Making (a) Space for Interfaith Encounter on a Catholic Campus
10/04/2024
Today, my Catholic university community will ask God’s blessings upon our new Assisi Interfaith Prayer and Meditation Space. The room that houses the Assisi space sits just to the side of an entrance to one of the buildings on our West Campus, itself the former global headquarters of a major corporation. I remain astounded by such layers upon layers of meanings, histories and possibilities. I enjoy visiting all sorts of sacred places because they are set apart for reasons unlike any other. An interfaith space is, by definition, one that makes a room for encounter. Asking God’s blessing upon an interfaith prayer space goes beyond interreligious tolerance or even interreligious acceptance. It testifies to the reality of our world shared by people of different faith traditions; it testifies to a shared commitment to nurture the spiritual life that is rooted in a shared humanity. I also think that it demonstrates the best of what it means to celebrate a particular religious identity.
For Catholics, faith should not be shaken when we honor and support the spiritual lives of those in other religious traditions. On the contrary, I believe real faith commitments can only be deepened by the encounter with beliefs different from one’s own. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to facilitate a roundtable discussion between the spiritual leaders who serve our University community through our interfaith chaplaincy program. Alongside one of my former students, I sat in the presence of great wisdom refracted through the lived experience of Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. The conversation included much laughter and hope. Our interfaith leaders highlighted students’ deep need for silence and accompaniment, the power of their representation and presence to our diverse student community on a Catholic campus, and the capacity for interreligious dialogue to be a pathway towards robust pluralism. The chaplains agreed time and again on their common witness to the importance of our shared humanity beyond words. These leaders from religions whose teachings disagree about the ultimate nature of reality, the status of God, and the proper destiny of humankind nevertheless demonstrated the delights of friendship, conversation and learning.
Pope Francis challenges Catholics to let the Church be in a modern world that prizes rather than reviles diversity and works for just peace rather than conquest. He expresses that challenge in the call to synodality, to be a Church that journeys and listens together as the people of God. He expresses that challenge in his leadership through significant gestures of physical closeness to the poor, the wounded, the imprisoned and the suffering. The Holy Father expresses that challenge through his travels to far corners of the globe and public and personal meetings with leaders from non-Catholic religious traditions. He expresses it through his teaching about integral ecology and integral spirituality. The human creature cannot be sealed off from the rest of creation and flourish: “For this reason, the ecological crisis is also a summons to a profound interior conversion.” A similar idea turns up in the Pope’s letter on human fraternity: “As silence and careful listening disappear, replaced by a frenzy of texting, this basic structure of sage human communication is at risk. A new lifestyle is emerging, where we create only what we want and exclude all that we cannot control or know instantly and superficially. This process, by its intrinsic logic, blocks the kind of serene reflection that could lead us to a shared wisdom.” But Pope Francis also calls for us to turn our spirit around when it comes to the migration crisis, the temptation to despair, political and ecclesial polarization, war and the constant troubles at play in the life of the Church.
Pope Francis’ call for ongoing spiritual renewal highlights an undersold element of Catholicism’s contribution to the world stage; interfaith work does not need to dilute our own religious practice, commitment or ideas. Catholic institutions must support the risks and hard conversations of interfaith encounter because of Catholic identity. Like his namesake from Assisi, whom the Church commemorates today, Pope Francis has consistently and unequivocally placed interreligious and ecumenical dialogue at the center of Catholic ecclesial and spiritual renewal. Making room to support another’s journey of faith is a gesture of hospitality and confidence in God’s love. To sample some words attributed to Saint Francis remixed through the insights of our interfaith chaplains: interreligious dialogue is a gesture that preaches the Gospel, only using words when necessary.
Charles A. Gillespie is an assistant professor in the department of Catholic Studies and director of Pioneer Journey at Sacred Heart University.