Cologne priest, Fr Franz Meurer, has led his parish to raise funds for
the construction of Germany’s biggest mosque which will be built in a
city most famous for its Catholic cathedral.
And now Navid Kermani, a prominent Iranian-born writer from Cologne,
who received a national award for his efforts to promote inter-religious
dialogue in Germany recently, has reciprocated by announcing that he
would give his share of the €45,000 (US$67,738) award to Fr Meurer.
The cooperation between Fr Meurer and Mr Kermani illustrates how far
Germany has gone in accepting its booming Muslim minority, the Christian
Science Monitor reports.
“You not only had a Catholic church tolerating Muslims who want to
build a mosque … but you also had [Catholic] parishioners giving money
so that people from another faith could also practice their religion in
their own place of worship,” said Kermani, who shared this year’s German
Culture Prize with Catholic Cardinal Karl Lehmann; Peter Steinacker,
former head of the Lutheran Church in the Hessen region; and Salomon
Korn, vice president of the German Jewish Council.
Every year, the prize honors an artist’s special contribution to
German culture. This year, the jury took a different approach, looking
for individuals who had worked toward promoting “the peaceful
coexistence of the three great Abrahamic religions - Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam,” said Hessen Prime Minister Roland Koch.
With the award, he said, the state of Hessen wanted to “point out
that religion is a crucial part of the cultural life of a free society.”
SOURCE
Priest
bridges religious divide by funding Germany’s biggest mosque
(Christian Science Monitor)