Ilaria Morali

This book is the fruit of a set of circumstances, quite fortuitous, which occurred between the Summer of 1999 and the beginning of Fall, 2005.

In 1999 and again in 2001, we traveled to Japan, as guests of the Shinmeizan Center for Interreligious Dialogue, The directors of the Shinmeizan Center are the Xaverian missionaries Fr. Franco Sottocornola and Sr. Maria de Giorgia, who invited us to share a few weeks of their life, allowing us to take part in a few moments of touching dialogue, including an unforgettable day we passed in the dwelling place of the Venerable Tahara, in an exchange over the great themes of our respective religious traditions that was as sharp as it was deep. From these travels, during the course of which we entered into friendship also with the then-Provincial of the Friars Minor, Fr. Pietro Sonoda, a third invitation was extended us, this time to hold a few sessions of formation and continuing education in Mihazaky and Osaka for Xaverian missionaries of the Province of Japan. These three trips to Japan gave us the chance to experience first-hand, not only the joys and difficulties of inter-religious dialogue, but also the complexity of the very often theologically-rooted problems with which the Church’s mission in Asia is engaged, owing to new trends and conceptions inspired by the so-called theology of religious pluralism.

Our Xaverian friends were able to organize no fewer than three meetings in Asia in which we, too took part: one in Osaka in 2003; another in Pandang, Indonesia, in 2004; another in Bangalore, India, in 2005; all of them were organized precisely as part of the effort to open a serene and frank dialogue with theologians in the pluralist line. Thanks to these gatherings, we came to know Dr. Gavin D’Costa, Head of the Department for Theology and Religious Study of Bristol (UK), with whom was born, during the course of heated debates, an amicable sodality of ideas and intentions. Dr. D’Costa has, moreover, vast knowledge of what it is doing in Anglophone environs regarding the theology of religions.

These many-faceted experiences in Asia brought us to reflect seriously about the possibility of putting together a book dealing directly with some of the focal points of the theology of religions from a Catholic point of view.

Many other experiences in Italy, where we were in contact with the scientific and academic world, with many students in formation, and also more directly with the life of the Church, led us understand that one of the most powerful temptations for the Catholic world at present is that of taking ‘Catholicism’ to mean ‘Cosmopolitanism with a religious tint’ duly purged of all those elements and aspects, which make the Christian proposition,  the Christian message, entirely singular and unique. Having closely studied the Conciliar thought on the great questions inherent to Christianity’s relation to other religions, both from the doctrinal and the practical-pastoral points of view, and having compared the Conciliar thought with what today in theology is said about the Council, we often had the impression of stark contrast. On the one hand, there was Conciliar turn that had been prepared and elaborated by an extraordinary generation of Catholic intellectuals and Churchmen, unanimously convinced that the Church’s opening of itself to the world should go together with the rediscovery of the richness of Catholic faith, of the Church’s two millennia of history and Tradition; on the other the present-day tendency in treating of inter-religious dialogue and the themes it presupposes, to forget – whether consciously or not -  certain fundamental aspects of the Faith. A Muslim friend said to us some time ago that he would never want to dialogue with a Catholic who, in order to engage him, puts aside his deepest convictions. This, however, is precisely what often happens.

It does not seem to us a coincidence, then, that in these post-Conciliar decades, Catholic theology, in its reflection on Christianity’s rapports with other religious traditions, should have ‘forgotten’ even to use the word ‘salvation’; theologians have disregarded the way in which that theme is not only at the center of the Council’s doctrinal reflection on other religions, but also the basic and driving force of dialogue, itself; was not the colloquium salutis the central motive behind Paul VI’s decision to spur [steer] the Church toward dialogue with members of other religions, and indeed with all humanity?

For us, therefore, the project of writing an ‘alternative’ book with respect to much that is read and written in on theology of religions sprang from the perception of the need, indeed the urgent need to bring the reflection back within a more complete framework, composed of all the necessary points of reference, as well as from the need to make the problematic nature of the very notion of religion, used today with easy carelessness even in Catholic theology, better and more fully understood. For example: whether it should be possible to speak of ‘theology of religions’ indistinctly, without considering that many of our interlocutors expressly claim not to practice a religion, but to follow a ‘way of life,’ is a question that rarely if ever arises. Almost no one inquires into the meaning that the term religion has today, into the interpretative development that the term has experienced in history. Can we neglect all this when we speak of theology of religions or engage in dialogue with our friends who are not Christian? Can we adventure ourselves in dialogue with them without considering the specificities of their traditions? In light of these questions, the need to include a section specially dedicated to them and written by experts in several particular non-Christian religions imposed itself ever more strongly upon us.

It was a Muslim friend, however, who, albeit unknowingly, confirmed for us the urgency of this enterprise and led us to decide to undertake it. He is Dr. Mustafa Sinanoglu, a professor of Islamic theology, whom Dr. Morali met in the Fall of 2005 in Istanbul: she found herself in that city because of the initiative of Fr. Borrmans, professor emeritus of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, for an Islamic-Christian convention. In one of the rare breaks between sessions, Prof. Sinanoglu invited her to visit the Turkish Religious Foundation Center for Islamic Studies (ISAM), to which is annexed a magnificent library and a center for documentation, of which he is director. The experience proved to be incredibly intense. Dr. Sinanoglu has been trying for several years already to set up a specific section in his library, entirely dedicated to Christianity. He told her of all the difficulties he had experienced in finding, through Catholic publishing houses, books truly ‘complete and solid,’ which treat without ideological prejudice the question of the specificity of Christianity and of Christianity’s relation with the other religious traditions.

That visit seemed to confirm the need for this book, on which we had already been reflecting for several years. Fr. Borrmans was of one mind with us, knowing as he did how greatly many of his Muslim friends desired to learn about Christianity from up close, to learn what the Church really thinks about her Faith and her rapports with other religions.

So it was that, in October of 2005, we decided, meeting with Fr. Borrmans and putting together our various experiences and ideas, to undertake this enterprise with him. So also it was that we thought of involving our friend, Dr. Gavin D’Costa, so as to unite intellectually the ideas matured in Asia with those that flowered at home and those that came in the visit with Dr. Sinanoglu.

This book is born, therefore, of the fertile interplay of travels, experiences, studies, confrontations and contacts in sincere friendship, thanks to which we have been able to avail ourselves of a vast number of experts, among whom we would like to mention Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ., Fr. Peter Henrici, SJ, now auxiliary bishop emeritus of Chur, Fr. Louis F. Ladaria, SJ, recently named Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, former Prefect of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Beyond the ‘visible’ names, there are other ‘invisible’ ones that equally deserve mention here, for the ‘behind the scenes’ help their bearers have given us, e.g., in contacting various experts in specific disciplines: Fr. Roest Crollius, SJ, Fr. Jared Wicks, SJ and Fr. Adam Wolanin, SJ.

We do not hide from our readers that there is a notable effort behind this book. The choice of English imposed itself, so that we might make the contents of this publication more readily available to a larger public of Christians and members of other religions who live far from Rome.

Fr. Karl Josef Becker S.J.

Ilaria Morali

Book description

This magisterial work outlines, clarifies, and defends official Roman Catholic teaching on the relationship between Christianity and other religious traditions in the light of Catholic belief that “We must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” (Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, 22).

Part I explores the history of these issues while Part II examines their theological framing. Part III addresses Christianity and the other religions since Vatican II. Part IV deals specifically with Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Islam as these traditions see themselves in relation to Christianity. A final chapter by Michael Fitzgerald offers a theological reflection on the foundations of interreligious dialogue today.

Peter Henrici, Joseph Carola, Luis . Ladaria, Jose Granados, Savio Hon Tai-Fait, Antonio Lopez, Philippe Curbelie and Matthieu Rouge, Sandra Mazzolini, Cesare Baldi, Avery Dullege, Gavin D’Cost, Pael Rebernik, David M. Neuhaus, Umberto Bresciani, Francis Brassard, Franco Sottocornola and Maria A. D Geriogi, Bhagyalata Pataskar, Subhas Anand, Christopher Shelke, Maurice Borrmans, Michael Fitzgerald.

Karl J. Becker, S.J., and Ilaria Morali teach at the Gregorian University in Rome.

Gavin D’Costa teaches at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. He is author of Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered.

Maurice Borrmans, M.Afr., has long been associated with the Pontifical Institute for Arabic Studies.<>