2008 Woodie Awards
Catholicism and Islam: A professor's take
Issue date: 10/12/06 Section: Commentary
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Dear Editors,
I hesitate to write to you, since The Cowl is a student newspaper and since I think that professors should generally only be readers of and not writers to it. However, I thought that perhaps this one time I could offer something in the ongoing discussion your writers are producing regarding the relation of Catholicism and Islam.
I have some experiences that are (unfortunately) rare and that I think might help to provoke further thought. In 1993-1994, I volunteered with the De La Salle Christian Brothers in Asmara, Eritrea at one of their post-secondary schools.
While I was there I witnessed a number of amazing things. First, I saw that the Orthodox Christian, Muslim, and Catholic communities each had their own solemn processions through the streets of the city to mark their festivals. I participated in some and watched others.
While watching a Muslim procession, which sadly I still do not know exactly what it was, I greeted one of the men and wished him a happy festival. He invited me to tea right then and there and I spoke, in broken Italian, in a small tea shop with a very educated Muslim man about the need for dialogue between religions. (He said a lot more, but I understood almost nothing then except the point about the need for dialogue.)
Eritrea, by the way, is mostly Muslim. Catholics number in a very small minority. However, as part of my stay, and this is the second amazing point, I visited a number of Catholic clinics and schools run by the brothers and the Daughters of Charity in different locations throughout the country. These brothers and sisters were trying to serve Muslims and Catholics and Orthodox for the simple reason that they believed what was most important was the call to serve each other for the love of Jesus.
When you have seen the starving being fed and the afflicted being comforted, as I have, in their presence, you realize something important. These brothers and sisters knew that there were risks in Eritrea. They talked about them, but they would never have wanted their deaths to be used as evidence against another religion, against a whole group of people. They lived, and they told me so, with the knowledge that what they tried to do was simply to serve. These Catholic people, who became and still are my role models, simply said that they were not trying to make converts-and they weren't.
I hesitate to write to you, since The Cowl is a student newspaper and since I think that professors should generally only be readers of and not writers to it. However, I thought that perhaps this one time I could offer something in the ongoing discussion your writers are producing regarding the relation of Catholicism and Islam.
I have some experiences that are (unfortunately) rare and that I think might help to provoke further thought. In 1993-1994, I volunteered with the De La Salle Christian Brothers in Asmara, Eritrea at one of their post-secondary schools.
While I was there I witnessed a number of amazing things. First, I saw that the Orthodox Christian, Muslim, and Catholic communities each had their own solemn processions through the streets of the city to mark their festivals. I participated in some and watched others.
While watching a Muslim procession, which sadly I still do not know exactly what it was, I greeted one of the men and wished him a happy festival. He invited me to tea right then and there and I spoke, in broken Italian, in a small tea shop with a very educated Muslim man about the need for dialogue between religions. (He said a lot more, but I understood almost nothing then except the point about the need for dialogue.)
Eritrea, by the way, is mostly Muslim. Catholics number in a very small minority. However, as part of my stay, and this is the second amazing point, I visited a number of Catholic clinics and schools run by the brothers and the Daughters of Charity in different locations throughout the country. These brothers and sisters were trying to serve Muslims and Catholics and Orthodox for the simple reason that they believed what was most important was the call to serve each other for the love of Jesus.
When you have seen the starving being fed and the afflicted being comforted, as I have, in their presence, you realize something important. These brothers and sisters knew that there were risks in Eritrea. They talked about them, but they would never have wanted their deaths to be used as evidence against another religion, against a whole group of people. They lived, and they told me so, with the knowledge that what they tried to do was simply to serve. These Catholic people, who became and still are my role models, simply said that they were not trying to make converts-and they weren't.