Religious Pluralism Subject of Kennedy Lecture at Catholic Educational Institute

May 19, 2004

Source: Western People

http://www.westernpeople.ie/news/story.asp?j=19664

On May 19, 2004 Western People reported, "The inaugural annual Kennedy Lecture was given by Dr. Dermot Lane recently to an audience of over eighty people at The Newman Institute of Education in Ballina...In his lecture entitled Christian Faith in the Context of a Multi-Cultural World, Dr. Lane addressed one of the great challenges for the Christian Church in the 21st century...Having reviewed several recent theories of inter-faith dialogue that have developed over the last forty years, Dr. Lane spoke movingly of the new awareness dawning on people today that religious pluralism is 'more than just the outcome of human blindness to the message of Christianity, more than the result of the failure of the Church to evangelise the nations.' Instead it is increasingly suggested that religious pluralism is part of God’s plan of salvation for all and, therefore, it should be seen as part of God’s providence. Dr. Lane insisted that dialogue is not about pretending to be neutral, not about a 'lowest common denominator' but rather about an attempt to understand another faith and then to allow that understanding to enrich our own faith...Dr. Lane gave particular encouragement to the Newman Institute and its commitment to theological education when he made the point that 'the deeper one’s grasp is of one’s own tradition, the more fruitful the encounter with the other will be.'"