A Human Journey of Discovery: The Catholic Church and Interreligious Dialogue

It does not take us very long in our human journey to discover something very simple: most people aren’t like us. And, of course, that realization also occurs when it comes to our basic beliefs and convictions about what is important, what is valuable.

We don’t have a lot of consensus about that. So, often what we do is cover over the areas of difference and never really investigate them. The same is true when it comes to religion.

We can be presented with people who have a completely different sense of God, life, the world, religion.

And, often, because we feel overwhelmed by it, we don’t want to go into it in any great detail.

It has become a major pre-occupation for the Catholic Church, to work out how we are different, how we carry on with our differences with other human beings.

So we have a whole enterprise called interreligious dialogue, interreligious relations. It is a big thing for the Catholic Church in Asia, and in many other parts of the world. But most especially in Asia because Asia is the home of all the great religions.

We are going to talk to Archbishop Felix Machado who is head of the committee responsible for fostering, intelligent, effective and significant engagement between religions for the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences.

In this interview Michael Kelly, SJ talks to Archbishop Dr Felix Machado of Vasai, Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. Archbishop Felix has served as Chairperson of the Office of Interreligious Dialogue and the Desk for Ecumenism (CBCI), as well as Chairperson of the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC). He is currently a bishop member for the Pontifical Council for Inter Religious Dialogue and previously served as under-secretary of the PCID