Some Reflections On Inter-Religious Dialogue

By Fr. Pradeep Sequeira

A statement that made a profound impression on me some years ago, and that continues to hold sway on me to this day, goes like this: “Today, to be religious is to be inter-religious.” I do not remember who made the statement and in what context. But it has set me thinking about the meaning and purpose of religion in general, and my own religion in particular. In the following paragraphs I wish to share with you the fruit of my reflections, and also my experience of actually conducting inter-religious dialogue. And if you show inclination to read further, I shall share with you a few practical means of promoting inter-religious dialogue.

Meaning and Purpose of Inter-religious Dialogue

Today, we cannot think of living in isolation. It has become imperative that we learn to live, communicate and interact with people who are different from us – different in language, religion, culture and nationality. We have necessarily to mingle with our brothers and sisters who may not share our value system, our lifestyle, our social standing, or our religious identity. It is only when we extend our hand in friendship to people of other faiths that we can live in peace and harmony. In this sense, we can truly say that “Today, to be religious is to be inter-religious.” This thinking is the basis of inter-religious dialogue. We can define inter-religious dialogue as an effort to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between followers of different religions - on the individual as well as the institutional levels.

Origin and Growth of Inter-Religious Dialogue

Needless to say, the desire for peaceful coexistence is as old as humankind itself. At the same time, we are aware that suspicion, rivalry, hatred, conflict, violence, war, death and destruction have tainted human history in no small way. On the other hand, religions of the world, without exception, have relentlessly upheld the values of love, peace and harmony among all people and have unequivocally condemned all kinds of animosity between people. What was lacking until about a century ago was the mutual understanding and cooperation between religions to forge peace and unity among people across their faith affiliations.

A major landmark in the modern inter-religious dialogue movement was the World Parliament of Religions that was held in Chicago, USA, in 1893. It marked a major point of departure in as much as it appealed to all people of goodwill to develop interest in knowing and understanding various religions, appreciating people of different faiths and engaging in the quest for harmonious coexistence. It helped create a certain atmosphere for dialogue between different religions.

Another important landmark in the promotion of inter-religious dialogue came from the Catholic Church in the 1960s when, in its Second Vatican Council, it came out with documents highlighting the role of the Church as the people of God, defining its relationship with the world as one of service and its relationship with world religions as one of cooperation towards mutual understanding, peace and harmony.

A major contribution to modern Catholic thinking on inter-religious dialogue came from the renowned Swiss theologian, Hans Kung, who (in his book, “Global Responsibility”, published in 1990) stressed that there cannot be peace in the world unless there is peace among religions, that there cannot be peace among religions unless there is dialogue among religions, and that there cannot be dialogue between religions without investigation of the foundations of religions. This great insight not only made a significant impact on Catholic thinking on inter-religious dialogue but also boosted its efforts to promote it.

Certain important Church documents over the last few decades highlighted the Church’s understanding of and engagement in inter-religious dialogue. These documents, put together, have some salient points, such as the following:

· God desires the ultimate good of all of God’s children.

· All humans seek to find answers to the same existential questions (such as, ‘What is man?’, ‘What are the meaning and purpose of life?’, ‘What is moral good?’, ‘What is sin?’, ‘Why is there so much suffering?’, ‘Which is the road to happiness?’, ‘What is death?’, ‘What happens after death?’, and so on).

· Many people believe in a Supreme Being, and this belief has manifested itself in different religions that try to give answers to some basic questions of life.

· It is important that we reject nothing that is true and holy in these religions.

· We recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, social cultural values found among the followers of all religions.

· It is time to forget the hostilities of the past and to work for justice, reconciliation and peace, moral welfare and freedom.

Types of Inter-Religious Dialogue

In contemporary thinking, we identify four areas or types of inter-religious dialogue:

(i) Dialogue of Life (people living in an open and neighbourly spirit, sharing their joys and sorrows, their human problems and pre-occupations);

(ii) Dialogue of Action (people of different faiths collaborating for the integral development and liberation of people);

(iii) Dialogue of Theological Exchange (experts seeking to deepen their understanding of the heritages of each other’s religious doctrine and traditions);

(iv) Dialogue of Religious Experience (persons rooted in their own religion, sharing with each other their spiritual riches with regard to prayer and contemplation.

Some Practical Aspects of Inter-Religious Dialogue

Like most skills, one’s ability to engage in inter-religious dialogue comes, not so much by reading or hearing about it, but by actually doing it. Also like any skill, one’s interest grows as one continues to take initiative and active part in the promoting of inter-religious harmony. Once you savour the beauty of inter-religious dialogue, you may feel inspired to do something to promote it. However, how exactly to go about it, how to begin, how to continue and so on—these are issues that will remain until you get some practice, some gratifying experience, in conducting inter-religious dialogue.

In this context, I would like to share with you some of the experiences I had, together with, and under the inspiration of, a fellow Jesuit priest, the late Fr Ronnie Prabhu, S.J., in taking the first steps towards inter-religious dialogue.

Way back in 1976, Fr Ronnie Prabhu was appointed the first director of the newly established Jesuit inter-cultural centre in Bangalore (which was later named ‘Ashirvad’ by the founder director). One of the first things that the new director initiated in Ashirvad was to organize a meeting of his friends – some ten of them – among whom were college principals, university lecturers, doctors, public officials, friends and neighbours. The meeting had no agenda except to meet as friends, regardless of class, caste or religion. However, it began with a short prayer session during which a devotional song (not addressed to any particular deity) was sung, a few scripture texts from world religions were read aloud, a few personal spiritual experiences were shared, and a friendly discussion was held on a subject of common interest – all for the duration of about half an hour. The meeting ended over a cup of tea. The friends found it quite an interesting experience, and so they thought it might be a good idea if they could meet regularly, from time to time, preferably once a month, for this sort of exchange.

Within a year, the number of “dialogue friends” swelled from ten to nearly a hundred, pointing to the increasing popularity of the new movement. To cut a long story short, the inter-religious prayer meetings began being organized and conducted twice a month at Ashirvad, on the second and fourth Sundays from 4.00 to 6.00 p.m..

How did I come into the picture? When I was ordained a priest in 1975, I was posted to teaching or administrative responsibilities in some of the Jesuit institutions in Bangalore city. It was convenient for me, therefore, to respond positively to Fr Ronnie Prabhu’s request to assist him in organizing and conducting inter-religious meetings in Ashirvad. Before long, I found myself conducting the inter-religious prayer meetings, at the request or in the absence of the director, not only in Ashirvad but also in some schools and colleges which sought our help in this area.

Seminars on Understanding Religions

In about ten years from its inception, the “Ashirvad Inter-religious Harmony Movement” had become fairly well known in Bangalore, a few other towns and cities of Karnataka, and to some extent even outside Karnataka.

Then it occurred to Father Ronnie that, to be effective, the movement should not remain confined to professionals and senior citizens, but should catch the imagination of the youth. So, some time in 1980, he got me to write letters to principals of some degree colleges in the city, requesting them to send a few students from different religious backgrounds—not more than ten from each college—to attend a two-day seminar at Ashirvad on “Understanding Religions”.

Each time, some 50-60 students, boys and girls, from different degree colleges and from different religious backgrounds, would attend these two-day, non-residential, seminars on ‘Understanding Religions’. We arranged for them to be addressed by learned people from various religious backgrounds, each speaking on their respective religious tradition—be it Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Jain or Christian. The speakers would speak for a while on salient aspects of their respective religious tradition, and at the end of their talk, they would invite the students to ask questions they might have about the particular religion. This provided the students a very good way to clear any doubts or prejudices they might have had.

By the end of the second and last day of the seminar, several of the youngsters who had prejudices against each other because of their religious differences began to associate with each other and even appreciate each other. Some of them would say with moist eyes, “I was so ignorant; I used to think so badly about these people, suspecting them to be superstitious, immoral, etc., but now I know that I was wrong; I realize they too are good people, just like us.”

These seminars, organized two or three times a year, became a regular feature of the Ashirvad Inter-religious Harmony Movement.

Inter-Religious Pilgrimages

Another idea we came up with was to invite the students who had been through the ‘Understanding Religions’ seminar to be part of an inter-religious “pilgrimage” – which meant visits to different places of worship in the city of Bangalore. Some 40 students – boys and girls across religions - accompanied by two or three staff of Ashirvad, set out in a hired bus (the bus hire being shared by the pilgrims) and visited a Jain Mandir, Ramakrishna Ashram, a Mosque, a Gurdwara, a Buddhist Monastery and a Church – all in the course of a Sunday. At each place, with prior arrangement with the administration of the place of worship, we had a guided tour of the holy place and information on its structure, prayers, rituals, scriptures, discourses, etc. We were able to learn a lot about how devotees of the respective tradition understood and practised their faith. It was an eye opener for all of us. As a rule, we had one pilgrimage of this kind every year. On one or two occasions, we told the students that they could also bring their parents or siblings with them for the inter-religious pilgrimage—and that did real wonders!

Inter-Religious Retreats

Yet another initiative in the sphere of inter-religious dialogue was the “inter-religious retreat,” again a brainchild of Fr Ronnie Prabhu. A two-day sojourn (Friday evening to Sunday evening) was organized once a year, in a quiet resort away from the noise and bustle of the city. In Bangalore, we are fortunate to have a few retreat centres which offer their premises for board and lodging at reasonable rates. Only those who had had some exposure to inter-religious prayer sessions at Ashirvad were eligible to take part in this retreat. A reasonable fee was charged to cover the expenses of transport, board and lodging. In addition, those desiring to join the retreat were expected to maintain prayerful silence and to be satisfied with vegetarian diet.

The sessions conducted during the retreat covered a range of activities, which included yoga and meditation, sharing in groups on spiritual insights, devotional readings from religious scriptures from different religions, discourses on Divine-human communication, communing with nature, singing of devotional songs from different religions, etc.. The resource persons at these sessions were friends of Ashrivad and reputed for their inter-religious credentials. The outcome of these retreats, though experienced differently by different individuals, was invariably a sense of the Divine, a feeling of universal brotherhood/sisterhood, and a profound reverence for the variety of spiritual experiences.

The spirit of Fr Ronnie Prabhu, who passed away in 2015, a victim to cancer, continues from his heavenly abode to inspire countless number of his friends and acquaintances to uphold the values of friendship and fraternity through the inter-religious harmony movement that he had founded.

Practical Suggestions for Initiating and Promoting Inter-Religious Dialogue

Here are some practical suggestions that individuals and groups who are interested in promoting inter-religious dialogue could consider doing:

· Organising inter-religious prayer sessions

· Arranging talks on areas of social concern

· Organising seminars (2-3 days) on understanding religions

· Arranging weekly or monthly meetings for the study of the scriptures of different religions

· Initiating short inter-religious prayer services at school assemblies or before school functions

· Celebrating major festivals of different religions in an inter-religious atmosphere

· Arranging weekend retreats for inter-religious groups

· Arranging guided visits of people to places of worship of different religions

· Attending, observing and studying the religious rituals and prayer methods of different religions.

These are just a few practical suggestions. It is very possible that with a little experience, one can come out with several more practical ideas to promote inter-religious dialogue.

FR PRADEEP SEQUEIRA hails from Mangalore, India, and was born in 1941. After completing his B.Sc. at St Aloysius College, Mangalore, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1962, and was ordained a priest in 1975. During his 13 years of formation, he studied philosophy and theology, and also obtained a Masters Degree in Education from Bangalore University and a Diploma in Counseling from Loyola University, Chicago. As an educationist and administrator, he has served as Rector of Mount St Joseph, St Joseph’s Indian High School, St Joseph’s Seminary, St Joseph’s College, and Papal Seminary, Pune. He has also worked as Coordinator of Social Work in Mundgod, Uttara Kannada. He was Director of the Ashirvad Inter-Religious Harmony Movement, Bangalore and the Episcopal Vicar for Religious in the Archdiocese of Bangalore. At present, he is serving as Finance Officer of St Aloysius PU College, Mangalore.