Interfaith discussion

So, last Thursday we had an interesting Newman Night. (For those who don't know, Newman Clubs are Catholic student groups at universities; at my school, the club isn't actually called the Newman Club, but our weekly dinner and social event is still called Newman Night.)

This past week, we had dinner together as usual (cooked by a few of the members), and for dessert we walked over to Hillel House for a meeting with the Jewish Student Association. Their rabbi spoke a bit about Pope Benedict XVI and what his papacy might mean for Jewish people and for Israel. Our priest couldn't come along, so we improvised our own version of the short talk he had intended to give: an explanation of the Last Supper and what it means to Catholics. Then we all talked for a while about the connections between the Last Supper and Passover, and we answered each other's questions about different beliefs and practices of our faiths that came up during the discussion -- papal infallibility, the details of the Seder, the differences in the governing bodies of our religions, transsubstantiation of the Eucharist, and so on. One person was worried that Christian Passover celebrations are sometimes too Christological; this was an interesting counterpoint to the beginning of our discussion, when another JSA member had explained how appropriate it seemed to him that the Last Supper should have been a Passover Seder, since the focus of the Seder is deliverance.

I don't remember all the details of our discussion, but it was fascinating. I've been waiting for a real dialogue like this for a long time. I used to go to a Passover Seder at the Lutheran Student Center at my undergraduate university, and it was very carefully traditional, but I don't know if there was a single Jewish person at our tables. At the same student center, I participated in a series of intelligent, compassionate discussions comparing Islam and Christianity, but I'm not sure we had any Muslims present. In the semester I spent at Oxford, CathSoc (the Catholic Society) invited members of JSoc and ISoc (the Jewish and Islamic Societies) for an interfaith discussion, but it was during a busy part of the term, and not one member of JSoc or ISoc appeared. And now, finally, last week, I got to be part of a discussion with people who were curious and thoughtful and learned and insightful -- in fact, one of the JSA members knew more about some details of Catholicism than we from the Catholic group did! It was wonderful, and I hope we can arrange more events like this.