Interfaith Dialogue: A Catholic View
By Michael L. Fitzgerald and John Borelli. Orbis Books (Maryknoll, N.Y., 2006). 255 pages. $25.
The Mosque: The Heart of Submission
By Rusmir Mahmutcehajic. Fordham University Press (New York, 2006). 100 pages. $24.95.
When the General Congregation of the Jesuits met in 1995, the order committed itself to a new focus on global mission using these words: "To be religious today is to be interreligious in the sense that a positive relationship with believers of other faiths is a requirement in a world of religious pluralism."
The two books reviewed here provide substantive evidence of this refocused mission.
"Interfaith Dialogue: A Catholic View," by Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald and John Borelli, is the testimony of two seasoned specialists in the field. The book advocates dialogue and proclamation as the primary ways God's people, the church, are called to live this contemporary mission.
Archbishop Fitzgerald, recently named papal ambassador to Egypt and the Arab League, had served as president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue at the Vatican since 2002. Prior to that, he worked in Uganda and Sudan and at the Pontifical Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies in Rome, where he developed professional expertise in Christian-Muslim relations.
Borelli is special assistant to the president for interreligious initiatives at Georgetown University in Washington. Earlier, he was associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he oversaw Catholic dialogue with Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.
Their book is a report on Catholic experience with interfaith relations, reflecting the international scene and particularly developments in Great Britain and the United States. It is divided into sections describing the meaning of dialogue in the modern context of religious pluralism, dialogue with Islam, and wider interfaith relations (excluding Judaism, with which the Vatican maintains a unique institutional relationship).
The authors describe how respect, discernment, exposure and experience are required in a world where persons of differing faiths regularly encounter and engage each other. Both are committed Catholics who see God at work in all the great religions.
Concerning Islam, they attempt to describe what Christians and Muslims hold in common. In that regard, they present intriguing views on the meaning of Mary. Distinct differences are also noted. These include understandings about the doctrine of the Incarnation, the death and divinity of Christ, Scripture, the Trinity, the role of women and religious liberty.
Christians can have a spiritually purifying experience, the authors report, when they are able to engage Muslims honestly.
Validating that point, "The Mosque: The Heart of Submission," by Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, a physics professor at the University of Sarajevo and a former vice president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, creates a beautiful, mystical reflection on the meaning of the mosque for contemporary Muslims. He also writes for Westerners across the faith spectrum as a contributor to the Abrahamic Dialogues Series sponsored by Fordham University, a Jesuit institution in New York.
William Chittick of Stony Brook University introduces the book, helping Christian readers to understand that mosque is not an analog of what we call church. There are neither priesthood nor institutional clerical hierarchy in Islam. Every Muslim is his own priest. Most Islamic religious obligations are performed in the home.
The function of the mosque is dispersed as sacred space throughout society and the natural world. Mosque is therefore a place of human prostration, of submission to God. Wherever one is located, it is possible, through this understanding of mosque, to be a guest at God's table.
The book contains 19 reflections and a summation of the spiritual implications for living at the table of the world's mosque, since all the world can be understood as a mosque. These meditations, which deserve to be read thoughtfully, introduce the initiate to basic concepts that define and undergird the Islamic faith.
Through books like these, ordinary Christians are only beginning to discern the richness of interfaith dialogue and non-Christian terms like mosque. All three authors introduce us to new ways of thinking. In some respects they take us on a traditional ecumenical journey. In other ways the path over which they lead us is quite different.
We are invited to savor and apply this accumulated wisdom to our growingly interreligious lives, in an increasingly pluralistic world. -- Wayne A. Holst
The reviewer:
Wayne A. Holst has taught religion and culture at the University of Calgary and facilitates adult spiritual development at St. David's United Church in Calgary, Alberta.
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