Speaking alongside His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See, and Ms. Rajae Naji Mekkaoui, Ambassador of Morocco to the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the King’s Adviser expressed his satisfaction at having greeted His Holiness Pope Leon XIV before the conference opened and at hearing the Holy Father convey “his warmest and most friendly wishes” to His Majesty King Mohammed VI, while praising the dynamic and uniquely close relationship that characterizes the Pontifical Household’s ties with the Kingdom of Morocco.
Highlighting how pleased he was to speak in the “emblematic setting of the Gregorian University of Rome,” founded by the Jesuits nearly five centuries ago, Mr. Azoulay invited the audience to revisit with him a Morocco “which, today as in the past, embodies with clarity, determination, and resilience a calm and promising understanding of all our spiritual traditions brought together in service of what unites us.”
For the King’s Adviser, “the sacredness of the Other in our country is a revelation of the depth and reality of the Other.”
In a time and space too often marked by “denial of otherness, and sometimes by the illusion or regressive pretext of a so-called civilizational divide,” Mr. Azoulay emphasized that “Morocco, under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, stands out as a nation in the heart of Islam that knows how to show others that it is not difference or diversity that profanes the sacred, but the refusal to recognize the legitimacy of these two realities, which themselves are constitutive of our shared humanity.”
To illustrate his point and conclude, the King’s Adviser noted that in a few days Christians will celebrate Easter, and that in Seville, the religious processions leading up to the holiday will this year begin with a more than 2-meter cross made of thuya wood and mother-of-pearl, offered to the Giralda of Seville by artisans from Essaouira.
This symbolic gesture, rich in meaning, was warmly received and applauded by the audience.
Editorial team/le7tv