Speaker: Faith must move forward

Twenty years ago, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard wrote a column in The Evangelist about "From Fear to Friendship," an historic Palm Sunday service he'd just attended. Catholics and Jews had gathered at Albany's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception to acknowledge centuries of anti-Semitism and reconcile with one another.

"Profound respect for the sacred worth of each person, which is central to both our traditions, and joint action to create a more just and humane world and society, are, I believe, the key to healing our troubled past," the Bishop wrote.

Sister Mary Boys, SNJM, thinks Catholics today are still struggling to deal with that "shame of recognizing the shadow side of our own tradition" and move forward with their Jewish brothers and sisters.

Sister Mary, an advisor to the U.S. bishops on ecumenical issues and professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, will give the keynote address April 9 at "Looking Back, Marching Forward," a commemoration of the 20th anniversary of "From Fear to Friendship."

The event, to be held at Congregation Ohav Shalom in Albany, will also include remarks by Bishop Hubbard; Rabbis Bernard Bloom and Dan Ornstein; Rev. James Kane, director of the diocesan Commission for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs; and commission member Joan Dunham.

"Twenty years is a long-time commitment," Sister Mary told The Evangelist. "This is an investment over time, not a one-time event" on the part of the Diocese.

Interfaith relations have been growing in the 20 years since the "From Fear to Friendship" service was held, she noted. In fact, many of today's adult Catholics are too young to remember the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s that greatly advanced communication between different faith traditions.

Last fall, Sister Mary presented a paper at a Vatican conference on "Nostra Aetate," the declaration on interreligious dialogue that came out of Vatican II and spurred interfaith efforts by the Church.

She noted that Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu participants all gathered at Gregorian University in Rome for the conference -- something that would have been unheard of 40 years ago.

"There are some very real effects that have happened from the [Second Vatican] Council," she stated.

Regarding the Albany Diocese, Sister Mary applauded Bishop Hubbard's strong connections with leaders in the Jewish community, and his articulate expression of the need for interfaith relations.

She also recalled that the Albany Diocese has been involved "in a steady way" in such efforts since the 1980s, when local Catholics and Jews took a joint pilgrimage to Israel and Rome. The Diocese has also sponsored a Catholic-Jewish dialogue committee and other efforts.

On the other hand, said Sister Mary, obstacles to interfaith relations still exist -- most notably, that some average Catholics don't see such efforts as particularly important.

"It's on the periphery," she explained. "People are aware that religion is a major contributor to conflict and violence around the world, but it seems like 'over there, not in my 'hood.'"

She hopes that Catholic parishes start to sponsor interfaith events more often, as well as panel discussions with members of other religions. Recalling a Muslim scholar from Boston who was just on such a panel with her, she said that connecting people "who want to engage in serious discussion about their own faith" can be beneficial to both parties.

Sister Mary especially hopes to see younger Catholics get involved in interfaith work. As they head off to college, young people have more opportunities to meet peers of other faiths, she said, but she still worries about whether Christian young adults know enough about how their history ties in with the history of their Jewish brothers and sisters.

At "Looking Back, Marching Forward," the speaker plans to discuss such connections: how friendship means understanding and empathizing with the pain of others, and how to "appreciate what the other loves, through the lens of Passover and the paschal mystery."

For Christians and Jews, learning about one another is "a tremendously enriching aspect to their own faith," she said. In the Albany Diocese, "when people do it over a long period of time and create resources and so forth, it's a commitment by the Catholic Church."

(Read a previous story on Sister Mary Boys' analysis of the movie "The Passion of the Christ" by searching for her name at www.evangelist.org.

"Looking Back, Marching Forward" will be held April 9, 2:30 p.m., at Congregation Ohav Shalom in Albany. The event will conclude with a pilgrimage to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception to walk through "Portal," a sculpture erected in 1989 to commemorate the historic "From Fear to Friendship" service. For more information, call 489-4706.)

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