The nimbleness of belief… even among Roman Catholic bishops
Photo from the website http://dialoguetoday.org/
I am a Catholic theologian and interreligious dialogue is my thing, so many people ask me what the Roman Catholic Church’s position is on interreligious dialogue… as if it had ONE position on this nebulous issue. I try to keep informed of current trends in this area, and one new twist almost escaped my attention until I was “fact checking” for a recent lecture: the US Bishops have once again done a 180 degree turn on the issue of Jewish-Christian dialogue, and I counld not be happier. Let me explain.
Back in 2001, Walter Cardinal Kasper, the President of the Catholic Church’s “Pontifical Commission for the Religious Relations with the Jews” gave a very forward-looking speech in which he declared that while the Catholic Church in fact has no evangelization program aimed at converting Jews, it should not, because the Jews already dwell in a salvific covenant and the world is better off with their unique witness sitting alongside the Christian witness.
This sentiment was picked up by an interreligious consulting body sponsored by the US bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and placed in their 2002 document “Reflections on Covenant and Mission” which claimed that:
(The Church’s) evangelizing task no longer includes the wish to absorb the Jewish faith into Christianity and so end the distinctive witness of Jews to God in human history. … Thus, while the Catholic Church regards the saving act of Christ as central to the process of human salvation for all, it also acknowledges that Jews already dwell in a saving covenant with God.
This document was published on the bishop’s official website, giving the impression that it was the bishops’ own opinion.
Having stirred up some major contraversy, the bishops removed the document from their website and last summer the same committee that sponsored the original document issued a new document, “A Note on Ambiguities contained in Reflections on Covenant and Mission.” Their new position was a sharp rebuke of the old position (which itself was, admittedly, a change):
Reflections on Covenant and Mission proposes interreligious dialogue as a form of evangelization that is “a mutually enriching sharing of gifts devoid of any intention whatsoever to invite the dialogue partner to baptism.” Though Christian participation in interreligious dialogue would not normally include an explicit invitation to baptism and entrance into the Church, the Christian dialogue partner is always giving witness to the following of Christ, to which all are implicitly invited.
This assertion was not well received at all by Jewish dialogue partners of the Catholic Church, who (for some odd reason) read into it that this ostensibly free dialogue they had been having with Catholics seemed now to be seen by the bishops as a stealth-conversion effort.
Now, in the latest chapter of the saga, on October 2 the president of the bishops’ council and the chairman of the afformentioned (along with several other notables) have published yet another document, this one striking the lines from “Notes on Ambiguities” quoted above and affirming:
Pope John Paul II summed up the teaching of the Catholic Church when he said that “God chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and made with them a covenant of eternal love, which was never revoked.” Jewish covenantal life endures till the present day as a vital witness to God’s saving will for His people Israel and for all of humanity.
It looks like Jewish-Catholic dialogue is back in fashion.
One could draw many lessons from this recent history, but I have a feeling that this is not the end of this particular theological tug-of-war. It seems to me that this most recent document says what has to be said, in honesty, by the Catholic Church today; but I know that not all Catholics and not all US Catholic bishops believe it. The Church’s understanding is growing, deepening, and changing in this area right now, and these debates going on in official and quasi-official public documents are a sign of growing pains. That is not necessarily bad, though it can be confusing to people who think that the Church has one, unchanging position on this matter. It doesn’t.
What I really applaud is the bishop’s willingness to engage the issue seriously, taking a position, listening to feedback, and being willing to revise their thinking in light on it. It reminds me of a wonderful poem by Emily Dickinson: “We both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble.” Nimbleness is a highly under-valued attribute of healthy faith.
Scott Steinkerchner in charge of the worldwide internet development efforts of his religious congregation, the Dominicans, and is an adjunct professor of interreligious theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. He has a Ph.D. in theology from Boston College with a specialization in inter-religious dialogue, and is a Catholic priest. 
You well know, Beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, that among the many deplorable evils which disturb and afflict principally the ecclesiastical and civil society, two stand out in our day and are justly considered to be the origin of the others.
In effect, you are aware of the innumerable and fatal damages which the terrible error of Indifferentism causes to Christian and civil society. It causes us to forget our duties to God in Whom we live and act and have our being. It causes us to lose our concern about our Holy Religion and destroys almost to the very foundation all law, justice, and virtue.
There is little difference between this most vile form of indifference and the demonic system of indifference between the different religions. According to this system, those who have strayed from the truth, who are enemies of the true Faith and forget their own salvation, and who teach contradictory beliefs which never had stable doctrine, admit no distinction among the different creeds. Rather, they make a pact with everyone, and defend that the haven of eternal salvation is open to the followers of all religions, whatever they might be. They do not care about the diversity of their doctrines as long as they agree to combat the one that is the unique truth.
You see, Beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, how much vigilance is needed to keep the disease of this terrible evil from infecting and miserably killing your flocks. Do not cease to diligently defend your people against these pernicious errors.
(Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Singulari quidem §§ 3-4)
I’m in my much to do about nothing frame of mind.
Sharing the message, for me, is sharing the message. Nothing more.
Evangelism is sometimes meant to mean more than this, and a measure we have added to Jesus’ request. Sharing with an expectation is inauthentic, even if it is simply to understand or have purpose.
Implicit is, by its nature, inauthentic. It is something left unsaid. Jesus left nothing unsaid. Presuming he did, is only that.
More directly, defining another’s belief in a need to understand or create the context for our own is inauthentic. Struggling to get it right is a pretense to giving up that we need to.
An interfaith dialogue may be considered simply making and honoring the commitment to be in a conversation with another.
I bring to this a comment I heard recently about what happens in the mission field (and in interfaith conversations generally).
Rule 1: Be prepared for every assumption you have about what will come from the mission work/interfaith conversation to be proven wrong.
Rule 2: When you go home, be prepared to be more changed than the people you thought you were going to change as a result of your interactions with them.
Ultimately, if we go to these conversations and work with humility and openness, we will be the ones most changed by them
This brings up for me that question many Christians pose and for some reason God has been dealing with me in a true understanding of Him, the question is, is there only one way to salvation for all mankind?
I like many other Christians felt the importance of blindly saying YES to this question, that Christ was the only way in order to be accepted by some as a Christian.
God has been really attempting to show me something concerning this question and I am not for certain where I am being lead but the one thing that He has made clear is that He just isn’t that simple and that he shows mercy to whomever He pleases and that through our righteousness we can seek or ask for anything in His will and it will be done.
The next thing He made clear to me is that there are many who have died and have never heard the name Christ or anything about Christ and many to come who will die in this same state and that they will be judged right where they are at JUSTLY, meaning, God created human beings with a conscience that tells us when we do right or wrong, this along tells human beings that God exists and, when we violate our conscience we know that we have sinned (done wrong). The only way human beings cease feeling that they are sinning (doing wrong) is to violate their conscience enough times that they have numbed it concerning any sin or wrongful acts. God will judge those who do not know Jesus based on this scripture truth.
I think many Christians do not understand what it was Christ told them that they are to go out and tell all about which is the Good News. This Good News is how because of His sacrifice we can now have LIFE; Christ proved this to us by His rising to life again. The Good News is that if we believe on Christ and all the lessons that He taught and followed them, not violating our consciences then we too will rise again to the life that we have between told that we will rise to have on the New Earth, we will not be up there in heaven somewhere having this life but on a new earth with new heavens.
Those who haven’t heard this gospel will be judged on the basis of the information they were given and how they responded to it.7 It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if we are or are not doing what our conscience tells us to do. That is that God part of us that is there to let us know right from wrong.
I never heard the gospel until I was an adult but I knew before I heard it that I wasn’t doing God’s will. I believe that those who are seeking purely what is true will respond to their conscience and will be led to God’s truth. I believe that those who want to justify their unbelief will be judged according to fairness and that everyman will be judged based on this. I am very excited and cannot wait to see exactly where God is leading me on this.
You bring up a good view about conscience. What use to occur to me as my conscience is now, for me, a direct and on going conversation with God.
My knowledge of right and wrong may not be trusted. It is through my on-going conversation with God that I am inspired in my choices. I may truist God in this, and be responsible in my choices.