Hindu Catholic Dialogue Commemorative Brochure 20150523

Author(s): United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Publisher: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

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Since the Council, lived experience, study, shared learning, and work together on issues of justice have shown the urgency and fruitfulness of collaboration among Hindus and Catholics in India and globally. Innumerable small connections, so local as hardly to be noticed by media too often focused on bad news, make the relationship real. Leaders, monks, and scholars too have a role, but the firmest grounding of the Hindu-Christian relationship is found in ordinary life, in the cities and towns where we are neighbors to one another.
Hindus and Catholics share a sense of the wholeness of the natural and human worlds, a reverence for life in all forms, a recognition of deep spiritual truths; energized by our faiths, we can work together for the benefit of the world sorely in need of such values. In a world troubled by violence, environmental degradation, materialism, and widening gaps between rich and poor, Hindu-Catholic cooperation is all the more necessary.
In spiritual practice too Hindus and Catholics have much in common, and much to learn from one another. We value quiet, mystical paths of the ascent of God. We celebrate the divine presence in nature. We recognize the special ways in which God makes certain places holy. We build beautiful temples and churches, filled with sacraments and symbols, rites and music, that raise our minds and hearts to God. We can teach one another how better to be reverent, to worship, to find God in all things. It is good then that we meet and share our spiritual lives and journeys, now more than ever.
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Francis X. Clooney, SJ
Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions
Harvard University
HINDU CATHOLIC DIALOGUE