Private audience for the Dalai Lama
On October 13, Fr. Ciro Benedettini, representing the Press Office of the Holy See, confirmed the “private” visit “of courtesy” of the Dalai Lama on this day to the Sovereign Pontiff, specifying the “strictly religious” character of the meeting, in order to avoid upsetting the Chinese authorities. Among those persons present at the meeting were the Dalai Lama’s aides and Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
The themes of the link between reason and faith and the necessity of harmony between religions were broached. “One of the principle objectives of my coming to Rome was to meet the new pope,” declared the Dalai Lama, emphasizing the “very pleasant atmosphere” during the meeting. After having talked of “the promotion of human values and the importance of ecology, I spoke about faith and reason,” he went on, as “it is with the combination of faith and reason that the most efficacious results will be obtained.” And “there are different philosophies, but they are all inspired by the same human values.” “We should not consider all Muslims as militants, this is false and unjust,” he said, “we generalize the cases of very few people who behave badly, but these exist in all religions.” The Dalai Lama also recalled the interreligious meeting at Assisi organized by John Paul II, reiterating the importance of these meetings to Benedict XVI.
Tenzin Gyatso was born on July 6 1935 at Takhster (Tibet). Since the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese army in 1959, he has lived in exile at Dharamsalla (India). In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The 14th Tibetan Dalai Lama was in Italy from October 12 to 14, where he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Biology – Rome 3. On this occasion, he spoke on the subject of “Neurophysiology of the spirit, of pain and of the consciousness of pain.”
