The Three Wise Men of Guissona do not greet the Baby Jesus over the inclusion of Muslims.
The interreligious dialogue of the parish priest of Guissona consists of reading the Qur'an and allowing kings and pages not to kiss the Baby Jesus because they are Muslims, like the 20% of the population.
The Three Wise Men at Guissona Church
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This year's visit of the Three Wise Men to the church in Guissona on 5 January was carried out with a modification to the usual tradition. The symbolic gesture of kissing the image of the Baby Jesus was not carried out because some of the pages and one of the kings are Muslim. and they do not feel comfortable with this practice.
The decision was previously announced via the parish's social media channels, and they have since deleted the statement in response to criticism. The elimination of tradition is justified in the name of respect for the religious diversity present in the municipality.. For the parish priest of Guissona, the gesture of the Magi adoring the Baby Jesus ceases to be the expression of a particular faith that can be modified or suppressed if it offends other denominations.
«In Guissona today we coexist with a new reality that must be respected.»
The priest's text, circulated via Instagram and deleted but recovered by Infovaticana says literally: «In the past, the image of the Baby Jesus was kissed, but in Guissona today we coexist with a new reality that must be respected. Some of the pages and one of the kings are Muslim, and they find this practice inappropriate.»With these words, the parish of Guissona justifies the removal of a central gesture of the Magi's visit to the church, which is none other than the adoration of God made child.
The statement does not speak of an individual exception, nor of a one-off decision taken at discretion, but rather that It calls for a “new reality” that should be accepted as a normative criterion. The kiss to the Baby Jesus is not a social convention, but a concrete expression of Christian adoration. The unilateral renunciation in the name of respect for other denominations It implies assuming that one's own religious practice can be offensive, even within one's own home..
Reading the Bible and the Qur'an because they share «universal values.»
In the same message, the rector recalls that last year Criticism was already levelled when the reading of the Bible and the Qur'an was announced during the event.. Far from taking those criticisms as a warning about the limits of interreligious dialogue within the Christian liturgical space, the statement presents them as mere media noise. In response to the criticisms, the parish priest partially backtracked and read generic texts on peace.
The Instagram account of the parish of Guissona, where he acknowledges that he reads the Qur'an in the church.
The priest states in the text circulated that «These texts share universal values such as peace, harmony, brotherhood, forgiveness and love: everything we want the Three Kings to bring us.»With this phrase, the rector not only justifies the joint reading of the Bible and the Qur'an at an event held inside the church, but also Reduces the meaning of the Magi's visit to a sum of generic values., detached from the specific content of the Christian faith and from the proper meaning of the Epiphany. This continuity It shows that this is not a one-off mistake, but a sustained pastoral line..
In the view of the priest of Guissona, The Christian framework is just an adaptable container., liable to be redefined in terms of a discourse of coexistence that avoids any clear affirmation of its own identity.
In Guissona, coexistence becomes renunciation
In Guissona they have decided that people of the Muslim faith should take part in the popular cavalcade, a decision that in itself is nothing out of the ordinary. The consequence is that the participation of Muslims forces… to modify the religious content of a Christian service held within the church. The religious adaptation that the priest embraces with enthusiasm has become a renunciation.
In Guissona, nearly half the population is of foreign origin and, according to the available data by nationality, Around 15–20 per cent of the neighbours are of African origin, predominantly Muslim.. This reality explains the context and shows how coexistence is about mutual respect.
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