Sch Ladislas Nsengiyumva (CHN) joined the Scholastics and Brothers-in-Formation Assembly in December 20, 2010 – January 2, 2011. It was centered on the theme of Interreligious Dialogue. Bro Ladi wrote, “We started from sharing in groups about our personal experiences with Islam in our own countries followed by a three day live-in experience with Muslim youths in Pesantrens (Schools teaching Islamic Studies). This combination of sharing and experience led me to realize how little and often distorted was my knowledge about Islam. I personally knew that there were two categories of Muslims – moderate and radical Muslims – but I had never had the opportunity to sit together with any of these two groups. This time, I had the chance not only to share meals with the moderate Muslims, but also to pray together in their Mosque. It was for me an eye opening and heartwarming experience.”
I would like to share my experiences during the 12th SBC meeting that just ended last week on January 1, 2011. J.J. from Hong Kong and John and I from Ateneo represented our Chinese Province at the meeting. The overall experience was very enriching. Not only did we had very inspiring lectures related to the 12th SBC theme about Interreligious Dialogue, but also very rich and enjoyable tours of the city itself, which included two famous UNESCO World Heritage sites: The Buddhist Borobudur Temple and the Hindu Prambanan Temple. Through these tours, I was able to experience firsthand the richness and exotic character of the Indonesian culture.
One of the graces I received was the companionship of the many Jesuits from so many diverse cultures. This experience was a reminder that I am part of the Universal Society. It was a call to openness to the diversity of cultures and opinions which is itself the fundamental principle for dialogue. And here, I remember one of the participants sharing with me about the difficulty for dialogue among Jesuits in communities and the consequent challenge of opening dialogue with other religions especially Islam. It is indeed a challenge, and I believe that that is the reason why our conference thought about organizing this 12th SBC meeting – to build our companionship and dialogue despite our differences, and spread this spirit of dialogue to other religions.
The program was very well organized. We started from sharing in groups about our personal experiences with Islam in our own countries followed by a three day live-in experience with Muslim youths in Pesantrens (Schools teaching Islamic Studies). This combination of sharing and experience led me to realize how little and often distorted was my knowledge about Islam. I personally knew that there were two categories of Muslims – moderate and radical Muslims – but I had never had the opportunity to sit together with any of these two groups. This time, I had the chance not only to share meals with the moderate Muslims, but also to pray together in their Mosque. It was for me an eye opening and heartwarming experience.
After the live-in experiment, we had lectures well-fashioned to lead us to a deeper reflection on the dialogue with Islam. As I went through different lectures where we received very rich insights about the role that Islam plays in Indonesian culture and politics, I never ceased to think about our Muslim brothers in China. I realized that with the emphasis on the conflicts between the Catholic Church and the Chinese government, it is easy to forget about the need to engage in the dialogue with other religions, especially with Muslims, because they also are minorities in China. And just as it was brought out concerning the Indonesian context, that, given it is easy to engage in a dialogue with the moderate Muslims, there is a tendency to avoid contact with the extremists, although the fear can be understood, because it is based on the latter’s rejection of anyone who does not share their faith, I also realized that there is, therefore, the need for an ever renewed effort to be open to all possibilities of dialogue and to be more creative in order to appeal to those groups that seem to isolate themselves. We realized that this target can unfortunately be reached only after a lot of efforts and sacrifices, because there is even the danger of losing one’s life.
Another aspect that I think is very important – as also supported by the German born Jesuit Fr. Magnis who recently won an Indonesian Government award for his efforts in engaging the extremist Muslims in dialogue – is the need for a Political Mediation Approach to interreligious dialogue because the tensions are sometimes deep-rooted in the political realm. There is a need to plead to the political leaders of Muslim nations for the freedom of worship and religious tolerance. To highlight this approach, he pointed out the example of some Middle East countries where the Filipino overseas workers cannot find churches for worship and the involvement of Vatican in a dialogue with the political leaders in these countries in order to pave the way for a possible permission to build churches. I believe that using this approach, we will be able to find solutions to the religious hatred that is most often sown by way of using political ideology. Simply engaging in dialogue from the level of religion cannot always bring forth major results, because the issues tackled are not always the ones that are at the origin of the conflicts.
With this task seeming difficult, how are we Jesuit Scholastics going to bring to fruition the results of this SBC? The various group activities and reflections that were done at the end of every lecture were very helpful in learning how to talk about religious dialogue or to help different categories of people understand the need for interreligious dialogue. We had, for example, a group work that focused on creating a story that could be used to teach the kindergarten kids about the value of interreligious dialogue. Another exercise was an analysis of a particular problem concerned with the conflict between two religious groups and the composing of a press release that should be reconciliatory. Through these two exercises, the challenges and difficulties in conceptualizing the theme of dialogue, taught me how important are patience and prudence in dealing with interreligious dialogue. On the one hand, we have kids who have little understanding of what this kind of dialogue involves or why we should engage in a dialogue at all, and we need to teach them without arousing hatred against the other religions. On the other hand, we may face an angry community of parishioners who fear the hatred engendered by some incendiary messages sent by Muslim extremists. For all these situations, how are we going to build the foundation for understanding and tolerance without compromising the already fragile coexistence? These were the questions that we tried to answer in our various activities and I found them very enriching and challenging, just as dialogue itself is. In fact, although our live-in experience was quite demanding in terms of patience and humility, it was here that our biases and prejudices collapsed to give place to a richer understanding of Islam and a deeper appreciation of our own faith.
Finally, another interesting event that brought a lot of joy in my SBC experience was the fact that I was elected as one of the six members of the SBC Core Committee. In this election, I was amazed at how much trust my brother Jesuits decided to put in me and saw in it a call to make myself even more available not only to serve our province but also our conference – it was for me a deeper experience of the universality of the Society and the love and companionship of my Lord who is always sending me and accompanying me to the frontiers.