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While I’m a Muslim, I am fond of citing Catholic philosophers and theologians on pluralism.
I quote Father John Courtney Murray, a mid-20th-century Jesuit leader, and his definition of pluralist civilization as a society where people of diverse identities and divergent ideologies live and talk together.
I often talk about Father Ted Hesburgh’s description of the University of Notre Dame, the institution he led for 35 years, as a “lighthouse and a crossroads,” a model for all campuses.
During my radical years in college I was inspired by Dorothy Day, the Catholic journalist and activist, and her understanding that radical hospitality meant treating everyone who came to your door as Christ in disguise — so inspired that I lived in Catholic Worker Houses for several months to experience it myself.
But my favorite Catholic leader to cite on pluralism is Pope Francis, now of blessed memory. Indeed, I think of Francis as the Pope of Pluralism.
The Gospel of Pluralism
The man from whom the pope took his name — St. Francis of Assisi — famously said, “Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.”
The pope followed suit, preaching the gospel of pluralism as much by his actions as by his words.
When he washed the feet of Muslim refugees, Pope Francis was preaching the gospel of pluralism.
When a boy with behavioral issues side-stepped the pontiff’s guards and climbed on stage with the pope in 2018, Francis smiled, shooed away his guards, and let the child play as he spoke. Again, he was preaching pluralism.
When the pope chose to celebrate Mass on Holy Thursday in 2013 at a juvenile detention center rather than in the Vatican basilica where it is normally held, the pope was preaching pluralism.
At seemingly every opportunity — elevating women to positions of administrative power in a famously patriarchal Church, hosting mass for the Vatican’s custodians — the pope widened the circle of welcome and strengthened the bonds between the people inside.
His words about pluralism, when he chose to use them, were as eloquent as his actions.
Asked about gay priests in the curia, he responded, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?”
Consider how much theological wisdom is packed into that sentence. You have both God and goodwill (what many believe are the two main parts of religion — faith and works). You have an affirmation that faith is about seeking, not just adhering to doctrine. You have a simple, factual acknowledgment of sexual difference. And finally, you have — of all people — the pope saying, “Who am I to judge?”
That this is a question rather than a declaration (“I am no one to judge”) further demonstrates his impressive eloquence. It’s as if he is directing the question to himself: Who am I to judge? This, of course, makes the listener wonder: If the pope questions whether he has the authority to judge others, well, then, who am I to judge?
It is a genius use of words in the service of pluralism.
‘Culture of Encounter’
The pope made pluralism a key category of work for the Catholic Church. He called it the “culture of encounter” — “a culture of friendship, a culture in which we find brothers and sisters, in which we can also speak with those who think differently, as well as those who hold other beliefs, who do not have the same faith. They all have something in common with us: They are images of God, they are children of God.”
Here, too, this short statement is manifest brilliance. Difference of all kinds — of thought, of belief — is made sacred through a cosmic commonality — namely, that we are the children of God and thereby the bearers of God’s image.
This is not relativism; it is pluralism. Relativism is weak because it does not comprehend the importance of distinctive identity. In contrast, pluralism is strong because it begins with the conviction that particularity has value. Indeed, it is through embracing the value of our own identity that we learn to recognize the value in the identity of others and thereby seek friendship that we may grow together.
In fact, the pope grounds his embrace of pluralism in his distinctive Catholic belief: “Faith is an encounter with Jesus, and we must do what Jesus does, encounter others …”
In just the last three months, we have lost three giants of faith: Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of my own Ismaili Muslim community; Martin Marty, the great Lutheran pastor, theologian and historian; and now Pope Francis.
Each preached the sacred power of pluralism in word and deed. Each glowed with light. Each emphasized that we all have a candle.
The hour is late, and the night is dark and full of terrors. We must light those candles now.
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