Father David invited to the Saint Louis University

The lecture in memory of Henri de Lubac, the renowned Jesuit theologian, is an annual event at the University in Saint Louis, Missouri in the United States. The Catholic university invited Father David this year to give the lecture and about two hundred people attended, among them students and also representatives from the Jewish and Muslim communities in the city.

Father David presented seven challenges that face the Christians in the region today:

1. Developing a strategy to live in a volatile "today": engaging or withdrawing
2. Nurturing a sense of belonging and of mission: staying or leaving
3. Christian unity: uniting or fading away
4. Inter religious dialogue: working together or being marginalized
5. Justice and peace: speaking the truth in weakness
6. Reading the Bible in the Lands of the Bible: being challenged and being consoled
7. Migration: opening up and being healed

At the conclusion of the lecture, Father David said that each person can contribute to a better future for the region by speaking responsibly: "take responsibility for every word that you speak. Our words create worlds and we can create worlds where respect, justice and peace reign or we can create worlds where contempt, judgment and violence dominate. When we speak about the Middle East, let us find a way to speak that respects all those who live there, Muslims, Jews and Christians; Palestinians, Israelis and Arabs. Let us find ways to eradicate the language of contempt from our hearts and minds so that our lips proclaim a Gospel that is good news for all. In this way, we create new worlds in which a brighter future opens for our brothers and sisters, the Christians of the Middle East."