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On Sept. 1, 1983, The Evangelist launched the "Our Neighbor's Faith" column, with the goal of acquainting its primarily Catholic readers about the faith of those with whom they worked, went to school, lived, and intermarried.

This is the 200th such column and I am pleased, as the diocesan director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs, to pen it.

The first column was written by the late, great interfaith leader Rabbi Martin Silverman. The column's name was borrowed from a late, great ecumenical pioneer of our area, Dr. Carlyle Adams, who wrote a column of the same name for the Times Union.

I wish to express gratitude to the editors of The Evangelist who have published the 200 columns these many years - Jim Breig and now Chris Ringwald - also to the Ecumenical and Interreligious Commission members who worked with me on securing columnists (Pat Crewell and Frank Pell, among others).

The 200 columns have given us a glimpse of almost all of the ecumenical and interfaith traditions represented within the Diocese of Albany. Among the authors were a number of bishops: Episcopal Bishops Wilbur Hogg, David Ball, Daniel Herzog and William Love; Methodist Bishops James Mathews, William Grove, Susan Morrison and Susan Hassinger and, just last month, new Bishop Marcus Matthews; and Lutheran bishops Lee Miller and Marie Jerge.

In addition to Rabbi Martin Silverman, Rabbis Hayiim Kieval, Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Bert Bloom, Jon Konheim, Moshe Bomzer, Dan Ornstein, Daniel Fried, Scott Shpeen wrote columns.

Phyllis Silverman and Dr. Peter Zaas shared their interfaith insights, as have Imams Mokhtar Maghraoui, Djafer Sebkhroui and Drs. Khalid Bhatti and Genghis Khan.

There have been Hindu, Sikh, Baha'i and Buddhist writers as well. Great ecumenical leaders like Capital Area Council of Churches directors Rev. Dr. Bob Lamar, the late Dr. Joyce Giles and Rev. John U. Miller and all of my "ecumenical officer counterparts" contributed columns.

Catholic writers, too, shared their ecumenical and interfaith experiences: Joan Holman, Joan Lipscomb, Joe Powers, Walt Chura, Brother Robert Gilroy, Deacon Neil Hook, Revs. Christopher DeGiovine and Dennis Tamburello, Betsy Rowe Manning, Marge Milanese, Dr. John Dwyer, Hon. Paul Tonko, Audrey Hughes, Kathleen Duff, Bishop Ed Grosz and our own Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, among others.

All of these authors and dozens more have helped to educate the Catholic and other readers of our diocesan newspaper on their neighbor's faith.

Ignorance breeds prejudice; the more we know about one another's religious traditions, the less likely are we to believe surreal opinions by those seeking to gain political or religious "points," or take as truth blog "facts." So many wonderful ecumenical and interfaith events have taken place during the 27 years the column has run: Pope John Paul II's encyclical on Ecumenism, "Ut Unum Sint" ("That All May Be One") and the Lutheran/Methodist/Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

This year, we also celebrate the 25th anniversary of the "From Fear to Friendship" reconciliation event with the Jewish community in our Cathedral.

The year 2008 marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of "Church Unity Octave," the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 18-25) by the Atonement Friars and Sisters.

Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the modern ecumenical movement and the 50th year of our entry into it when Blessed Pope John XXIII created the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity on June 5, 1960.

In an address marking the latter anniversary, Pope Benedict XVI said: "They are 50 years in which a truer knowledge and greater esteem have been acquired with the churches and ecclesial communities, overcoming prejudices cemented by history; there has been growth in the theological dialogue, but also in that of charity; several forms of collaboration have been developed, among which, in addition to the defense of life, the safeguarding of creation and combating of injustice, important and fruitful has been that in the field of the ecumenical translations of the sacred Scripture."

If the "Our Neighbor's Faith" column has made a diocesan contribution to all of that, I am truly grateful.

As we enter into the "Amazing God" three-year evangelization program of our Diocese, let us not lose sight of ecumenism and interfaith relations.

As Christopher Ruddy wrote recently in America magazine, "Facing substantial challenges within and without, the Catholic Church in the United States may be tempted to regard ecumenism as a highly desirable but optional dimension of its nature and mission. Succumbing to that temptation would be dangerous."

Ut unum sint.

(Father Kane has been diocesan director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs since 1982. He is also pastor of St. Patrick's parish in Ravena.)

01/13/11 [[In-content Ad]]

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