dialogue

How does a Catholic teacher deal with students who have different moral perspectives or come from different religious backgrounds?

Deacon Douglas McManaman

There is no other way to deal with such students than to welcome them, accept them, and love them. If they chose to attend a Catholic school, it would appear that they want what the school has to offer, and what we have to offer–or should have to offer–is a learning space that is rooted in genuine listening and dialogue, not to mention a community that prays. And so, it is very important not to get flustered by a highly diverse classroom. My last 20 years of my teaching career took place in a very diversified religious environment. We had a rather significant percentage of Muslim and Hindu students, some Sikh students, Buddhists and even atheists, not to mention a good percentage of Catholics. In the end, they made me a better Catholic, a more ecumenically minded one, and the study of the gospels, according to these students, made them better Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, etc. The teaching of religion and school wide masses was clearly not a source of contention for these students. In fact, the devout Muslim, Hindu and Sikh students were my biggest cheerleaders. Moreover, the Muslim students typically had a much better understanding of the Catholic faith than did most of the Catholic students. 

C. S. Lewis made the point that when we study various cultures throughout history, specifically their understanding of morality, what is striking is not how radically different their moral systems are to our own, but how similar their moralities are to ours in the Western world: for example, no culture honours those who run away in battle, or the liar or thief, etc. The reason is that there is one universal moral law, just various degrees of understanding of those principles and their application, which is where conflict typically arises in the world. 

As for the variety of religions, it is very important that we understand one another if we are ever going to be able to live together in peace with one another. But better still, it is more important that we learn from one another, that is, allow other religions to make us more deeply and completely religious; for Western Christianity certainly does not have a monopoly on God. In fact, it can be argued that the Catholicism of the Latin West has allowed itself to be far too influenced by Neo-Platonism, and so although Greek thought has brought a great deal to Christian culture, a perspective is always limited and open to further expansion. Indigenous spirituality, for example, can do much to help us cultivate a deeper reverence for the earth as well as a more consistent appreciation of the sacramental character of creation. Eastern thought can help enrich the mystical aspects of the Catholic faith. In fact, we can look at the various religions of the world as an upside down pyramid, with the wider base at the top and the single point of convergence at the bottom. On the top surface we can place the various religions of the world in chronological order, from the left to the right. But as we enter more and more deeply into the mystical branches of these religions, such as Sufism, or Taoism, Zen, or Hasidism, the more we converge towards one another, and soon it becomes very difficult if not impossible to distinguish between them–at some point they all begin to speak the same language. This suggests a common origin. In other words, on a very profound level, we really are brothers and sisters.

To discover this, however, requires an ability to listen. A religiously diversified classroom is a perfect space in which to learn to listen to one another. For centuries now, religious people, Catholics included of course, have been more or less sectarian. Some people are so entrenched within a tribal “us and them” mindset that they are scandalized when a Catholic preacher quotes the Hadith (Sayings of Muhammed), or repeats a Hasidic tale, or cites a Protestant scripture scholar.

Granted, some Muslim parents were very nervous about the prospects of their child taking a religion course in a Catholic school for fear that their child would be pressured to convert. Hence, it is important to distinguish between proselytizing and evangelization, a distinction that many are still unclear about.[1] Pope Francis addressed this distinction. He wrote:  

Don’t proselytize; respect others’ beliefs. We can inspire others through witness so that one grows together in communicating. But the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyzes: ‘I am talking with you in order to persuade you,‘ No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her own identity. The church grows by attraction, not proselytizing.”

Evangelization is neither apologetics nor an attempt to convert others to our religion. It is the proclamation of the good news (evangelion) of the risen Christ, and we do that first and foremost by living in the joy of Easter and loving others as another self (Mt 22, 39).

The wonderful thing about an interreligious environment is that students eventually realize that the Hindu or Muslim girl sitting next to me, the Sikh boy behind me, and the Catholic teacher in front of me, etc., are not the “infidels” or “lost souls” that I might have been led to believe they were, but really are my brothers/sisters. The classroom is meant to be a learning space, and genuine learning can only take place in an environment in which everyone has learned how to listen (synodality), because listening gives rise to intelligent discourse. Nancy Kline writes: 

Attention, the act of listening with palatable respect and fascination, is the key to a Thinking Environment. Listening of this calibre is enzymatic. When you are listening to someone, much of the quality of what you are hearing is your effect on them. Giving good attention to people makes them more intelligent. Poor attention makes them stumble over their words and seem stupid. Your attention, your listening is that important. We think we listen, but we don’t. We finish each other’s sentences, we interrupt each other, we moan together, we fill in the pauses with our own stories, we look at our watches, we sigh, frown, tap our finger, read the newspaper, or walk away. We give advice, give advice, give advice. Even professional listeners listen poorly much of the time. They come in too soon with their own ideas. They equate talking with looking professional. …Listening to each other, if you want to think for yourselves, requires discipline and the most profound attention for each other.[2] 


Notes

 

  1. “If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytizing. It is the cause of much avoidable conflict between classes and unnecessary heart-burning. But I should welcome people of any nationality if they came to serve here for the sake of service. In Hindu households the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink.” Mahatma Gandhi, originally published in his weekly journal, Harijan, on November 5, 1935.
  2. Nancy Kline. Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind (pp. 37-38). (Function). Kindle Edition.

 

Is Everyone in Heaven a Taoist?

Deacon Douglas McManaman

A short video clip of Father Dan Reehil was shared with me on Facebook recently. In this short segment he said that a woman in his last parish asked him about her mother who had died, but was a Baptist, not a Catholic–she was inquiring about her mother’s soul. Father Reehil said although she did her best in life, raised her kids well, ultimately we really don’t know where she is, she might be in purgatory, which is why we pray for the deceased. But then he said to her: “Well you know, everybody who is in heaven is Catholic”. The woman became angry at this and said: “Well, my mother was not Catholic”. He replied to her: “Well she is now if she’s there. It’s not a question of that section is for the baptists and that section is for the Lutherans, and the Calvinists are at the back, and the Catholics get the front row seats. No. When you go to heaven, you embrace everything that’s true. And the fullness of it is in this Church that Jesus founded”. 

Half truths are dangerous, and I believe this might be an instance of a half truth. I can’t help but feel terribly disappointed at having to witness what appears to be an “ecumenically challenged” priest continue to perpetuate a sectarian “us and them” cast of mind, despite his failed attempt to transcend religious tribalism (by insisting there are no denominational sections in heaven). There is one point he made, however, that is indisputable, and that is when we get to heaven, we embrace everything that is true. It would have been nice had he ended there. For if it is the case that in heaven we embrace everything that is true, that would suggest that in heaven everyone is also a Taoist, and everyone a Sikh; everyone is a Hindu, and everyone a Jew, Muslim and Catholic, and above all, everyone is a Zen Master. We could also say that everyone is Lutheran, for we will embrace everything that Luther got right. But we would also embrace everything that Roman Catholicism got right. If one insists that Roman Catholicism got everything right and has no need of further development, then I think it is safe to say that one has not studied enough Church history.

Nevertheless, Father Reehil proceeds to assert that the fullness of “it” (truth) is in this Church that Jesus founded, pointing to his own. The difficulty is knowing precisely what that means. For some people it means that “whatever you have—all you who are outside the Roman Catholic Church—, we have too, but you on the outside don’t have what we have”. The idea is that “when you get to heaven, you will keep what you have that is true and good, which we already have, but you will get what you did not have before, and so you will realize that we were right all along”, or words to that effect. To be fair, it is not clear whether Father Reehil would take that step, but too many Catholics do. 

Instead of this line of thought, I would like to submit the following: those who are not Christian, but who are in heaven, indeed embraced or possessed Christ in the first place–or better yet, were and are possessed by Christ–, for Christ is the Logos, the eternal Word uttered by the First Person of the Trinity, and divine grace is the indwelling of the Trinity, and there is no entering into the kingdom of God except through grace. Hence, they died in a state of grace. And to possess Christ (or be held by him), even without one’s explicit awareness, is to possess the fullness of truth, because Christ is that fullness (Jn 14, 6), and one need not be explicitly a Christian to love and seek the truth. But to seek him is to have been found by him who is always searching for us–which is the reason anyone seeks him in the first place. In the 2nd century, St. Justin Martyr wrote: 

Christ is the Logos [Divine Word] of whom the whole race of men partake. Those who lived according to Logos are Christians, even if they were considered atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus.

Also writing in the 2nd century was St. Irenaeus who wrote: 

There is one and the same God the Father and His Logos, always assisting the human race, with varied arrangements, to be sure, and doing many things, and saving from the beginning those who are saved, for they are those who love and, according to their generation (genean) follow His Logos. 

One problem with the tribal “we’re right, the rest of you are wrong” model is that if I (the Catholic) were to possess all the knowledge that you possess, but more, then dialogue is unnecessary. All that is needed is a lecture from me, so that you can learn from me–but I could learn nothing theologically significant from you, for dialogue presupposes that there are two of us who are in need of rising to a higher space in which we both are enlarged and enhanced. Hence, dialogue can be nothing more than a sham. 

But ecumenical dialogue is not a sham. We learn from everyone, and we believe that the Church, which is much larger than the Roman tradition and embraces the Eastern traditions and includes the entire fellowship of believers (i.e., non-Catholics), is Christ’s Mystical Body. This means that the Church is intimately joined to Christ. But it is Christ “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2, 3), not me, a Catholic. Every member of the pilgrim Church is “on the way”, growing and learning, yet at every moment each one of us is limited by time and geography. It is also the case that at every moment Christ, the fullness of truth, gives himself to the Church, in his Eucharistic self-offering, and so there is a sense in which I possess that fullness, since Christ has given himself to me. At the same time, however, I am unable to appropriate all that Christ is, in all his fullness, by virtue of my own limitations—I get so many things wrong throughout my life. And this is the case with every member of Christ’s Mystical Body. 

So, has Christ not given all of himself to the Baptist, the Lutheran, the Episcopalian, and Presbyterian, etc., as well, all of whom have entered into the tomb of Christ and risen with him, through their baptism? Of course he has, for every time I pick up something written by George MacDonald, for example, I am made so much better. And the same is the case when I get to learn from Robert Farrar Capon, G. Studdert Kennedy, Jurgen Moltmann, Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse and Ann Belford Ulanov, Christoph F. Blumhardt, Thomas Allin, Sergei Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, James Cone, Gerhard O. Forde, Samuel Terrien, Phyllis Trible, and so many more who are not Roman Catholic. We’d all be so much less without them.