Not unlike the motivations for dialog with Eastern religions today, the ideals that gave rise to the Parliament of Religions were an expression of a genuine desire for universal brotherhood and better understanding of religious differences. An underlying motive comes to light, however, if we consider this early encounter of East and West as an attempt to offset the pressures of secularization generated by the industrial and urban revolution so dramatically accelerated in the latter half of the 19th Century. The organization of the Parliament of Religions was essentially a Christian response to the apparent triumph of science in the West. Bonney, Barrows, and others believed that in gathering together representatives of the world' s religions they would be demonstrating to a modernizing society the intellectual correctness, moral necessity, and universality of religion. All religion would be united against all irreligion. The Parliament was to be a “decisive demonstration of the impregnable foundations of theism.” This overriding consideration was practically responsible for hindering a deeper dialog addressed to the intrinsic merits of Asian spirituality.

As a practical matter, and in order to promote harmony and unity among the many delegates representing divergent points of view, the potential for conflict or theological one-upmanship was carefully limited by the format of the proceedings. Two weeks of rancor and theological polemics could hardly achieve the previously mentioned objective. Delegates were, therefore, instructed to present papers to the assembly, but not to engage in controversy or attack one another's faith. This was not always the case, however. The actual events that transpired in the Art Institute during those seventeen days are a seminal and fascinating chapter in the spiritual encounter of East and West, but beyond the scope of these comments. When the Parliament had ended, it was enthusiastically determined a success.

The immediate impact of the Parliament was pronounced. Hindu and Buddhist representatives were visible to the American public for the first time in a substantive number. Thousands attended the daily proceedings. The Chicago papers gave the deliberations extensive coverage. The delegates’ presentations were discussed on college campuses and at Chautauqua assemblies. Religious and popular journals of the day abounded with articles on the Conference. The study of comparative religions, then in its inception in America, was given an impetus by the Parliament. Shortly after its completion, Rev. Barrows published monumental two-volume collection of the papers presented at the Parliament.

Some of the Asian representatives would return in later years. Others, like Swami Vivekananda, an articulate and captivating disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, remained in America for some time and planted the seeds of the Vedanta Society.

America's first contact with Zen Buddhism can also be traced to the Parliament. Through the influence of his Roshi and teacher, Shaku Soyel (a delegate to the Parliament), the great Oriental scholar, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, secured a position in the United States in 1897 as a translator for the Open Court Publishing Company in La Salle, Illinois.

If the Parliament of Religions was so momentous, why was it so quickly forgotten? Why was it not until the decade of the 60s that interest in Asian spirituality was reawakened?

The socia1 and cultural temper of America in the late 19th Century was inimical to the spread of religious traditions that were essentially introspective, ostensibly “other worldly,” and given to meditative modes of devotion—not to mention theology that was totally impalpable to conventional Christian thinking. The America of the Gilded Age was a nation preoccupied with science, progress, Darwinian naturalism, unprecedented industrial growth, and the goddess “success. ” Where the impulse for alternative modes of religiosity did exist, it remained within the Christian context e.g. the Social Gospel Movement.

By the 1960s some of the dominant impulses in the American ethos had proven themselves fundamentally bankrupt. This was especially true for many of the young. The turn to the East is, therefore, an expression of both a revitalization movement and, a search for new forms, modes, and symbols of religious experience generated by the insufficiencies of conventional religious expressions.

The Catholic tradition has not escaped this tension! How it will respond to it in a creative manner is still in the process of unfolding. The fact that Catholicism is not bound by Biblical literalism, that it has a rich monastic tradition and a mystical tradition, that it is literally universalistic (and therefore not bound to a particular cultural expression of religiosity), and that its Magisterium has officially sanctioned dialog with the East, are all encouraging signs. The genius of Thomas Merton, and the work of Abhishiktananda, Bede Griffiths, William Johnston, Dom Aelred Graham and others have pointed to the many possibilities. There is much to learn from the East and much equivalent wisdom to be rediscovered in our own tradition. What is important is that we recognize the historic dimensions of this marvelous unfolding. It was at the Parliament of Religions in l893 that one of the Indian delegates, G. Chakravarti prophetically affirmed:

As I travel from place to place, from New York to Cincinnati to Chicago, I have observed an increasing readiness of the people to assimilate spiritual ideas, regardless of the source from which they emanate. This ... I consider a most significant sign of the future, because through this and through the mists of prejudice that still hang on the horizon, will be consummated the great event of the future, the union of East and West.