Interreligious Dialogue and Leadership: Building Relationships as Persons

The 20th century saw the displacement of the traditional religions in occident by new anthropocentric pagan doctrines, Fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, being among the most conspicuous examples of them. Since the seventies of the last century, and after the fall of those regimes, a return to the traditional religions occurred. But it was not a return to the tradition through a renew of the religiosity of its spirit, but a return, in many cases, to their fanatic expressions. The challenge of this lecture is to enhance a deep interreligious dialogue in order to build up a different reality in which the dramatic failures of the last century will not repeat in this century and forever.

Bishop Patrick McGrath (Diocese of San Jose) and Rabbi Dana Magat (Temple Emanu-El) will serve as respondents at this event, reflecting on their friendship and the role of friendship within interreligious dialogue and community.

Co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley Interreligious Council, and the Diocese of San Jose

Rabbi Abraham Skorka is rector of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, the rabbi of the Jewish community Benei Tikva, professor of biblical and rabbinic literature at the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano and honorary professor of Hebrew Law at the Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires. With then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis), Rabbi Skorka held a series of inter-religious conversations on topics such as God, fundamentalism, atheists, death, holocaust, homosexuality, and capitalism. These dialogues alternately took place at the seat of the bishop and at the Jewish Community Benei Tikva. They were published in 2010 in a book titled Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra (Between Heaven and Earth).

Please RSVP at www.scu.edu/ic/bannan.

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About the Bannan Institute
Bannan Institutes are yearlong, thematic programs hosted by the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education at Santa Clara University. Each institute features a series of lectures, retreats, and events that address matters of significance within the Jesuit, Catholic Intellectual tradition and seek to foster an ethic of dialogue among persons of diverse philosophical and religious commitments.

Shaped by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the 2014-2015 Bannan Institute will explore the theme of Ignatian Leadership as a vocational practice, or a way of proceeding that seeks to affect personal and communal transformation.

All events are free and open to the public. Please RSVP at www.scu.edu/ic/bannan.

Winter 2015: Leadership and Faith
Discernment, Dialogue, and Freedom

This quarter’s lecture series will explore the role of faith within the practice of Ignatian leadership, engaging the foundational witness of Jesus, the leadership of Pope Francis, and the catalyzing examples of women and men with Ignatian vocations. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, we will also highlight the import and impact of interreligious dialogue and encounter in transforming and healing our world.