Pijar Vatikan II di Tahun Iman: Kardinal Turkson Bikin Heboh (11B)

GARA-GARA tayangan video Muslim Demographics ini, orang lalu teringat kata-kata Kolonel Muammar Ghadaffi. Almarhum mantan pemimpin Libya yang terbunuh mengenaskan di tangan rakyatnya ini pernah mengatakan: “There are signs that Allah will grant victory to Islam in Europe without swords, without guns, without conquest….The 50+ million Muslims in Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”

Kalau Anda meng-“googling” kalimat ini, maka dengan mudah Anda akan menemukan di pelbagai situs bahwa kalimat ini sudah identik dengan Ghadaffi. Ini sudah menjadi “kata-kata keramat”-nya Ghaddaffi. Fans Ghadaffi pasti mengingat kata-kata itu, semudah kita mengingat kata-kata “sakti“ trade-mark-nya Romo Kanjeng Mgr. Albertus Soegijapranata SJ: “100% katolik, 100% Indonesia.

Tentu saja, hari itu Kardinal Turkson lalu menjadi “bintang Sinode”.

Wartawan cetak dan elektronik langsung memberondong dengan banyak pertanyaan. Pada umumnya menanyakan apa maksud terdalam Kardinal dengan membawakan video itu, konteks dengan tema “Evangelisasi Baru” dsb. Kardinal dari Ghana ini dengan tulus hati minta maaf kalau terjadi ketidaknyamanan dan kesalahfahaman dengan tayangan video itu. “Dalam konteks Sinode, kita wajib terus mendengarkan rekan dialog kita. Di Asia, Afrika dan Timur Tengah, rekan dialog kita yang terutama adalah saudara-saudara Muslim. Mereka mayoritas. Ini kenyataan dialog dan evangelisasi kami!”

Dalam wawancara berkenaan dengan heboh penayangan video Muslim Demographics ini, situs “Vatican Insider” melaporkan:

In an exclusive interview in his Vatican office, October 16, he said he regretted showing the controversial video. “I showed the video to illustrate this reality in the Western world and to emphasize that if we do not evangelize the social order, it is capable of giving rise to all kinds of problems for society.” After the animated debate following the video’s projection, the cardinal recognizes that others viewed that documentary differently to him. Up to then he said, “I had never viewed that video in the anti-Islamic optic with which so many others have viewed it.” He believes this divergence in perception is due to his personal background.

Dari beberapa kalangan, khususnya dari Sekretariat Sinode dan Justice and Peace, Kardinal Turkson mendapat info bahwa tayangan videonya itu menimbulkan kontroversi. Beberapa terang-terangan mengatakan tidak bijak di forum Sinode menayangkan video semacam itu. Beberapa mengatakan, Kardinal Turkson jadi memberi angin segar bagi provokasi Islam.

Terhadap komentar-komentar itu, Kardinal Turkson mengatakan: “I showed the video at the synod, to press home a point I had made earlier that day when I addressed the gathering as President of the Council for Justice and Peace. In that speech, I presented the Church’s Social Teaching as “a useful tool for evangelization” and requested that the Compendium of the Church’s Social Teaching be put on the Vatican’s website alongside the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and that a future synod be held on evangelizing the social order”.

Lebih lanjut menurut koran La Stampa:

“Cardinal Turkson used the video to emphasize more forcefully that second point, namely “the need for evangelizing the social order, especially in relation to the anti-life culture, the culture of death that we find in the West and which is now being exported to Africa and other parts of the world as –to quote Pope Benedict – ‘a toxic spiritual refuse which contaminates’.” He felt the first part of the video brought out this point well by highlighting the falling birthrate across Western Europe as a result of this “anti-life culture” and the consequences it brings, even if he now admits the figures may not be accurate. But, he insisted, no one denies that the birthrate has fallen dramatically low in Europe with serious consequences for the whole of society. It was this point that he wished to bring to the synod’s attention, together with the need to evangelize the social order in the West, so as to change its anti-life culture”.

Siapa Kardinal yang bikin heboh di Aula Sinode bulan lalu itu?

Nama lengkap Kardinal ini adalah Kardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson. Saat ini beliau menjadi Presiden Komisi Kepausan untuk  Justice and Peace. Uskup Emeritus untuk  Keuskupan Cape Coast ini lahir pada 11 October 1948 di Wassaw Nsuta, Ghana. Pernah menjadi Ketua “KWI”-nya Ghana (1997-2005) dan Anggota Komisi Kepausan untuk Dialog Gereja Methodis-Katolik, Chancellor of the Catholic University College of Ghana; anggota The National Sustainable Development, Ministry of Environment; anggota The Board of Directors of the Central Regional Development Committee dan Bendahara The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

Saya beruntung pernah tinggal serumah beberapa tahun dengan Kardinal yang baik ini. Pada 6 Oktober 1992, Rektor Collegio Olandese mengumumkan kalau teman asrama kami Peter Turkson diangkat Paus jadi Uskup Agung Cape Coast Ghana.

Mgr. Muskens, Rektor asrama kami itu mengumumkan berita gembira itu pada kesempatan makan siang.  Kalau di meja makan, Peter memang senang ngobrol dengan teman-teman dari Indonesia. Dia tahu, kami sama-sama punya banyak cerita bergaul dengan teman-teman yang tidak Katolik. Karena agak tidak mudah memanggil nama saya, dia lebih sering memanggil saya: Jakarta. Kebetulan siang itu saya duduk di sebelah Peter Turkson. Dia nampak sangat malu-malu dan tidak nyaman menerima ucapan selamat kami semua.

Kata Hans van den Hende (sekarang Uskup Rotterdam), sudah beberapa hari ini Peter berdoa khusuk sekali berjam-jam di kapel asrama.

Saya cukup yakin, Kardinal Turkson teman kami itu bukan orang yang suka cari sensasi. Dari yang saya tahu, Peter Turkson orang yang rendah hati, pendiam dan saleh. Dia menyandang gelar Doktor dari Institut Biblicum salah satu Institut bergengsi di dunia. Keahliannya dalam bidang Kitab Suci tidak diragukan lagi.

Saya yakin, tayangan video yang sensasional dan kontroversial ini dia pilih untuk mau realistis saja: dunia memang sudah berubah. Jangan memandang saudara-saudara kita Muslim dengan kacamata “ancaman”.

Tentang Islam, Kardinal Turkson terang-terangan mengatakan: “From my own personal experience I cannot have such anti-Islamic fears, nor can I ever buy into anti-Islamic propaganda or scaremongering. I come from a family that has an Islamic component. My paternal uncle was a Muslim. We lived together; we don’t have any trace of fear of Islam in my family. My mother was a Methodist, my father a Catholic. This is the inter-religious family and context in which I grew up. For me to attack Islam would be to attack my own family. I come from a family which has an Islamic component. My paternal uncle was a Muslim and he took care of me when I was a boy, and when he grew old I took care of him until he died”.

Tentang penayangan video itu, mungkin di Tahun Iman ini kita dibantu oleh Kardinal Turkson yang baik ini dengan merenungkan pandangannya : “The point was not to be anti-Islam. Absolutely not! The point was to highlight the demographic situation as a result of the anti-life tendency and culture in the Western world where, as I see it, there is a great need to apply the values of the Kingdom of God and of the Gospel to the social order”.

Selamat merenungkan dan selamat berdiskusi !