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Encountering Other Faiths Educating adults about interfaith dialogue is one of hundreds of ways in which Medical Mission Sisters around the world try to be a healing presence to others today. Sister Maria Hornung, who is in mission at the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia, has spent over 3 years developing and implementing an approach to interfaith education with adults. “One of the major difficulties experienced by interested and committed people in understanding interfaith dialogue is (that of) where to begin and how to begin,” she explains. Sister Maria has written a book, “Encountering Other Faiths,” (Paulist Press) to help address this challenge. A workbook accompanies the text.
The Encountering Other Faiths program enables participants of religious communities to share the faith expressions they live by, assess their encounters with people from other traditions, understand the meaning of dialogue, discover common ground, and explore the many avenues of interreligious collaboration. The program has been successfully piloted in single faith and mixed faith settings, in recovery programs, in grassroots “at home” faith settings, and with college students. In book signings and seminars both within the U.S. and beyond, Sister Maria has introduced adults of Baha’i, Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Protestant faiths to the art of interreligious engagement. In sharing the material she has developed with religious leaders and teachers, she has begun to train facilitators to coordinate the sessions themselves. Sister Maria reflects, “The seminar offers a process that facilitates mutual learning…grounded in a lifetime of appreciating the truth, beauty and goodness of various religious traditions.”
For more information on the process, perspectives in successfully implementing the seminar, and on how to obtain copies of the workbook, please contact Sister Maria at meh@interfaithcenterpa.org. May 1, 2009
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