259 CHURCH in DIALOGUE Towards a Synthesis

SYMPOSIUM ON DIALOGUE CHURCH IN DIALOGUE Towards a Synthesis: Mission and Dialogue for Salvation1 CHIESA IN DIALOGO Verso una sintesi: missione e dialogo per la salvezza Vincent Gabriel Furtado2 Introduction A significant feature of the contemporary world repletes with vi- olence, terror, hatred and intolerance is the phenomenon of ‘dialogue’3, which is a unique dimension of human communication4. Dialogue, as the term itself signifies, generally implies two issues, two perspectives, two viewpoints or two worldviews in polarity. The Catholic Church since Vatican II has effected a Copernican Revolution in its mode of engagement with the world. The long tradition of monologue with the self-understanding that it has the obligation only to teach and proclaim has been transformed after the Vatican Council II into an attitude of listening, a desire to focus its attention on the other, and most importantly a good will and openness to ‘learn’. With this perspective the Church is in the best of disposition to be a dialogue partner, and the primary engagement of the Church being the sphere of religious and spiritual, it can creatively plunge into this activity and display its leadership in inter-religious dialogue. The declaration that “dialogue is a new way of 1 Lecture presented during the Symposium on Dialogue at Prabodhana, on the occasion of the Pilgrimage of the Reliquiae of Blessed Elisabetta Sanna in India. 2 Franciscan Institute of Philosophy, Kripalaya, Bogati, Mysore. 3 John Amankwah, The Church and the Voice of the Other: The Growth of the Faith Community and Dialogue in the Church, Duquesne University: 2005; https://dsc.duq.edu/etd. 4 Myryl Runion, How to Use Power Phrases, New York: 2004, 3ff. N. 50/2020 – pp. 259-276 | 259 VINCENT GABRIEL FURTADO being Church5” can be disseminated without any hesitation or prick of conscience. 1. Towards a synthesis A synthesis6 of anything can be just an intellectual, external and static undertaking, but we aim at a synthesis of mission and dialogue that is going to be practical, internal and dynamic, namely a synthesis that highlights the concrete life day in and day out, that touches inter- nally the way of being of believers and also one that can integrate new elements and perspectives. Such a synthesis must take into account the wider horizon of the Church, as its founder clearly mandated the Church to “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation” (Mk 16: 15.), and “to be the witnesses in all Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). It means the synthesis should give expression not only to the engagement of the Church within but also without implying a global and even a cosmic vision of its concerns. 2. Mission of the Church Means Focussing on the ‘Other’ The Catholic Church divested of its past monologic and hege- monic trends of praxis, should definitely focus its attention on the “other”7 in its missionary engagement. For a missionary the ‘other’ is a person primarily of another faith-tradition, member of another religious community. He should focus on the presence of God in the other and encounter the mystery of the other. It means a focus not only on the historico-existential context of the other enveloping his hopes and aspi- rations, struggles and strivings, joys and sufferings, but also on his worldview of belief structures and commitments. Basically the missionary meets the other as a seeker after the Divine by listening to his stories 5 Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, (1975), 63: The Following Vatican II documents highlight interreligious dialogue: Dignitatis Humanae: 1, 3, 7, 12; Nostra Aetate: 1 and 2; Ad Gentes: 11, Lumen Gentium: 16; Gaudium et Spes: 92. 6 D.S. Amalorpavadass, Integration and Interiorization, Mysore: 1990, 3 ff. 7 Vincent Gabriel Furtado, “Dialogogical Character of Missionary Church” in Ueber die Notwendichkeit eines radikaleren Perspectivenwechsel, Fuer ein Leben in Fuelle. Herder: Freiburg 2008, 26 – 32. 260 | RIVISTA APOSTOLATO UNIVERSALE CHURCH IN DIALOGUE of God-experience and accepts him/her as a co-pilgrim on the journey of salvation. He realises that his mission of evangelizing is fundamen- tally conveying the experience of God and not just proclaiming loudly in many words or engaging in many activities or even establishing many institutions. Mission here means becoming more and more prophetic and less and less institutional. Focussing on the other is taking inspiration from the praxis of Je- sus especially his table fellowship with publicans and sinners. It should also mean becoming a neighbour to the other. Jesus taught the lawyer who raised the question of “who is my neighbour?” to ‘become a neighbour’; it is just insufficient to know the neighbour, but more important is to become a neighbour. If we ask the question, how to become a neighbour, we will end up establishing neighbourhood communities which would definitely be multireligious, multicultural and multilin- gual – all living in peace, harmony and mutual respect. 3. The question of dialogue Having clarified the question of mission we go to the topic of dialogue, and dialogue is a universal phenomenon in the cotemporary world, but we take only one aspect of it, namely, the inter-religious dialogue. The first question asked by people regarding dialogue in the Church is: “why dialogue and what is its purpose?” The immediate and intrinsic purpose of all dialogue is to understand the other and to be understood by the other, and it could presuppose a definite methodology and a correct procedure. We would like to propose the method implying ‘analogous hermeneutics’8, which if followed, can result in a mutual meeting point of understanding each other. For any dialogue there should be two interlocutors, in our case of two different worldviews. The first interlocutor must have an explicit self-understanding of himself in terms of his worldview to which he is committed; he must also have a fairly good knowledge of the worldview of his dialogue partner so that he can initially interpret it from his own standpoint. This is also true of second interlocutor: a self-understanding of himself in terms of his worldview, and also the capacity to interpret the other partner’s 8 Ram Adhar Mall, Intercultural Philosophy, New York: 2000, 15 -17. N. 50/2020 – pp. 259-276 | 261 VINCENT GABRIEL FURTADO worldview from his own standpoint. When both come together in mutual trust and desire to deepen their knowledge of both the worldviews, they invariably converge at a common point with certain enlightenment of both the worldviews. Even if there is disagreement among them, it would be on better data and on more explicit grounds. 4. The question of religious plurality The very topic of inter-religious dialogue presupposes that we as- sume the fact of more than one religious tradition. Though it is an evi- dent empirical fact that there are several religions, there exist very few scientific theories to delineate the fact9. However, in the minds of believers there are innumerable queries regarding the plurality of religions: Why there are so many religions? Where is their source? Where they have emerged in the history of humankind? Has the science of religions an answer so that we can have an adequate explanation for the existence of variety of religions on this earth? Among the so many religions which really is true? Are all of them true? Are there false religions? Secondly, why does every religious tradition claims autonomy? Why it distinguishes itself from other religious traditions and affirms its uniqueness and its own identity? Though an adequate answer is not pro- vided to believers when they raise these questions, the missionary should be able to answer these questions in a satisfactory manner if he wants to participate in inter-religious dialogue in an effective manner. Without denying the fact that there could be a variety of answers to the above questions from different perspectives, we for our purpose state that from our theological perspective the source of a religion is to be traced in the possibility of human-divine encounter. Is religion intrinsic to human nature or something external, acquired by some through extraneous factors? As an answer to this question we would like to delve into the very conception of ‘human nature’. Human 9 Cf. Raymond Panikkar, “Philosophical Pluralism and the Plurality of Religions” in Religious Pluralism and Truth, edited by Thomas Dean, Delhi :1997, 33-43; Harold Coward, “Religious Pluralism and the Future of Religions”, Ibid., 45 – 63; Jacques Dupuis, Religious Pluralism. Anand, Gujarat: 2001, 386 – 390; Michael Amaladoss, Beyond Dialogue. Bangalore: 2008, 234 – 238. 262 | RIVISTA APOSTOLATO UNIVERSALE CHURCH IN DIALOGUE consciousness is a complex phenomenon, for, on the one hand, human beings have a sense of scientific or noetic consciousness, ethical consciousness, aesthetic consciousness and religious consciousness; and on the other, they know that they can develop every dimension of consciousness and make it sharp, acute and sensitive. All the empirical sci- ences have developed enormously, making scientific consciousness most prominent of all. Similarly, the understanding of aesthetic, moral and religious consciousness had perceivable growth in the history of humankind. For us what is important here is the sense of religious consciousness, which means that human beings have a pre-reflective awareness of the Numinous and the Holy and also a capacity to develop it and make it more intensive and explicit. All the religious seekers and sages in the history of humankind have sought to experience the Divine by enhancing the capacities imbedded in their religious consciousness. As the seeker opens himself to the Divine, s/he makes her/himself ame- nable to the self-manifestation of the Divine.

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