Dialogue with Islam after September 11, 2001
Sr. Mary Margaret has been in frequent contact with personnel at the headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America, located near her own monastery. She reports that the ISNA published a message in late October expressing its deepest sorrow at the deaths of sixteen people in a Christian church in Pakistan and of a Muslim police official who was on guard duty outside. The message included the following sentences: “It is a matter of great shame and distress that some lawless elements have attempted to violate the sanctity of a place of worship and the rights of minorities in Pakistan…. ISNA calls upon President Pervez Musharraf to inquire into this barbaric incident, which is against the spirit of Islam. ”
Board member Fr. Donald Grabner, OSB, of Conception Abbey in Missouri writes that in his part of the country since September 11 questions of interreligious dialogue have been almost exclusively concerned with Christianity and Islam. Since he was teaching a course on Islam in his abbey’s seminary college this past fall, he was interviewed on this topic and the resulting article appeared on the front page of the local newspaper. His monastery also hosted the annual fall retreat of the Midwest Dharma Group, which practices Vipassana meditation and has its headquarters in Kansas City. Another Midwestern board member, Sr. Barbara McCracken, OSB, attended the open house of the Rime Buddhist Center and Monastery in Kansas City, Missouri, in late October. That center is in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and has been hosting a young monk from the Dalai Lama’s monastery in North India.
Another MID advisor, Fr. Leo Lefebure of Fordham University, has been very busy in interreligious affairs in recent months. On October 3 he gave a lecture at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, on “Sacred Violence and Interreligious Conflict, ” and a similar talk as the annual Reinhold Niebuhr Lecture at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, on October 24. That same month he gave a series of three talks on Islam at a parish in Yonkers, New York, repeated in November at another parish in that same city. He also delivered the keynote address on “The Reality of Violence and the Christian Experience ” at an interfaith conference held at the Wisdom Retreat House in Litchfield, Connecticut, and on November 6 he led a discussion of Thich Nhat Hanh’s essential writings at the Graymoor Spiritual Life Center. In addition, Fr. Lefebure has been busy planning the Summer 2002 issue of Chicago Studies, which will be on the theme of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.
Board member Fr. Donald Grabner, OSB, of Conception Abbey in Missouri writes that in his part of the country since September 11 questions of interreligious dialogue have been almost exclusively concerned with Christianity and Islam. Since he was teaching a course on Islam in his abbey’s seminary college this past fall, he was interviewed on this topic and the resulting article appeared on the front page of the local newspaper. His monastery also hosted the annual fall retreat of the Midwest Dharma Group, which practices Vipassana meditation and has its headquarters in Kansas City. Another Midwestern board member, Sr. Barbara McCracken, OSB, attended the open house of the Rime Buddhist Center and Monastery in Kansas City, Missouri, in late October. That center is in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and has been hosting a young monk from the Dalai Lama’s monastery in North India.
Another MID advisor, Fr. Leo Lefebure of Fordham University, has been very busy in interreligious affairs in recent months. On October 3 he gave a lecture at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, on “Sacred Violence and Interreligious Conflict, ” and a similar talk as the annual Reinhold Niebuhr Lecture at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, on October 24. That same month he gave a series of three talks on Islam at a parish in Yonkers, New York, repeated in November at another parish in that same city. He also delivered the keynote address on “The Reality of Violence and the Christian Experience ” at an interfaith conference held at the Wisdom Retreat House in Litchfield, Connecticut, and on November 6 he led a discussion of Thich Nhat Hanh’s essential writings at the Graymoor Spiritual Life Center. In addition, Fr. Lefebure has been busy planning the Summer 2002 issue of Chicago Studies, which will be on the theme of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.
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Fr. James Wiseman, OSB, is a monk of Saint Anselm’s Abbey in Washington, DC, and teaches theology at the Abbey School and at Catholic University. He served as Chair of the Board and President of MID, has been editor of the MID bulletin since 1998, and again serves as a member of the Board of Directors of MID.