do to you, do it also to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets” ( Mt 5:9). These words, which I repeated to my brothers and sisters, to my sons and daughters in the Catholic Church, allow me to repeat them to you at this moment. 

3. You share with Christians the same citizenship that you have acquired by living here and participating in the life of the nation, with all the obligations and duties that this entails. In addition to your Filipino nationality and the other qualities and values ​​common to all Filipinos, you are aware that you are the bearers of some specific qualities, among which the culture of Islam is perhaps the most evident. This is what adds to your shared national identity an original element that deserves attention and respect. 

Your well-being and that of your Christian brothers and sisters requires a climate of mutual esteem and trust. You know like me that in the past this climate has too often deteriorated, to the detriment of all relationships. 

But, dear friends, we know all too well that there is no positive reason why that past should be revived today. If anything, we should look back with sorrow on the past, to ensure a better future is established. And you have the enviable and decisive task of helping to build this future, the future of your Muslim children, as well as the harmonious future of the entire Philippine nation. 

I know that you and your Christian brothers and sisters are becoming increasingly aware of the responsibilities that weigh upon your generation. For some years now, you have felt an urgent need to sit down together, address your issues, and re-establish mutual esteem and trust. A fruitful dialogue thus began and, since then, not a year has passed without you meeting your Christian fellow citizens, under the auspices of government bodies or private institutions, in Marawi City, Cotabato, Cagayan de Oro, Jolo, Zam boanga, Tagaytay and also in this pleasant city of Davao. 

4. I greet all these efforts with great satisfaction and heartily encourage their expansion. Society cannot bring its citizens the happiness they expect without society itself being built on dialogue. Dialogue, in turn, is built on trust and trust presupposes not only justice, but mercy. Undoubtedly, equality and freedom, which are the foundation of any society, require law and justice. But, as I said in a recent letter addressed to the entire Catholic Church, justice by itself is not enough: "...the equality introduced through justice is limited to the realm of objective and extrinsic goods, while love and mercy cause men to meet one another in that value which is man himself, with the dignity which is proper to him” (John Paul II,Dives in Misericordia , 14). 

Dear Muslims, my brothers: I would like to add that we Christians, like you, seek the basis and model of mercy in God himself, the God to whom your Book gives the beautiful name of al-Rahman, while the Bible calls him al-Rahum, the Merciful. 

5. Only within this religious structure and its common promises of faith can we effectively speak of mutual respect, openness and collaboration between Christians and Muslims. Then comes the will to work together, to build a more fraternal society. Despite the geographical nature of your great country, it is more appropriate today than ever to repeat the saying: "no man is an island". 

My dear friends, I want you to be convinced that your Christian brothers and sisters need you and need your love. And the whole world, with its longing for greater peace, fraternity and harmony, needs to see a brotherly coexistence between Christians and Muslims in a modern, believing and peaceful Philippine nation. 

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