Californa Jesuit novices explore the length and breadth of interreligious dialogue

How far can Catholics go in “interreligious learning”? Jesuit Father Francis X. Clooney hinted at the answer to this question in a Jan. 15 posting on the internet site of America magazine, a Jesuit national weekly.

Fr. Clooney....gave a three-day seminar “on interreligious dialogue and related issues to the first year novices of the California and Oregon Provinces.”


The seminar featured, in part, the viewing of documentaries. One of the films presented was Swamiji, about the life of a French Benedictine, Henri Le Saux, who, said Clooney, “went to India in the late 1940s to help start a Catholic ashram -- a kind of monastic enclave.” However, Le Saux, said Clooney, found over a 30-year period “that he was learning and receiving far more than he could give in return...”

For Clooney, Le Saux “is an example not many can follow, but certainly makes us think about how far we can go in interreligious learning....”

Swami? God help us.