Interfaith committee hears about peaceful dialogue

The committee members invited Paul Morris, professor emeritus at Victoria University, to facilitate a workshop, working with Beate Matthies. This workshop, which is organised through the Religious Diversity Centre (RDC), is usually a way to increase awareness of religions and faiths, but was adapted for the participants this time.

The activities ranged from religious literacy tests to case studies and how to react when peaceful dialogues are challenged.

One of the results of interreligious dialogue is learning to listen and to accept that others might know more about a person’s own religion than that person thought, wrote Ms Matthies, an NZCBCIR member.

Professor Morris analysed Pope Leo XIV’s address at an International Meeting for Peace: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue in Rome. Pope Leo used the word “dialogue” several times. The Pope described it in several phrases: a “way of life rather than a tool or technique”; “a journey of the heart that transforms everyone involved, the one who listens and the one who speaks”; and finally that, “authentic dialogue begins not in compromise, but in conviction – in the deep roots of our own beliefs that give us the strength to reach out to others in love”.

It is important to continue this dialogue not just among leaders of faith but engaging everyone, Ms Matthies wrote.

“Reaching out to our neighbours, those who might be strangers for us, engaging in dialogue and being ready to listen and to learn – these are the first steps to peace and harmony in our communities, our country and ultimately in our world,” she said.

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Our Kaupapa is Dialogue (Catholic Diocese of Hamilton)