Jean-Marc Aveline

"Cardinal Aveline: Identity, the core and physiognomy of what constitutes us, what we are, can only be built within a living relationship with otherness, with the other; a closed, impermeable identity is sterile. Interviewer: Is that why you are so committed to interreligious dialogue? Cardinal Aveline: No, the opposite happened. On this front, which was assigned to me by surprise by my bishop at the time, Mgr. Robert Coffy, I was able to verify the truth I had experienced in my life: through dialogue, familiarity, openness and sharing, we are able to make our identity flourish and encounter others more closely, and also to be missionaries, which does not mean proselytising. We need to de-centre ourselves in order to live the mission."

"Interviewer: You are very involved in dialogue with Islam and Judaism. Is it possible to combine mission and interreligious dialogue? Cardinal Aveline: The Church's mission begins with the creation of this climate of dialogue. Again in Ecclesiam suam, Paul VI states that "the climate of dialogue is friendship. Indeed, service." This is what Charles de Foucauld, Pierre Claverie and many others understood: the need for a climate that unites us around the same fundamental existential questions. It is then that the Gospel can be proclaimed, but not as a mere slogan that does not take into account the existential questions of the other. If we consider mission without taking into account the concrete existence of the other, the concrete questions they ask themselves, we risk turning it into a mere word, but not a reality."